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.

PAUL: Hello and welcome.

My guests this month are a brilliantly
funny duo who have been making us

laugh since they first met in 2010.

Their unique blend of chaos and control,
often fused with a searing honesty,

has garnered them a loyal
and appreciative audience.

Welcome, Mercè Ribot and Patrícia
Rodriguez, two halves of Little Soldier.

MERCÈ: Hello.
PATRÍCIA: Hello, hello, hello.

Thank you for having us.

PAUL: It means a lot that you've
joined us on this episode.

Now, I'm not always used to having more
than one guest, but I couldn't

interview you separately.

I couldn't bear the carnage that the
fallout of me speaking to you separately.

It would have been so toxic.

I think it's better that we deal with the
duo in one whole, so to speak.

I always like to start
by taking my guests back to their very

early experiences of seeing some theatre
or live performance, might be

with the family or with school.

I'm going to do the same thing.

I'm going to kick off with Mercè.

Do you have an early memory of what it was and how it made you feel, Mercè?

MERCÈ: Yeah, I think probably it must be in Fira Tàrrega, which is a

big arts festival in Catalonia.

It's an outside arts festival,
and it's over a weekend.

I remember going there with my parents because they have some friends there.

Being absolute...

There was shows everywhere,
so it wasn't a one show.

I remember seeing La Fura dels Baus there, which is this company that does

the big outside immersive shows.

They tend to use a lot of blood.

At the time, blood and fire.

It was, I think, probably quite thrilling
and terrifying at the same time,

just as an audience,
being quite small with my parents,

just seeing people running and screaming.

Just not I'm not really sure what was
going on, but I think

probably that was it.

Then in the town was clown shows
popping up everywhere, lots of circus.

I think probably La Fura dels Baus might have been one of my earliest

memories of going to, Fira Tàrrega yeh.

PAUL: I'm laughing, Mercè,
because often when I ask this

question to my English guests, they say,
Well, my parents took

me to see a pantomime.

I was thinking it was blood and there was-

MERCÈ: Very childlike Spanish child.

PAUL: But how old were you?

MERCÈ: I don't know.

Because we used to go a lot of years, we used to go and visit

them during that time.

I can't remember.

Maybe I was six, seven.

PAUL: Running, being chased through the streets
by these very dangerous,

the Forrest La Bas performers.

Patricia, what about you?

PATRÍCIA: I think my first encounter with theatre
was actually performing.

I don't think I had seen a
show before I actually was in a show

because I remember we did a Christmas
show thing in preschool.

I might have been five years old.

My first role was to be
the mirror of a Snow White.

I remember holding a frame of this mirror.

I had to tell the queen,
she was the most beautiful.

I had to say always that.

I remember that was my role.

The cue I had, it was like at some point, the other girl who was doing the queen

would be so angry with me because I would say that it was Snow White that

was the prettiest girl in town,
would have to smash

the mirror, which was me, and I would
have to faint behind these things.

I didn't.

I didn't do it.

I didn't follow that queue.

I stayed.

I stayed in front of the queen,
and I remember people laughing

at that because I stayed and I shouldn't.

And I remember liking it.

I remember liking
the feeling of that accident.

PAUL: And after that?
PATRÍCIA: Yeah.

I remember that.

That was the very first thing
of a live performance thing.

It was in the context of Christmas thing.

That was my very first
encounter with theatre.

Then the next one was when I was as
an audience member,

and I saw in the school a production
that it was very immersive.

I remember it was like
pirates, and I loved it.

I remember absolutely loving it.

It was like pirates
and people moving around.

We were sitting on a round.

It was like a classroom.

I remember at the end of this,
they would ask us to do a bit.

And I remember a boy I used to like

getting up and doing

a beat in that moment.

I was completely in love.

I thought, That was so cool.

To be able to stand up and doing that,
I thought it was the most

attractive thing I had ever seen.

I loved it.

PAUL: Both of these memories are very powerful.

They're very spiritual.

I mean, at the moment
when you talk about...

Was it a conscious decision
not to be smashed away by-

PATRÍCIA: No, it was an accident.

