PAUL: Hello and welcome to Regrets,
I've Had A Few.

I'm Paul Hunter,

Artistic Director of Told by an Idiot,
and this is a podcast where I talk

to friends and colleagues delving into
what made them the person they are today.

Hello and welcome
to Regrets, I've Had A Few.

My guest this month is a regular
collaborator with Told by an Idiot over

the past ten years, and she's been a vital
part, I think, of changing and challenging

our visual aesthetic, how our
work looks and how we make it.

She's endlessly curious,

she's always provocative and supportive
and genuinely interested in the process,

which I think is for me,
is really crucial.

She's a great designer and theatre maker

and she has just designed our current
show, Would You Bet Against Us?

Welcome Sophia Clist.

SOPHIA: Thank you.
Hi, Paul.

PAUL: Hello, Sophia.

I should start.

We'll come to Would You Bet Against Us?
A bit later on.

But I want to start with it,

because I know you and I haven't chatted
briefly since we kind of opened at the

Birmingham Repertory Theatre
and had a wonderful run there.

But we are now halfway through our

community tour of the show,
which has been absolutely brilliant.

And, as you know,

you visited all the spaces but these very
particular non theatre spaces

in and around Aston Villa
football Club in Birmingham.

And the audiences and the response
has been absolutely wonderful.

People saying how much they could relate

to the story, both through the football
and through me and the puppet of my dad.

More of that later, puppetry later,
and how funny and moving they find it.

So it's brilliant,

but your set looks fantastic
in all of the places we've been.

And I thank you again for your brilliant
flexibility, because sometimes we've had

all of the wall and then sometimes
we've had a bit of the wall,

sometimes we've had the floor,
sometimes we haven't.

But what is brilliant is it kind of works
in every space we've been. At the weekend,

we were at Aston Villa Academy,
which was just like a kind of room,

really, but it kind
of sits there wonderfully.

So we'll come to that shortly,
but I just wanted to pass that onto you.

But the first thing I want to do Sophia is
take you right back to your early years.

Now, I might be wrong.

Obviously we've talked a lot in the past,

but were your early years in
the Midlands or were they elsewhere?

SOPHIA: Yeah, that's right.
I grew up in Worcestershire.

PAUL: Correct.

SOPHIA: Yeah, in the Midlands.

PAUL: And what I know, obviously,

theatre came as a later thing,
but I just wonder if you can tell us a bit

about your first early
experiences of theatre.

Did you go to the theatre as a family?

What sort of things did
you see or not at all?

SOPHIA: Yeah, I have this recollection of

my mother taking me and my sisters
every year.

We would go to London,
where her twin lived and she would take us

on a sort of cultural outing
which included theatre.

For example, one piece I remember,
and so this would have been

in the 70s, in the very early 70s,
I saw at the Mermaid Theatre on the river,

I saw a production of Gullivers Travels
and there was video projection.

PAUL: Wow.
SOPHIA: I mean, really wow, isn't it?

Yeah, they'd done this
amazing video projection.

I can't remember any detail about it.

I just remembering that and thinking,

that's pretty out there in the 70s,
to have done that.

PAUL: It makes you think, doesn't it?

Sometimes I think we can all feel that as

we make theatre in the time we do that,
we're very much kind of the innovators

of things, but lots of things have kind
of happened before or existed before,

because I remember going to probably
a similar time to you, but probably less

well, not less interesting, but maybe less
cutting edge than the Gullivers Travels.

I remember got to a pantomime

in Birmingham, and I remember a bit where
an actor went out of the door and then

they filmed him running down the stairs
and getting in a taxi and driving away

to the airport and then getting
on a plane and arriving.

And of course it was all filmed,
but I thought, that is brilliant.

And my young mind went, Wow,
how have they done that?

Yes, that's revealing.

But there was no theatre in your family
or performance in your family in any way?

SOPHIA: Not performance, no.

I mean art of different sorts.

PAUL: What was the art of different sorts?

SOPHIA: My grandpa was an architect and my other

great grandfather was a painter,
so it's kind of in there.

But my mother was her family were
kind of into music and playing.

PAUL: In that kind of world.

So what was your kind of early experiences

of art, then, in terms of you
making stuff as a child?

Did you make things or paint
things or create things?

SOPHIA: I remember drawing quite a lot and making

pictures and strange
little things for people.

