Jade Anouka: “Shakespeare wasn’t for me”
Jade Anouka has a message for the young people of London: “Shakespeare can be exciting. It can be new. It can be relevant.” As one of the longest standing company members of Phyllida Lloyd’s exhilarating, raw and potentially revolutionary all-female Shakespearean troupe, she knows what she’s talking about. Since 2012, Anouka has been working with the Mamma Mia! director (yes, one and the same) on the Donmar Warehouse’s prison set trilogy of Shakespeare plays. First came a brutal Julius Caesar. It was followed in 2014 by the testosterone-fuelled (women have it too you know) Henry IV. Now comes its swansong, The Tempest. Anouka has worked her way through the ranks under the company’s reigning monarch, the “naughty cousin” of the crew, Olivier Award-winner Harriet Walter. The Tempest was Shakespeare’s “goodbye to the theatre world”. While you can expect to see much more of rising star Anouka in the future, this is the last time London audiences have the chance to witness Lloyd’s momentous project. But with trilogy days’ planned, in which you can see all three plays, and a move to a purpose-built theatre in King’s Cross, more people than ever have the chance to see the Donmar Warehouse’s work away from its intimate home in Covent Garden. We found out why Jade Anouka’s championing the shows’ free ticket scheme, aiming to fill 25% of its seats with people aged 25 and under, and how working with an all-female cast has inspired her to take up a bit more space in the world: Four years, the Donmar Warehouse, Phyllida Lloyd, New York transfers… the trilogy must surely be one of those rare projects that just feels like complete gold dust! Totally. It’s an amazingly rare project. I've grown and learnt so much through the last four years; working with Phyllida, who's amazing, and having Harriet [Walter] as a mentor. Has it been a huge influence on your life? It's been an honour to keep coming back. Doing Hotspur [in Henry IV] was massive. Ariel [in The Tempest] is another very different kind of role. I don't know if people know I'm doing a different part in Julius Caesar this time too. I'm playing Mark Antony, which is incredible. What is it like working with Harriet? She's just one of the most amazing actors to work with, a wonderful company member and obviously one of the best Shakespearean actors alive. She is very much our... not mother figure, she's totally like your naughty cousin! She’s been the anchor for all of us throughout the whole project and she's got three incredible parts for any actor, let alone a female actor, to be able to do. What a great opportunity to see one of our best actors take on three mammoth roles. It’s wonderful. 
The Tempest is the final play in the trilogy. What will it add? I think it really lends itself [to the shows’ prison setting]: the talk of freedom throughout the play is evident and it just really chimes. What is the importance of the trilogy being set in a women’s prison? You have this idea – well I did anyway when I was younger – that Shakespeare was for people who were posh. It definitely wasn't for me as a young, black woman. It was like ‘Okay, who owns Shakespeare? Let's see, who are some of the people who are the most different to people in this [clichéd Shakespeare] world?’ So [we] start with people who are in prison and female. Often they might think they are the furthest away from a Shakespeare play. Actually we've gone, ‘No, look, if we make it relevant, if we read it and we perform it in a way that's accessible and makes sense to us now, then you'll realise that the stories are relevant to you.’ That's exactly what happened [in workshops in prisons]. They realised that some of these characters were going through similar things to what they've been through. And you're singing in Tempest? Yes! Joan Armatrading wrote songs for it. I won't tell you everything but I've written a few additions to one of the songs, which you'll find out when you see it… So you’re helping to bring it up to date? We’re experimenting with it all. We've got to bring these shows up to date to make them relevant, especially with the amazing YOUNG + FREE scheme. We want to get new people to the theatre and once they're there, we want to keep them coming back. It’s our duty to make it a good play, so maybe it's not their last show. Has working with an all-female cast and playing traditionally male roles affected how you view any other aspects of your life as a woman? Yes. I remember it from Julius Caesar: The idea of taking up space was one of the things that came up. We all talk about ‘manspread’ on the tube. That's just one really obvious example of men feeling potentially entitled from years of the patriarchy; they don't need to apologise. We explored being confident and not apologising for taking up that space, not apologising for having an opinion and putting it out into the world without having to backtrack after or apologise. I notice it in my everyday world – obviously this is in general and there are exceptions to the rule – but with speaking, women often use their hands and fingers a lot more. It's almost like we have to over-explain to make sure we are listened to, because we haven't been listened to in history as much as men. 
Tell us about the new space. It's much closer to where we were in St Ann's in New York for Henry IV [where the trilogy will return after its London run]. It’s in the round, audience on four sides and it's kind of like a basketball court, almost like a mini arena. How are you feeling about the trilogy performance days? Maybe ask me after the first day! What a great marathon it will be for the audiences to come at the beginning of the day and see the whole journey in six hours… The adrenaline is going to get us through, for sure.