Camden People’s Theatre’s SPRINT Festival returns with a packed programme throughout March. London’s “best-established carnival of new and unusual theatre” features artists with bold ideas, artists who don’t play by the rules, and artists, in many instances, making their first professional work.
This is the tenth of a series of interviews highlighting artists and work within the Festival, as I chat with Jonny Brace about the return of his show, That’s Ace.
“Ace, a lifelong Doctor Who fan, has always led a rather sheltered life but tonight, everything changes. Her school crush, Sasha, has invited her out to a nightclub.
Sadly, Ace has never been clubbing before, so she arrives 15 minutes before the club opens. On time is late, after all. As the club slowly fills with people, Ace has to wait in this hostile new environment for Sasha to arrive. All the while she tries to determine whether her feelings for Sasha are romantic or platonic and discovers how prominent the focus on sex in society really is.
Is it love? Is it friendship ? What’s the difference? That’s Ace explores asexuality, attraction and the feeling of living outside of societal norms.”
Where: Camden People’s Theatre, Basement
When: 20 Mar, 9pm & 21 Mar, 3pm
Ticket link: https://cptheatre.co.uk/whatson/Thats-Ace-WIP
Your show, That’s Ace, is back! I reviewed an earlier version at The Vaults in 2023 – what’s changed and evolved since then?
We are very excited for the show to come back. I think both Tiff (the actress who plays ‘Ace’) and I have missed this character and this piece.
Obviously, we’ve both evolved as creatives in that time so it has been very interesting coming back to the show with 3 years of extra life experience.
What made you bring That’s Ace back to SPRINT as a work in progress?
The original piece of That’s Ace had a running time of around 44 minutes. I was always a big believer that if the right length of a story was 45 minutes, why stretch it to an hour just because we’ve been given an hour slot (it also made us a favourite of our FOH team at Vault as it really helped with the quick changeover).
I’ve always enjoyed Camden People’s Theatre as a space so I was very excited to be part of their SPRINT Festival.
And the chance to explore the show as a WIP has allowed us to expand certain areas of the show (including a new ending) and explore some parts of Ace as a character we thought could maybe do with a little further exploration.
We’re very excited to see how audiences react to this newest version of the piece.
Do you think attitudes towards asexuality have changed over the past few years? For better or worse?
I think there has started to be more representation in media and so possibly it’s a slightly more well-known thing now.
Sadly, I think it has become an increasingly difficult time for parts of the LGBT+ community in the last few years, especially for the Trans community. And when one part of the community suffers, the whole community suffers.
But I think when you ignore certain corners of the Internet who’s job is to professionally stir up division as it gets them clicks and analytics, there is a lot of positivity and love out there.
What message would you like audiences to take away from That’s Ace?
I think I always wanted audiences to leave the show feeling better than when they walked in.
It’s a very positive uplifting show that I think also does a lot to educate and normalise asexuality, without it feeling like a think-piece or educational show.
And what’s next after SPRINT?
We’ve got a very exciting year ahead with the show that I can’t say too much about yet but for anyone interested in the future of the show, please keep an eye out on our social media to see what we have in store!