And I remember making
, down at the end of our garden, there was

a quarry on the other side of it,
so the hill was being eaten up by this

quarry, and there was a tiny quarry,
like the remains of a tiny quarry,

like a little - sounds mad - like a little
cliff, like the height of a house.

And I remember going and making
a crocodile out of bits of rock

with my little sister and giving it
to my father so the sculptor in me was -

PAUL: How old were you then?

SOPHIA: She would have been - I was probably about
ten,

maybe ten or
eleven like picking found shapes from a, it's quite interesting.

PAUL: You think of kids drawing something,

but to actually go and create
that from something physical,

it's quite, had you
seen sculpture at that point?

SOPHIA: I wouldn't think.
No.

And I've got no recollection then, so
I guess it was very intuitive to do that.

PAUL: So what about at school?

Was art very important to you at school,

or did it become important
to you at school?

SOPHIA: It was I was always very much into,

I was a bit of an annoying,
all rounder sort of person.

But art was one of my favourite subjects.

And we did life drawing,
which was extraordinary.

Not, I hasten to add, no naked bodies.

No, but the actual
drawing from the figure.

So that was quite something,
that, to have that as a teenager.

PAUL: Did a particular teacher inspire you or?

SOPHIA: My Art teacher looks like there's a very
famous painting called

The Betrothal of Arnolfini,
and my art teacher looked like the man.

We all used to say "it's Mr Barnes",
as he was showing it to us in our

art history at A
level. He's in the painting.

PAUL: On a side note, I always wondered who
Arnolfini was, because there's a venue

in Brighton called the Arnolfini,
which was a kind of arty experimental

venue, and it was
Arnolfini an actual person?

SOPHIA: Oh, God, yes.

But, I mean, don't ask
me for any more detail.

I'd have to look it up.

PAUL: He must be somebody,
because I remember that name always

intrigued me in Brighton and I thought,
why is the venue called the Arnolfini?

I will get our team of brilliant
researchers and producers to look that up.

SOPHIA: Yeah, absolutely.
PAUL: That can be noted.

SOPHIA: But he tried to put me
off going to art school.

Art. He said, Art is 1% inspiration,
99% perspiration.

PAUL: Okay.

It's an interesting thing, isn't it?

We'll come to this as well,

the fact that you and I are still doing
something like this as what we do.

I like to think of that percentage being

slightly different, but it's interesting
looking at it like that.

So you obviously went through
school, you did A Levels.

Did you go straight to art
school or to university?

How did all that work?

SOPHIA: I went to art school in Exeter.

Well, I went to generally visual art
training, do a foundation course first,

because you've learned nothing, very
little, in any kind of art at school.

And then I went on to do a fine art degree

at Exeter College of Art,
which no longer exists.

It's part of Plymouth now.

Plymouth uni. An
open fine art course which incorporated

all sorts of painting and sculpture
and print making, photography, film,

video, kind of performance,
live art, sort of, yeah.

But I fell straight into sculpture.

And that was, I think that,
the making of that crocodile

PAUL: stayed with you.
Exactly.

SOPHIA: Very three dimensional brain, I think.

PAUL: Yeah.

That's clear to me
and brilliant for our work.

But that's interesting.
And what's that?

Three years?
Two years?

SOPHIA: Three years, yeah.

Okay, so four years
because of the foundation.

PAUL: Now, obviously,

I touch on this in our autobiographical
show, Would You Bet Against Us?

My mother in particular.

Slight reluctance towards me
entering the world of show business.

What was the reaction of your
family to going to art school?

Presumably people had been there before,

so it was a bit more
there was a context for it.

SOPHIA: You'd think so, but no,

I think they were a bit horrified because
I was also quite academic, apparently,

so they expected me - I did languages,
so one minute I was thinking, oh yeah,

I'm going to go and do French and Spanish
at university, and unfortunately

my estimates weren't
good enough, thank God.

And then I decided I wanted to go to art
school and there was a kind of like 'ah'.

PAUL: We
weren't hoping for that sort of outcome.

SOPHIA: That promises to be really
difficult, kind of.

PAUL: And when you were at art school

with doing the fine art thing,
did you encounter you talk about

performance art more,
but you didn't encounter any kind

of theatre design in a formal way at all
that wasn't part of what you were doing?

