ROBERT BOULTON

LPT: The play has been described as a cross between Black Mirror- with its technological nihilism- and the comedy of Inside No 9. Are you happy with that summing up?

Boulton: Very happy! The play can be laugh out loud funny at one moment then have some very dark imaginings. It is nothing less than startling to us to have gotten those sorts of comparisons.

LPT: The characters of Marcus and Sarah are central to the plot. Can you tell us something about them?

Boulton: What I love about sci-fi is that nothing is straightforward. What we know about Marcus and Sarah is that they have decided to take justice into their own hands. They aren’t motivated by making money - although that is a nice side perk - just by burning injustice. Marcus is very much the leader and Sarah is a figure who the audience follows to understand the story. In fact, Sarah is the beating heart of the story. Certainly our understanding of what is going on is seen through her eyes.

LPT: How do they know each other?

Boulton: Well their back story involves an internship within a fairly shadowy conglomerate. I don’t want to go into too many details because I’m afraid of giving too much plot away, but this is where Sarah has her first taste of action.

LPT: Robert, this is your writing debut but you also have had a successful career as an actor. Tell us a bit about yourself.

Boulton: Well about three years ago I sat down and began to write SNOWFLAKES and it was sort of an exorcism of themes and characters that had been bubbling away in my head. I started off as a director, I did the directing Masters course at Kent University. I then had about 18 months off to work out what I really wanted to do with my life, and I sort of drifted into acting from there. I slowly worked my way towards some good parts in London fringe theatre, some in Edinburgh and a smattering of independent film roles and developed an understanding of the sort of work I wanted to make. All leading to SNOWFLAKES.

LPT: Robert you are working on SNOWFLAKES as both writer and actor. Do you foresee any problems with this dual role?

Boulton: I don’t think so. Covid, for all its horrors, gave us an extra year and a half to iron out the kinks in our process. The script might change slightly in rehearsal but because we did an R&D in 2019 most of the structural stuff has been changed already. I very much hope there won’t be any problems.

MIKE COTTRELL

LPT: Turning now to Mike Cottrell. Tell us something about yourself.

Cottrell: Well I studied at Southampton University I was lucky enough to get on to the Directing course at the King’s Head Theatre. That gave me a tremendous grounding and when the pandemic hit I decided to apply to the Birkbeck directing Masters course, which I’m currently in the middle of.

LPT: Could you tell us something about how you and Robert connected. 

Robert & I met when we both were bartenders at The Understudy Bar at The National Theatre. A tremendously fertile ground for any aspiring artist! Robert already knew my brother, which was a nice ice breaker and, as we got to know each other, often over one too many post-shift pints, we realised we had very similar visions for the work we wanted to make. I think we’d also worked on enough things to see the pitfalls other people had fallen into when starting a theatre company. It’s exciting to be trying to do things our way. When Robert came along with SNOWFLAKES I simply couldn’t believe my luck.

LPT: The Old Red Lion, which is staging SNOWFLAKES has a tremendous reputation for championing new work. In an ideal world what would you like to happen to SNOWFLAKES?

Boulton: To play something like the 02. No, just joking. It would be lovely if it goes on to have a further life; my dream would be to take it somewhere like the Royal Exchange in Manchester, it’s such a beautiful and intimate space. For now though, after the past year and a half we’ve all been through as a company, having people enjoy it is enough to be getting on with.

LPT: It all sounds really thrilling. I wish you both the best of luck.