Sisters' tale is a running story

Sep 8 2009 by David Whetstone, The Journal

The thing about a play is that it happens in a confined space with a cast limited by the size of an artistic budget.

The thing about the Great North Run is that it happens over 13.1 miles between Newcastle and South Shields and it has a cast in excess of 50,000 people (and that’s excluding spectators).

Perhaps it’s not surprising that nobody has previously attempted to write a play about the event.

This year’s Bupa Great North Run cultural programme, which for the past few years has been blazing a trail for the much-vaunted Cultural Olympiad, plugs that gap.

At Live Theatre, where Mike Kenny’s play 13.1 will be staged from September 16-24, the playwright explains how he was undaunted by the scale of what he was being asked to take on.

“Limitations are actually gifts to playwrights,” he says.

“I was more than happy to take it on because constrictions are oddly liberating. They force you to come up with theatrical solutions.”

Mike’s coolness may have something to do with the fact that he has written about 70 plays – some of them award winners – in a long career.

With oodles of experience behind him, he looked at his ration of three actors and jettisoned one of them in favour of live music – courtesy of Jim Kitson who is singing loudly in the actors’ green room.

That left him with a cast of two which was absolutely fine by him.