SOPHIA: No, not at all.

And I think I was very locked into

I don't think I got very far
when I was actually at college.

It took me a long time to kind of get away
from my narrow school education

and background, in a sense,
and get a bit looser and more creative.

I mean, for example,
I was studying near Dartington.

I didn't even know
of Dartington's existence.

If I had maybe - no I'd have
probably been too terrified.

No I didn't discover performance at all,
that came very much later.

PAUL: But it's interesting when you say about
that thing of

the confines of an education
one has had and then arriving at a place

that hopefully is quite creative, like
your art school or me at Middlesex Poly.

I think some of the biggest things for me

was about meeting people who thought
differently or had very different lives,

and I'm sure it's the same for lots
of people when they go away to university

or whatever, but it was meeting people
like Hayley, who felt very different to me

and being taught by John
that made me go, Oh, okay.

And it released something in me,
but also open my mind a bit more.

Have you still got friends
from those days at art school?

SOPHIA: I don't, which is, hang on,
I've got a couple of people.

No, I'm not really in touch
with people from art school.

PAUL: Everyone just kind of went
their different ways.

SOPHIA: Yeah, but I think that's a reflection.

I think it took me on the beginning

of a journey of exploding the world as I
knew it, which was quite, in a way,

quite confined and very
I don't know what I'm saying!

Yeah, for me, it was a slow burn journey,

if you like, I think,
to really find my creativity.

For example, when I was at art school,

the kind of work I made was very
figurative, which was considered very

traditional,
and I realised only when I'd left that

I think I was asked to do a slideshow
of my work and I did it and I suddenly saw

it all unfolding in front of me
and realised that I was interested in

creating environments for people
to occupy, not the actual people.

And that completely,
that was the moment where everything kind

of exploded into something
more interesting.

And so, consequently, making theatre,
or in my own work,

tending to make installations
that people actually enter and inhabit.

PAUL: That's interesting because obviously
my first encounter with you and your work

was some of the wonderful, wonderful
shows you did for Theatre Rites.

And I think one of the things that I
always loved about it was the fact that it

didn't appear like conventional
theatre design, you know what I mean?

Even before I met you, got to know you,
it didn't feel like

it came from a necessarily formal theatre
design background, you know what I mean?

It has a playfulness and a sense of,
like you say,

people inhabiting that world,
which obviously we'd always,

even when we'd worked with a long time
previous collaborator, Naomi Wilkinson,

in a different way,
Naomi also had that sense of creating

habitats for us to be in and people
enabling us to play and provoke us.

What was your first kind
of performative piece that you did?

In a sense, I won't say theatre,

but what was the first time you did
say there was performance with your work?

SOPHIA: Well, in my own independent work?

Rather than

working in theatre, and Penny Bernand,
who founded Theatre Rites,

her background was in fine art,
as was Naomi's.

And Theatre Rites deliberately

worked with people who didn't come from
a theatre making practise, necessarily.

And it had a huge impact on what I did

in the studio because I was bored
rigid of making this figurative work.

And then I suddenly found myself in spaces

with people,
creating objects or environments

for people to occupy,
but both performers and audience.

And it had a huge impact on my own work.

And I made a piece which I still return

to, called Stretch,
which is like a wall of elastic that makes

sound when you touch it,
so you could encounter it in a space

and bring it to life because you touch it
and it responds to you, which was

the concept at the heart of it
when I first made it in my studio.

But also, a performer can perform in it
and the audience

ends up sort of performing in it and then
we use it for workshops and stuff.

So, yeah, absolutely.

Seismic influence working in theatre.

PAUL: Well, it's interesting because obviously

I'll talk about some of the shows
that we've done together shortly,

but you've not only worked with us,
you've worked with some of the kind

of leading theatre makers
Emma Rice, Improbable, Theatre Rites.

Is there any points,
and this might be more of a question about

some of the things that are asked
of designers within a theatre context,

some of the practical things that are
asked have you ever had any moments when

you've been in a kind of production
meeting or making things where you think,

oh, I regret not doing any kind of
formal theatre design training?

Or has it never crossed your
mind? Like, I am what I am?

SOPHIA: No,
because I actually don't get - I have

worked with some brilliant theatre maker,
yourselves included, and I feel incredibly

lucky, but every time I do it, because
I'm not working all the time making

theatre, so every time I do it,
I feel like I don't know what the hell I'm

doing, I don't know any
of the rules and I forget terms.