It was not remembering what I had to do.

And then, when I discovered there was
people there who would laugh,

and I remember looking at that
and thinking, I like this moment.

PAUL: Well, that's a great...

I mean, it's something that we, I suppose,
we discover as performers,

particularly like yourselves,
that early feeling when you're

able to elicit that response.

Particularly, I always remember in adults,
when I felt I could do it…

My dad never really laughed.

He was a very funny man,
but he never really laughed very much.

Then I remember entering a talent
competition when I was six and I sang

a song and my family said he laughed
so much that he fell off his seat.

I always felt very pleased that I
was able to elicit that response.

Also, of course, your other memory
touches on how attractive it is.

PATRÍCIA: It is.
It is, you know.

PAUL: I touch on that again later.

Obviously, you both grew, am I right,
you both grew up in Spain?

MERCÈ: Yeah.
PAUL: Where did you grow up in Spain?

MERCÈ:I grew up near Barcelona, a small town.

It's really a small town up north
of Barcelona,

about an hour away, near the sea.

PATRÍCIA: I grew up in Asturias,
where I am at the moment

when we speak, the northwest.

Yeah, so Spain.

PAUL: You have these early experiences, performative and watching

the dangerous behaviour.

Do you remember a time when you started

to think, Oh, I'd quite like to do this,
when you were at school,

or when did it start to percolate?

Patricia, when did it start to become
something you thought,

I might like to do it?

PATRÍCIA: When I have an entry in my diary after seeing this boy getting up,

when I was seven years old and I said,
I want to be an actress like my boyfriend,

which he wasn't my boyfriend,
but in my mind he was.

So I said, I want to be an actress
like my boyfriend, Israel.

I said, I wrote it down very clearly.

I'm very confident.

And it's there.

It's written there.

PAUL: You are in your view or did
it emerge in a different way?

MERCÈ: I think it wasn't as clear as a
seven-year-old.

No, I think it because I started doing
theatre clubs and things like that.

Then I remember one moment that I thought, I really want to do this,

which is when I went, the theatre group took us to see Pina Bausch in Barcelona.

It was this trip,
and I remember going to see the show,

and it was all of these
performers running and throwing flowers,

and there was a bridge coming down.

Then the performers came out
of the audience, and they shared

us pictures of their holidays.

It was just something I've never
seen before, something so exciting.

I remember feeling silly sitting there,
feeling jealous of the performance,

experiencing that fun and that
experience that I felt like I wanted

to be there with them doing that.

I think that's probably the moment
I remember really clearly.

I probably was around 14,
clearly thinking, I want to do this.

Yeah, that sounds
like a good fun thing to do.

PAUL: But it's interesting, isn't it?

That notion you sometimes get when you see a certain type of performer or performers

that maybe you haven't encountered before.

I mean, mine was a bit later,

but I remember with Hayley seeing
the early shows of Complicité

because they were older than us.

Just the shows I loved,
there was something about that.

When they came in the bar,
they didn't look like English…

Well, they weren't English actors,
but they didn't look like actors I'd seen.

They looked more like a circus or more…

You know what I'm saying?

That, again, that sense
of being attracted.

I thought, I want to hang
out with these guys.

Obviously, that didn't happen,
so we made our own thing.

But what about the notion
then of studying theatre?

Was that something you
went on to do in Spain?

PATRÍCIA: Yeah, I did.

I joined the School of Theatre here
in Asturias, which was quite rich.

There was not many subjects,
and it was quite rich.

We would study Lorca
and there was movement.

It was intense.

It was like one of these
drama schools of character.

I'm feeling this, I'm feeling that.

Which I enjoyed.

I enjoyed as well.

I have to say, I didn't do as
much comedy as I ended up doing.

When I started international growth,
later on.

But it was a regular
drama school for years.

With a bit of theory,
with a bit of a lot of acting.

It was that feeling.

Then I went to Philippe.

PAUL: Mercè, did you study
theatre in Spain before you-

MERCÈ: Not in Spain.

I wanted to go into these the,
School de Theatre which was

the formal drama school.

