Most people follow the rules. Some people break the rules. But the truth is most rules don't even exist.
Earlier this year, on my wedding anniversary, my wife and I went to a nearby outdoor community theatre to watch Romeo and Juliet.
I hadn’t seen the play since I was in it as a student in 2005, and I had only watched a couple of Shakespeare performances since my last appearance in a Shakespeare: Julius Caesar in 2009.
And there in the cast, as if to tie me to memories and twine the production in with my past, was an actor, Chris Laishley, who had also been in that production of Julius Caesar in York in 2009.
It was really meaningful to watch the show: to be transported back to 2009 and to 2005, whilst at the same time holding the new realities of my life.
The production was - to be honest - way better than I felt we had any right to expect from a touring production in the middle of nowhere in the West Midlands. I heard a gruff man behind me saying to his friend at the end, ‘I didn’t expect to cry!’
Despite knowing the story inside out, neither did I.
And amongst the echoes of that production that are still with me as the year comes to an end, is one I wanted to share with you.
You see, there was something special about the programme that this company, Illyria (and specifically my friend Chris, who had been Octavius to my Antony 15 years earlier) sold to us before the show.
Those of you who are regulars at the theatre and shell out for a programme will know something about how the biographies in a theatre programme go. It’s a list of previous roles and performances, a note of where people trained, and sometimes a reference to previous shows at the venue or with the company that people have been in.
As an audience member, all I’ve ever used it for is to work out if or where I’ve seen this actor somewhere before. And whilst that’s fun, I had never paused to think if it is useful.
Instead, in the Illyria programme was a truly nonsensical set of biographies. Here’s my friend Chris’s:
‘Originally from a part of Yorkshire you’d drive past and think ‘Nah, we’re not stopping here,’ Christopher is delighted to be returning to Illyria! He first joined us in 2021 playing a slightly piqued Colin Firth in “Much Ado About Nothing”, before sporting a beard that even Gandalf the Grey wouldn’ve said needed a trim in 2022’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. As two Chrises in the same cast would be incredibly confusing, he’s known as “Laishers” in the company. The moniker comes from his surname “Laishley”, an Old Norse-English fusion that loosely means “Ugly Farm or Meadow”.
He is ecstatic to be playing the role of Second Serving Man in “Romeo & Juliet”, which fits into a CV full of dream roles, including: a tree in “The Wizard of Oz” (Brewhouse Theatre, Taunton); an old sheep in “Alice Through The Looking-Glass” (UK Tour); a guard called Keith in Trevor Nunn’s production of “Richard III” (Rose Theatre, Kingston, 2015). Catch Chris as @Kaldwen on The Gram, and he hopes you enjoy the show.’
As I slowed down this morning, thinking that this would be my last blog post of 2024, and wondering what message I wanted to share in it, I thought of Illyria and their biographies (the rest of the cast mirrored Chris’s).
On the About Me page on my website, it says: most people follow the rules. Some people break the rules. But the truth is most rules don't even exist.
I love that Illyria broke the rules: they refused to play the game of theatre programmes, wasting valuable time competing with each other for who had appeared in the most prestigious venue and who had once had the biggest part on The Bill.
One of my favourite parts of one of my favourite books is Ben Zander’s story about Rule Number 6, which always creates more possibility when we remember it. Rule Number 6 is: don’t take yourself so god damn seriously.
Illyria remembered Rule Number 6. They made me smile, connected me to their company and invested me in the production. They created a moment of connection and possibility where almost every other theatre company I’ve ever watched a production of has just done what every other company does.
That’s what I wish for you, and for me, in 2025.
More remembering of Rule Number 6.
Less following of unnecessary rules (that don’t even really exist).
And more connection and possibility.
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PS You might be interested in my latest long-read article. It’s about Mohamed Al-Fayed, Enron and Omar Little from The Wire. It’s called A Man Got to Have a Code: https://www.robbieswale.com/writing/2024/10/11/a-man-got-to-have-a-code-leading-with-honour-iii
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This is the latest in a series of articles written using the 12-Minute Method: write for twelve minutes, proof read once with tiny edits and then post online.