Still flushed from the success of her sell out play Forty at the Hackney Empire, London, the comic, actress, broadcaster and playwright Angie Le Mar isn’t resting on her laurels. She explains to Joy Francis why she is hooked on telling our stories - and Tyler Perry.

September/October 2008

Angie Le Mar

Forty has been a great box office success. What kind of feedback have you received?

The feedback has been phenomenal. There is no greater feeling than having something that was in your head, put out there on the stage, which comes back positive. When you write a play you spend a lot of time being the characters, talking to them, understanding them and then you put them on paper and then you try to write from a place of truth. I wrote about what I was raised with and saw around me. I did wonder if people were ready to take some of the stuff I wrote. People think that I just do comedy, but there is a darker side in my pen that can’t come out through comedy so it came through Forty. Unlike The Brothers where we started out in a small space, Forty was about opening up big: we opened to 800 people. I remembered thinking that 800 people will tell 800 people if it is a hit or not. The best promotion is word of mouth. The next day the ticket line just went mad and that’s when I knew it was going to be a success.

There was a lot of anticipation even before it opened.

We worked on a three month marketing campaign. Everywhere we went there was an energy from Forty. We were coming off the back of Sex and the City – The Movie. That is their story; it is always their story. With Forty we said we are going to dress ourselves up in the promotional posters. We have a story too. We can wear heels and we can do all the stuff that you don’t see us doing. Our approach was very deliberate.

For those who didn’t get to catch Forty, what is it about?

Forty is set in Hampstead at one of the character’s [a lawyer] home. It is about one night in the lives of five women who were close friends at school. At first you are enjoying the fact that they haven’t seen each other for ages. It then turns into a rollercoaster of score-settling, and the judgements and expectations that they have of each other. It is really about discovering that we all have our stuff – some of it is good, some of it is bad. But underneath we are sisters and we have to respect that. It is about celebrating the fact that we have moved on and no one is telling our stories.

Why do you think the show has tapped into the pulse of women who are forty-plus if not younger?

I think it is because Forty is their story and it is done with their humour, humour that they know me for. It is done in a way where they can say, thank goodness, that’s me or that’s not me or I know that person. It is normally a Caribbean production or an American production and we have to go with that version of English. Or if it is a contemporary play, it is usually about gun crime and dying like we can’t write about anything else. Don’t get me wrong, there is a place for those stories, but at the same time there must be a balance. You need to be able to go to a show and say that was absolutely about me. Where you can say, it played my music and it talked about my disappointments and expectations. I think that is why Forty was a hit.

Earlier you mentioned that Forty goes to some dark places. Can you give me an example of that darkness?

Domestic violence is one. There is a character who was a black radical at school. It was all ‘Fight the Power’. She had us marching for everything in the group and always championed us. When we fast forward, we find out that she is in a domestic violence relationship where she is getting beaten up by a white man. Her friends can’t work that out. The character I play [Sandra] is the fighter of the group. She can’t get her head around it. She says I’m not letting no white man beat me. It kind of made people go whoa! This is a show about the conversations that we have in private at home. Women in their 20s and 30s booked in groups like they wanted to go home afterwards and have that debate.

What happens now with the play? Are you in discussions for it to do a tour or return to Hackney Empire?

Forty will come back, but not this year as the theatre is fully booked. So we will run it again and then do a UK tour. It will also be in book form. Forty was going to be a film where you see how they go back to their lives afterward the reunion. I’m testing my dramatic side with the play. We had people leave the show and come back. I made sure that people were on standby to find out if they needed some support out there. Some have said it was too much for them. I personally hate domestic violence. What right has anyone got to put their hand on a woman and beat them? This was the only forum I could deal with this issue.

You have written about mothers and daughters and you have written about men and now women. How do you decide what you want to focus on in a play?

It just comes to me. I don’t plan it out. It is what affects me at the time. When I did Do you know where your Daughter is! I was running workshops with young girls. They were telling me stuff that their mothers didn’t know. One girl told me that she was being beaten by a guy. She had sex with him and then his friends came in and had sex with her. But because they were being really nice she didn’t think it was rape. And that just stuck with me. Where would I have gone wrong for my daughter not to know that that was rape? Didn’t her parents give her the tools? That’s all I kept thinking. When I was writing [Do you know...] I wanted to say to mothers and fathers, do you know where you daughter is? She may be going to school but she may be in a domestic violence relationship at 14 or 15. She doesn’t know how to tell you because every time you sit down with her you say if anyone troubles my kid I would kill them. And because of that she is too scared to tell her parents anything because she doesn’t want her dad or mum to go to prison. We have to be very careful about what we say to our children.

What next?

I’m working on a play and a sitcom for next year. I have been in the game for nearly 30 years. I write because I love it and I want to work doing what I love doing. When I’m on stage, I’m at peace. Having the opportunity to work with a team of women [on Forty] who were firing on all cylinders is brilliant. I left the play a better writer just by hearing it out loud. Hearing those actresses say my lines made my head swell. We had a black director and black designer. It was like being at home. I have more confidence to write the sitcom now because of Forty.

You need to contact Tyler Perry with all these stories and ideas.

Tyler Perry is my man. He is one of the people, apart from Oprah and Whoopi Goldberg, who I adore. I’ve been watching him for the past nine years. He said to Hollywood, if you don’t want my stories - I’ll tell them then.

What has your writing journey been like?

What is great is that after doing The Brothers and Do you know where your Daughter is! my writing got better. I was more disciplined with my writing and plotting. It took a long time to get to Forty. It wasn’t originally called Forty. It was called Sisters under the skin. When I hit 40 I thought this play is called Forty. We got a lot of press from the title because we jumped on something they normally jump on – a number. The universe rewarded me with that title. This didn’t happen overnight. If you want to write then you have to love it and it will come good. Whoopi Goldberg said to me, you have to act as if this is it, as if you have peaked. Act like somebody now.

What advice would you give to those renaissance men and women out there who are trying to make their mark creatively?

I would say invest in yourself, just like people who go to college and university invest in themselves. I would sit in a weekend workshop that cost over £300, back in the day, with skilled people who knew how to structure and sub plot. When I told my friends I was doing the workshop they would say, why don’t you just write? You can’t just write. There are certain things you need to know, even if you have natural ability. You need to know what you are naturally doing and to know the rules. I used to get so frustrated when people said there was no plot in my story and sent me away to do it again. I would say, what do you mean? Now I get it. Know your craft so when people correct you, you know where they are coming from, and whether it is from good intent or bad intent. I’ve done writers courses, directing courses, marketing courses, producing courses. I’ve done them all. My tenacity is now backed with knowledge.

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