Access All Areas and The Lowry are pleased to present A Small Enclosed Room With Alfie Murphy by Cian Murphy in advance of a national tour later this year.
A Small Enclosed Room with Alfie Murphy leads audiences through the various worlds of Cian Binchy’s imagination, combining his signature comedic style with an alternative noughties soundtrack.
Alfie, a rockstar turned guru, is one of many made up characters, a shark is another character, all created by Binchy in his surreal world of fantasies, failure and fame.
The production explores the question that if the person we show the world is just a mask, what’s really underneath? An authentic self? Or just stories we tell to protect ourselves?
Anna Constable is performing in the play at The Lowry in Salford on 11-12 Oct. We caught up with her to find out more.
https://thelowry.com/whats-on/a-small-enclosed-room-with-alfie-murphy/
Access All Areas and The Lowry are co-producing this show, the first of three, with the aim to stage thought-provoking and high-quality drama from learning disabled and autistic creatives. How important is it to you that such opportunities and initiatives exist?
I think it is important for people to know they aren’t on their own.
For example, I always got told being autistic that imagination wasn’t something I could have, but making this show we wanted to show that autistic people can have amazing imaginations, even more than most neurotypical people.
I think it’s empowering to have autistic representation on stage because it shows we can achieve our dreams of working in the arts, from creating a piece of theatre to performing on a national stage.
Can you tell me about your creative process as a writer and performer? Do you have any preference between the two roles?
The creative process was fun and challenging as we had so many ideas and we need to strip it back to fit into a 1-hour show.
It was interesting because even though we had to chop and cut things we were able to put in little references and easter eggs throughout the show.
Performing the show is very hectic for me because I’m multi-roleing throughout, but I love that there is a difference and variety between the characters – I go from a robot AI machine to a rockstar and back!
The show focuses heavily on fantasy and how this works for autistic minds. How do you convey this to an audience, and what do you hope they can take away from it?
We use the set and the different characters to show the different faces, lives, and journeys of the fantasy to create on stage.
I hope the audience will relate to the characters and understand what autistic fantasy and masking is and why its important.
I know a lot of learning disabled and autistic audience members will see themselves in the story we are telling.