Director Sally Cookson: 'One critic said I hopped around the stage like a pantomime bunny rabbit'
This Bristol-based director has become renowned for magically reimagining novels. Now, she’s interested in emerging artists and working with the deaf community. Sally Cookson tells Fergus Morgan about moments that have made up her career
Sally Cookson is about to spend some time in Scotland. The acclaimed director is based in Bristol but is staging two shows north of the border during the next three months. Her production of Brook Tate’s Birthmarked is at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August, before Dracula: Mina’s Reckoning – an all-female and non-binary adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel created with Morna Pearson – opens in Aberdeen, then tours with the National Theatre of Scotland through September and October.
“I haven’t done anything at the Edinburgh Fringe for 10 years,” Cookson says. “I do try to go to the festival regularly, though. I’m lucky enough to have family in Edinburgh, so it doesn’t cost me a fortune. I love it. I love the atmosphere. It is still so exciting, despite the fact that it is so expensive.”
Scotland is a long way from Cookson’s stomping ground. Born in London in 1960, she trained at LAMDA, then spent 10 years working as an actor before she discovered directing. “I started to get disillusioned with the business when I turned 30,” she remembers. “I became more and more frustrated that I didn’t have agency over my career. I was just waiting for someone to give me a job.”
Cookson landed an acting job at Bristol Old Vic in the early 1990s, and became involved with its education department, setting up a summer school for young people that is still going strong today. One thing led to another, and Cookson eventually swapped acting for directing entirely. “I discovered I was good at directing,” she says. “I found it profoundly meaningful. I’ve lived in Bristol ever since. It has been a wonderful city to work in.”
Cookson’s directing career has kept her shuttling back and forth along the M4, staging several successful shows – often thrillingly theatrical literary adaptations – in Bristol that have subsequently transferred to London theatres. Her Bristol Old Vic productions of Treasure Island, Peter Pan and Jane Eyre all ran at London’s National Theatre, and her staging of A Monster Calls ran at the Old Vic. Another adaptation – The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – hopped from Leeds to London, too.
“I’m a freelance director and I go where the work is,” Cookson says when asked whether she ever intended to become known for directing literary adaptations. “It can be terrifying, taking a mighty novel that is well-written and well-loved and excavating it. It takes a bit of courage.”
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What production made you fall in love with theatre?
It was a pantomime: Cinderella at the Thorndike Theatre in Leatherhead, which I saw when I was about seven. I really believed the magic. I went home and made a wand with my mum. That show made me realise that the theatre is a magical place.
What are you finding inspiring at the moment?
My passion at the moment is learning British Sign Language. It has so much poetry and visual drama. Deaf culture is fascinating, and it is a beautiful, generous community. I would love to work with more deaf actors.
What do you wish you could change about the performing arts industry?
I would bring the arts back into schools. The arts are not appreciated by this government. They are being squeezed out of the curriculum, and that is having a hugely negative impact on the industry.
What story do you really want to tell on stage?
I’ve always wanted to do a Brecht. I’d quite like to do Mother Courage. And I would love to do a text play with deaf actors with a deaf co-director. Maybe a production of The Comedy of Errors. I know two deaf actors who would be brilliant Dromios.
What is the worst thing that has happened to you on stage?
When I was 22, I played Wendla in Spring Awakening at the Young Vic. One critic – I think in the Observer – said: ‘Sally Cookson hops around the stage like a pantomime bunny rabbit and clearly had voice lessons from Bonnie Langford’s voice teacher.’ It was quite difficult going in the next day.
What is the best thing that has happened to you on stage?
Working with Brook Tate on Birthmarked has brought such positivity into my life. Working with an emerging artist with such talent and love is amazing. It rubs off on you. You can get quite cynical if you have worked in this industry for a long time. Brook has brought all the joy back for me.
What projects are you involved in at the moment?
Birthmarked is running at the Assembly Rooms during the Edinburgh Fringe. It is their personal story about growing up in the Jehovah’s Witness community, told through a partly improvised piece of gig theatre. It is unlike anything I have directed before.
Dracula: Mina’s Reckoning opens in Aberdeen in September. Morna and I have collaborated very closely on adapting the novel. We wanted to tell the story in a way that would resonate now, so we have made Mina the protagonist, we have an all-female and non-binary cast, and we have framed it with the stories of women in an Edinburgh psychiatric asylum. It has been a great deal of fun.
Birthmarked is at the Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh, from August 3-27; Dracula: Mina’s Reckoning is at His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen from September 8-9, then touring
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