So I'll be there kind of going,

it's not just an age thing, it's like,
I forgot what that's called, dammit.

So, yeah, I feel almost wholly unqualified
and then I kind of catch myself,

do a bit of deep breathing,
and I think you know what you're doing.

Come on, trust yourself.

And I think I'm very instinctive
and I need to trust that.

And we've had conversations
about that kind of thing.

PAUL: I can really relate to that.

I can really relate to that because you

know this I passionately believe
that changing your mind,

not knowing where you're heading,
can be a really confident place to be.

And we equate it too often with thinking,

oh, this person doesn't
know what they're doing.

It's not the same thing at all.

I think constant inquiry and curiosity

and the ability to change and not know can
be a very confident place to be as well.

Sorry, go ahead.
SOPHIA: No, I was just thinking that I think

that there's an aspect of that that is
inherent in a fine art training is that

all you're doing all the time is creating
a problem that you solve,

making a piece of work that leads
you to another problem.

And I'm sure you would say
the same thing about theatre.

PAUL: I think that's a really
good way of looking at it.

But I also have seen you,

which I think is a real skill,
and I think it really helps our process,

is you're very good in a team,
wherever that team is,

whether it's a team of actors or
designers, directors, whatever.

But also, I think the kind of hands
on nature, maybe, because you make a lot

of things, starting with that
crocodile all those years ago.

I think that hands on-ness,
I think gives people confidence,

particularly maybe technical teams
and people who are making stuff,

I think they get confidence from, oh,
okay, she's doing it,

she's here making that thing rather
than just giving instructions.

Do you think there's anything in that?

SOPHIA: Yes, I do, actually, because
partly I need to make it clear to people.

And so, like working at the Rep,
there's an incredibly competent team

of people making, it's very visible
when you're actually in a building.

It's a real privilege, actually,
to have that whole team around you.

They know that I'm quite skillful and they

did seem to enjoy that rather
than it be a problem.

So I kind of think that is good and then

you have to be quite careful with it
because I don't make all the time so

there's that balance of respecting
that they really know what they're doing

because they're doing it all the time
but I can have an idea and pitch it

in there and I think the being hands on is
an asset, definitely and it helps me,

it's how I work,
I process things by trying them out like

you do on the, you know,
and it's a very valuable part of

how I design, I think
and I love the team thing.

I really love being in the team.

PAUL: Yeah, and I think that's apparent

and as you know, it's at the heart of what
we do is collaboration and a team

of people,
obviously your first show for us,

sort of eleven years ago now
And The Horse You Rode In On, which I'm

terribly fond of when I look back on it,
I think to combine a kind of level

of anarchy with
something that was for us quite political,

in a way, what we were doing
but the way you responded to recreating

a strange, expressionist version
of the Grace Brothers department store

from Are You Being Served when two members
of the Baader-Meinhof gang would come in I

sensed very early on you were a perfect
designer for us because you didn't really

bat an eyelid, even if
I imagine some of it wasn't necessarily

on your cultural radar you threw yourself
into this 1970s sitcom with real gusto

and I think that's important because our
work very consciously switches between

something that might be considered more
I don't want to say high brow.

There is no brow,
as Simon Armitage says, no brow.

But we deliberately mix whether it's

in that show we mix the work of Dario Fo,
Alfred Hitchcock with Bugs Bunny and it's

a very deliberate thing that we're playing
with, I think your design did

that fantastically but a show which we
still do ten years on and I think has been

for me, one of your most wonderful designs
was when you did Get Happy for us and I

remember saying to you,
this is a show that's come out of me

watching my two year old son play
and I said, It's just about play.

There's no story.

It's just about - and he's inspired
by some things like Pina Bausch

in the movement
and Charlie Chaplin, Dr Seuss,

but you were kind of brilliant
in realising an environment for the whole

thing and I remember that first
time we did it at the Barbican where

the kids and the parents came through
that extraordinary tunnel of silk

that you'd created and then
into that extraordinary circle.

I get enormous pleasure from the fact

that it's still going, in China,
in Luxembourg, where we do it.

I just think what was your starting point?

I know you were in the room with us.

But what was your starting point when
you don't have much to start on?