I didn't end up getting in there because
you have to do written exams and things,

and I wasn't very good at that.

Then when I started, then I started
a career, I studied politics.

When I finished, I was still like,
I really wanted to do this theatre thing.

I came to the UK, learned English,
and I did a course at East 15,

like a summer course.

It was a clown, a summer course with the person who became the director of the

Contemporary Theatre with Uri Rudner.

I did this clown two weeks in there.

Then I was like, I want to do this.

I want to do this in this drama school.

Then I finished my degree,
but I did everything and I came to the UK

and then I studied the discipline
for the whole city course.

PAUL: When you came to the UK and Patricia, you went to study with Philippe,

was Philippe in Paris
then or was he in London?

PATRÍCIA: Yeah, he was in Paris.

But it's a school as you know,
it's an English language.

PAUL: I'm curious.

I just wanted to ask how I
get you my timeline right.

When you haven't met yet,
Mercè has gone to East 15,

and you're now in Paris with Philippe,
but you're still separate.

You don't know each other.
Little Soldier does not exist.

You do, Philippe, and that must be
a massive turning point for you.

PATRÍCIA: Yeah, a massive turning point in the sense
of I remember being in a school.

My first day was 30 students,
everybody from everywhere.

It was the very first time I left Spain.

I had never been away from Spain.

There was people from Japan,
Brazil, you name it.

It was all the countries
that were there, Jesus.

I was just amazed that how

much beauty you could see in those

performers throughout the whole year.

Language didn't matter.

I was introduced to this idea of pleasure on the stage, having pleasure on the stage

and what it meant
and to be free on the stage.

This was like this new

vocabulary that I didn't get in this drama school that I had been when

I was studying here in Spain.

I love that.

I just love that.
I thought it was amazing.

PAUL: A massive thing.

But then when did you come to London after Philippe, or did you go back to Spain?

PATRÍCIA: I went briefly to Spain.

I went back briefly,
but broken a little bit.

Then I went to London again by accident.

A lot of good accidents in life,
like a smash in the mirror.

Then I started to join courses,

drama courses, like training.
You do training.

That had links with Philippe somehow.

I followed that thread, and that is how
I arrived to a Told by an Idiot workshop.

PAUL: Now, for our listeners,
you are also arriving at the workshop,

am I right, Mercè?
MERCÈ: Yes.

I was finishing the drama school,
and Uri was very good at sending us

opportunities and things that, again,
links to theatre companies, working at,

expecting theatre companies working
at the time that they were doing courses.

Then he mentioned there was a weekend
course with Told by an Idiot,

and that's where I had to.

PAUL: I feel like I've fraudulently set this whole episode up so I can

talk about it all happened.

But we always laugh because we're very delighted that, obviously,

by total chance, the encounter happened when we were somehow there as well.

But can you remember?

Because you have such
amazing chemistry as well.

I love your chemistry and your
play and your relationship.

Or we could talk about Heads Will Roll,
the show that we did made

together for the company.

I'm always curious about this because
obviously, I suppose,

Hayley and I met whilst training
with John, and he provoked us,

and we seemed to have
something together But it was very

hard to put your finger on it.

He kept saying, Don't think about it,
just clap.

You do that weekend and then
you obviously got on.

How did the beginnings
of contact after that weekend?

How did that happen?

MERCÈ: I feel like on that weekend,
we met each other, and I think

automatically, we
got on together really well.

But I don't know if we did
so many exercises together.

It was more that we
were really suddenly we exchanged numbers

and we said, Oh, let's go for drinks.

It happened a little bit like,
we always thought we, we met a few times.

We went for a few drinks.

We got to know each other.
PATRÍCIA: Here and there.

MERCÈ: We got to know each other slowly.
PATRÍCIA: We did.

MERCÈ: Yeah, it was nearly for a whole year before we started thinking about doing

something together, wasn't it, Patrícia?
PATRÍCIA: Yeah.

Mercè kept them saying-

MERCÈ Who popped the question?
I don't know.

PATRÍCIA: No, it was Mercè, for sure.
MERCÈ: Was it?

