Honley-born actress Sarah Belcher loves taking on challenging roles – even when it means stripping off in a busy airport. VAL JAVIN reports

IMAGINE trying to stage a theatre piece in the middle of a busy airport.

That’s exactly what Honley-born actress Sarah Belcher was involved in last year. And she loved it.

“I did quite a lot of work up in Scotland last year with Grid Iron who are a site specific theatre company.

“Sometimes it is easier to have an empty space to work in but this was an airport and in use,” said Sarah. “It teaches you to cope with anything.”

Even getting in to costumes?

“Stripping off in the middle of an airport is not what you expect to be doing!”

And Sarah admits: “Doing this kind of work teaches you to cope with anything. There were some interesting moments but it all made for a great show.”

As for passengers heading through a busy airport only to find a full-scale drama going on in their midst – “It all added to the performance for the audience. They were just voyeurs who were travelling!

“It was nice to do something that challenging. It’s like the extreme sports version of theatre. It’s that degree of adrenalin to try and get it right.

“You are dealing with an audience and with a building. You have to be able to improvise on a technical as well as on a performance basis.

The show was called Roam and was a co-production between Grid Iron and the National Theatre of Scotland. Those who saw it at Edinburgh International Airport felt that they had travelled before they set so much as a foot on a plane.

“The line between what was meant to be happening and what was actually happening was quite fine. The show was based on current politics in terms of world travel and the environment.”

And the politics of migration were perhaps made all the more acute by the inclusion in the company of a number of Lebanese actors.

Being different and how we all cope with different cultures is something that continues to test societies around the world.

Sarah’s current challenge is as part of a theatre ensemble which has taken a fresh look at the life of John Merrick, the man whose rare congenital medical condition led to him being known as The Elephant Man.

This new production explores our relationship with how we look and how others look.

“I think most people will associate The Elephant Man with the film starring John Hurt which was a great film,” said Sarah.

“But this piece is more about the people around the Elephant Man and their reaction to him. You see him through other characters.

“Hopefully, what the audience will see is a very gentle human being struggling with a disorder.”

John Merrick was born at a time when those who suffered disabilities became objects of curiosity. Few Victorian fairgrounds were complete without an exhibition of people suffering medical disabilities. This is where people became sideshows to be stared at, even ridiculed.

Sarah is one of an ensemble cast working with director Ellie Jones to explore the story of The Elephant Man at Sheffield’s Lyceum Theatre. The show runs until March 8 before it goes on a three week national tour.

For Sarah, based these days in London, it’s a rare chance to spend more time with family who still live in the Holme valley and Huddersfield areas.

“I’ve been over to Holmfirth and to see my sister, Sharron and my nieces. She still lives in Meltham.

“It’s worked out that its pretty much most of my family’s birthdays during February and March so it’s pretty busy. At the weekends, I hope to be popping over to see people. It’s quite a nice drive over.”

Sarah is delighted to be back in Sheffield where she has played the Crucible before but not the Lyceum.

In The Elephant Man, Sarah is part of an ensemble company who other than Joe Duttine, who plays Merrick, have to tackle several roles.

“I play seven different roles including Nurse Sandwich, Princess Alexandra and one of a trio of Belgian ‘freaks’ called the Pinheads.”

“That has been the most difficult thing, playing this number of characters.” And Sarah admits that there is also a moral dilemma to be addressed when trying to portray the lives of people who were treated differently because of their appearance.

“Some of the expressions used and some of the cruelty that they faced is very difficult, things that you wouldn’t get away with now.”

The real-life Merrick worked as a sideshow attraction before being taken into the care of physician Frederick Treves and becoming something of a celebrity in Victorian society.

“This ‘freak’ becomes the celebrity. It is quite interesting really that Merrick moves from being seen as a monster to someone who moved in the highest circles. There is definitive footage about Merrick and he made quite a good living. He was an intelligent and poetic man.

There is also, as Sarah points out, a parallel with today’s obsession with celebrity where people put their lives on show, even when things are doing dramatically wrong. Living a life in the spotlight is never easy. But at least some people have control over whether they are doing it out of choice, or in pursuit of fame.

Merrick, curiously enough, though often portrayed as a victim, is said to have written to a variety show manager asking if he too could be exhibited. Survival instinct? Perhaps.

The Elephant Man is at the Lyceum in Sheffield until March 8.