I didn't give you a lot to start on.

SOPHIA: No, that was what was so amazing about
that process is that there was no story.

So I just remember thinking,
I just need something to hold on to.

And I thought we decided quite early
on that we wanted to do it in the round.

We had a big conversation about it
and I thought, there are round things,

we're going to be in the round,
the audience is going to be in the round.

There's an egg sandwich,
there's an egg sandwich,

there's a paddling pool and they were
all round and I thought, that's it.

So what else is round?

So the world is round,
a compass is round, a clock is round.

And so I piled all these images on top
of each other and made

the very first floor I think
I'd ever designed and painted.

PAUL: That's right, that's right.

Because I remember saying to you
in theatre terms,

in the round is my favourite
configuration to make anything.

And we've done some shows
at the Royal Exchange in the round,

and it feels to me that the floor becomes
very crucial when you're in the round

in terms of what the world is and what
the design is and the focus that is thrown

onto the floor, because your
floor was extraordinary.

The detail of the floor was amazing.

SOPHIA: I did it literally, I drew it.

I drew it pen and ink
and then painted colouring.

So, yeah, it was absolutely
a drawing that we blew up.

I mean, blowing things up doesn't always

work, but it certainly
did in that instance.

And then when it went to China,
do you remember, it went from the Barbican

with an audience of 120 to a theatre
that could potentially seat 1200 people?

And I was saying to you,

most of the audience are not actually
going to see the floor,

so we need to do something to take
the design up into the sides so we ended

up taking parts of the drawings
up into these silks.

PAUL: These amazing silks.

And also that was fantastic because it

kind of tapped into something that sat
very comfortably within that space.

And I suppose that brings me to my next
thing, is your brilliant adaptability.

I mentioned the community tour

and obviously
when there were certain things we wanted

to do when we made
Would You Bet Against Us?

One of which was to follow

the Arts Council Green Book,
which I refer to in the show itself,

in a slightly comedic way, but
we're very committed to that.

And you brilliantly with Jen our producer
and the team threw yourself into that.

What was it like?

I never really asked you that.

What was it like designing something where
you're following something like that?

I should say, obviously, the Green Book,
for people who are listening.

It's a new initiative

from the Arts Council,
which is basically about sustainability,

which is very important, and how can we
create things from things that exist?

What was it like doing it?

I never really asked you.

Was it really challenging?

SOPHIA: I didn't find it really

I never got down to the nitty gritty
of exactly what we were aiming at,

but it was just like, clearly
we need to have as much of the set made

of reclaimed material as
possible, which it was.

The whole structure for the wall was

and the floor was
and then the excitement of going

into the prop store of
the Rep and just finding things.

We thought we needed a bench.
That's it.

That's a perfect example.

We needed a bench to be the subs bench.

And I found this really
kind of very fancy, gilt legged,

velvet covered bench and I thought,
I'll just try that one.

Paul, sent you a picture.

Love it.

It was an accidental aesthetic emerged.

And that amazing chair.

PAUL: I always loved what you bought in because

it captured the kind of juxtaposition
that was going on in the piece as well.

So it reflected that
obviously, this is going to be something

which remains and it's a very good thing,
and more and more people would do it.

What would be your tips to a designer
who was encountering designers

from the Green Book for the
first time, like you did?

If you're going to give any tips

to a younger designer or something going
down that route, what would you say?

SOPHIA: I think the thing that really stuck

with me is that it surprised me how
you could look at it as being quite

confining, but actually it
kept me on my creative toes.

Because you ended up finding yourself

making a choice that you weren't
necessarily 100% sure of.

And then suddenly it reached
into something else.

It provided another idea that you
weren't even thinking about.

Like, we had this I referred to it as

the three piece
suite because we had the chair.

What was the third thing?

We had the chair
and the piano stool, eventually.

And the subs bench.

And they were just sort
of marvellous three piece suite.

Very smart.
Very smart, yeah.

So I think it's surprising
what it can give you.

There's no such thing as a limitation.

Well, we all know that
limitations are actually

PAUL: exactly.
Restriction is a good thing.

SOPHIA: Restriction is a good
thing. It makes you think harder.

PAUL: I totally agree.

All of our work comes out of some form

of restriction, and I think
that's all it is, in a sense.

