The Desert Boy interview with Felix Cross
Words: Sophia A Jackson
Published: May 5, 2010

“Somebody said to me when I first started – if you’re offered the job and they are paying £1,000 give them £1,500 worth of work – really, really, really deliver. That was 25 years ago and I still live by that.”

Felix Cross has been artistic director of Nitro since 1996. Before this he was a freelance composer, playwright, lyricist and director and continues to work with several other companies and artists in a freelance capacity. For Nitro he wrote the book for The Wedding Dance, which he also co-directed with Debra Michaels. He directed Mass Carib (composed by Felix in 1987); wrote the music and lyrics for The Evocation of Papa Mas’ in association with Told by an Idiot. He directed the music for High Heeled Parrotfish in association with Talawa and Theatre Royal Stratford East. He wrote the book for Slamdunk, which he also co-directed with Benji Reid; he also wrote the book, music and lyrics for Passports to the Promised Land; and co-wrote the book (with Paulette Randall) of Up Against The Wall. He also wrote the music and lyrics of Tricksters’ Payback; directed ICED, by Ray Shell. He also directed several productions for the annual NITRObeat festival.

Away from Nitro, Felix has written several musicals and composed the music for over seventy stage, TV and radio productions. As a director he has worked for Greenwich Theatre, Wyvern Theatre Swindon and for BBC R4.

So you can see he’s a busy man. Afridiziak Theatre News snatched 30 minutes of his time as he walked though Deptford market en route to the Albany, where Desert Boy, his latest production is taken place.

Can you tell me about Nitro and the kind of work you do and who is the team behind the organisation?
Nitro is a long established company – 31 years old and is the oldest black theatre company in Europe. I’ve been running it for just over 14 years, and it’s a musical theatre company. Every show we do are all productions that use music as an integral part of the story but are a bit more radical like this one (Desert Boy). We work with all musical genres – sometimes poetry, sometimes opera, sometimes hip hop or rap music. We’ve produced all those kinds of productions over the past 10 years. That’s where we are artistically and we’re involved in developing and emerging black artists who are starting out. We also work with poets, composers and spoken word artists who haven’t worked in theatre. We’re a national touring company so are just as well known in Manchester, Bolton and Ipswich as we are in London. Also we are a new writing company so there are many opportunities for collaboration

And we have a singing group called Nitro Box which is a mixture of jazz, soul, and opera singers. A few months ago we did Mass Carib for Haiti at Hackney Empire for the Haiti victims. The Nitro team includes admin staff, a producer, freelance or part-time staff, Michael Bhim is the writer in residence, Allyson Devenish, musical composer. Now we’ve got someone raising our digital presence as the audience we are here for tend not to go to the theatre and that’s a huge problem for us and a problem for a touring company. When we go to a venue it’s their marketing that determines the audience we get. We’ve started to commission work that’s only going to happen online to try and get a different audience. It’s the early stages.

Tell me about your latest production, Desert Boy and how that came about?
I had an idea for an historical story but I didn’t think it was that relevant as an historical story. I was in Australia and came across a story how the first Europeans to settle in Australia were convicts and people guarding the convicts. Australia has an interesting attitude towards race, and in the first fleet of convicts, two of them were black and that’s been airbrushed out of history and I wanted to explore it. I gave the idea to Mojisola Adebayo (writer of Desert Boy) and she ran with it and linked the modern and the earlier story together. It’s about how victims become criminalised like victims of slavery became criminalised when they want to free themselves. Stephen Lawrence was criminalised as soon as the police saw him. It’s about how young kids are labelled as hoodies but are victims of dysfunctional families and become criminalised. Mojisola’s writing is poetry and intense so this has been an interesting and challenging journey turning this into to musical theatre, especially as the singing is all a cappella which has been a huge challenge for the actors.

Is the play just another negative portrayal of young black boys?
It’s taking that negative image and saying this is the truth. The images might be negative but this is the truth behind the stereotypes. Immediately you assume one thing when you see a boy in a hoodie and this turns that assumption on its head.

Desert Boy opened a few days ago, what have the audience reactions been like?
It was a good, healthy response at the end. I tend not to hang around because I have to give notes to the actors. I’m very excited, still some tweaking to do. I’m calling it entertaining in a profound way. Some people see theatre as medicine – it’s good for you and I think there’s a position where it’s got to be engaging otherwise you’re force feeding stuff down people’s throats.

Sadly with the rise of knife crime in London – the play is apt. How do you plan on getting young people engaged in the production?
If I knew that specific answer I’d be paid millions. It’s not just about sticking posters up. You have to talk to groups; to people. We’ve employed people to meet community groups. We do a lot of digital marketing which is important and hoping there are enough ambassadors who will then go and spread the word. I think any theatre that pretends to know the answer is lying – you can’t disenfranchise a whole section of the community and then suddenly expect them to turn up. The Albany has a fantastic history of engaging young people – there’s no point in going to another London theatre. After the Albany we go in tour and how it’s going to work in Watford, Bath, Manchester etc I don’t know as we have less influence over their marketing.

As well as directing Desert Boy you also composed the music. How important is it to the overall production?
It’s just singing as it’s a capella. We used West and North African rhythms and reinterpreted into just vocal. The story takes us from Mali to America to London and in the end Australia, over the eras and the music follows these music styles and is influenced by these eras.

Your career has been interesting and varied – what advice would you give to someone new to the game?
Somebody said to me when I first started – if you’re offered the job and they are paying £1,000 give them £1,500 worth of work – really, really, really deliver. That was 25 years ago and I still live by that. I’m always exhausted but I’ve never been out of work and this business is about reputations. That’s tattooed across my eye lids. And now I am somebody who employs people and if I employ somebody and I feel let down, I’m not likely to employ them again and not likely to recommend them. This is an over crowded business with extremely talented people so there’s lots of competition. Also keep at it. I was in music first and theatre for over 25 years – that is a success in itself so stick at it.