And when you embrace that restriction,

it's going to come up with something
interesting, isn't it?

What about,
you have a design which is wonderful,

and then we go, Okay,
we're now going to try and fit it

into these community centres,
which requires...

You were always wonderfully
unprecious about it.

There was always a sense that it's not

to be confused with going I don't mind
what you do, I just mean there was a sense

where it felt to me,
you were always up for the challenge

and go, Okay, what can we do to
how did that feel?

SOPHIA:I think if I could choose,

it's a bit like Get Happy,
I told you I miss the floor,

because if you haven't got your set, then
your aesthetic is still in there,

but a lot of what you've done
is taken away.

But then that reflects how the work still

stands up and I laughingly slightly
fearfully joke now that the first thing

that will go from making
theatre is the set.

PAUL: Well,
I think that's an interesting question you

raised Sophia, I think, because
my sadness in the times that we're in is

when times are hard,
is the visual aesthetic you're right,

is often something that gets reduced,
so you end up with something where you go,

well, actually, this is just
the performer in a space now.

And I think that's something that we have
to fight for, even though I might sound

contradictory that I'm saying we
have to embrace the space that is.

And I think people often say to us, oh,
how did you find all of that extraordinary

physical language in your shows
when you're on the set?

And I go, well, because we've collaborated
from the designer at the earliest point

in the process, and the set has been
in the room with us for six weeks.

If we get it for our technical rehearsal,

then we'll just end up
standing in front of it.

But if we have it in the room,

and I think you're right, it is a concern,
but I think hopefully there will be enough

people who value design and the visual
side of what they're doing who will keep

insisting on that as a crucial part
of how you tell stories and make theatre.

SOPHIA: Yeah, I hope so, too.

But I also think it just
causes it to transform.

And in fact, where I started,

working with Theatre Rites,
a lot of the stuff that I designed were

objects that transformed
in front of your eyes.

So I like creating objects that move or

that open out or close
or something like that.

So there's always a way.
And of course, a visual aesthetic is

really important, even if you haven't
got a set in the space or outside.

PAUL: And also, I think maybe that's also

something that drew me to you
and remains something that I love

collaborating with,
because we've always been interested

in the notion of transformation in the
biggest sense, whatever that means.

We're constantly transforming through what

we do, through what we touch, through
what we hold, through what we're on.

And I think that enables you, hopefully,
to inhabit worlds that are really

unpredictable, surprising,
and I think you're brilliant at that.

And that passion for that sort

of transformation, beginning, as I think,
with the crocodile in the quarry,

long may it continue. Sophia,
thank you so much.

Now,
I'm going to see you again very shortly

when we meet at the
Love Supreme Jazz Festival.

We'll talk about that in the next few
days, but thank you so much for joining me

Sophia this morning and I
will see you very soon.

SOPHIA: Thank you.

You're not going to ask me these five,
quick fire questions?

PAUL: No, I'm not going to do
them, you don't have to do them.

SOPHIA: Can I say one more thing?

If you'd ask me what a regret was,

because I've only listened to a few
of these podcasts,

I think I envy artists who meet

somebody who they then make work with.

Like, you met Hayley.
PAUL: Oh, I see.

SOPHIA: And John.

And I think maybe that's part
of the reason why I love being

in the room, is that thing,
the joy of having collaborators.

And that's the thing I miss, I think,

in my own creative journey,
is that I didn't meet someone who I could

then make something
of right from the outset.

I would have loved that.
PAUL: That's interesting.

And as you said,
you love being in the room and it's

something that I really, really value,
because that is chance,

me going to that particular place somewhat
reluctantly, because I didn't get into one

of the established drama schools,
I went somewhat reluctantly and slightly

sniffily to Middlesex Poly,
but what did I know?

And then I went there and I met Hayley
and John, and my life changed and I think

I'm very, very fortunate
for that to happen.

So

I think the best next place is regular
teams of collaborators that you like,

and you've always got a place in our room
and I think that's the next best thing.

But now I'm shaking up
the end of my podcast.

I don't want to get too predictable,
but Sophia, thank you so much.

SOPHIA: It's been lovely.
PAUL: I'll see you in a week or so.

SOPHIA: Thank you.
See you then Paul, bye.

PAUL: Dear listeners, if you've enjoyed thisI
diot podcast, please, spread the word.