Yeah.
PATRÍCIA Yeah.

Because I remember being very
reluctant to ruin our friendship.

MERCÈ: Oh, yes, you did.

PATRÍCIA: I was like, by doing,
by having a working relationship.

I was like, Oh, we get on so well.

This was my inner self saying, Oh, my God, I have a proper friend

in London who really get done.

I had such a good time.

Then I was thinking, Oh, my God,
we're going to go into a rehearsal

room doing stuff together.

Jesus Christ, this is not going to work.

Then, but Mercè kept on saying,
We should do something together.

I was like, Okay, yeah, it's unavoidable.

We have to do it.

I'm so happy we did, obviously.

Because I love working with Mercè,
and I completely mean it.

Mercè said, Yeah, we should do something.

Then we said, Okay, tomorrow at 3:00PM,

we're going to send each other three plays

we want to do, three ideas, three things.

Tomorrow, 3:00PM, three things.

It felt like a proper specific task to do.

PAUL: What were your three things, Mercè?

MERCÈ: I remember a mixture of all of them.

There was some like Beckett was in there. Yeah.

PATRÍCIA: Waiting for Godot.

MERCÈ: Waiting for Godot.
Waiting for Godot was there.

Then there was,
then I said about an adaptation

of something that my friend had written.

What else?
Was it Don Quixote?

Or was that your Patricia?

I think you mentioned that.

PATRÍCIA: Something about the Civil War, something.

MERCÈ: Oh, yeah.
Something like the Civil War.

PATRÍCIA: Something about the Civil War.

MERCÈ: I don't remember.

PATRÍCIA: I don't remember my mind.

It's like a mix of both.

Yeah, it's somewhere there.

But yeah, it was Civil War.

MERCÈ: Was that a funny adaptation
of The House of Bernarda Alba?

PATRÍCIA: How funny I said that.

A funny adaptation
of The House of Bernarda Alba.

The other one was, remember what I said,
it was this it's a British

tourist in Spain?
MERCÈ: Oh, yeah.

What was it?

PATRÍCIA: It's like stuff that British
tourist do in space.

Something like that.

PAUL: It's interesting that those three
things you sent to each other.

I mean, one of those things
it's been a very successful show for you.

I think your version, brilliantly
deconstructed version

of Beckett's Waiting for Godot.

What became your first show,
officially Waiting for Godot?

MERCÈ: Yeah.

So officially, it was
the first show together,

officially was You and Me,
which was an adaptation of a text of

a Catalan writer, who's from a near town,
and he writes very surrealist text.

And funnily enough,
he's very inspired by Beckett.

And it became our first show.

It was like a duo.

And it was about two of ladies,
which one of which is losing their minds,

and they are in this...

You don't really know
where they are exactly.

So yeah, it has a lot
of Beckett influence in it.

We adapted it with Bryony Shanahan,
did the adaptation with us, and we

exploded it a little bit,
and we did a lot of dance.

We exploited the play a little bit.

We had a lot of fun with it.

That was our special.

PAUL: Did you choose to take it to Edinburgh?

Was that your first-

PATRÍCIA: No.

Our first Edinburgh was Don Quixote,
which was like, what do we do next?

When we did You and Me,
it was a necessary question to ask

to ourselves because it did feel right.

We did that show.
It felt right.

We got Arts Council funding
eventually, that rare thing.

We got it.

We even went to New York, remember, Mercè?
Yeah.

With You and Me.

Anyway, I remember after
doing unloading the van.

I remember being at the Mercès
house in South Woodford, was it?

We were having a glass of wine on her
bed and it's like, What do we do next?

What do we do?

It was Don Quixote.

Then that was amazing,
Don Quixote with Stephen.

PAUL: Obviously, we can't miss the opportunity
to talk about our dear friend, Steve.

PATRÍCIA: Yes, Stephen.

PAUL: He was so delighted, I think,
to find you or you to find him.

I remember him talking about
the dynamic, and I think...

He really felt he'd found kindred spirits.

I think it was
something that really mattered to Steve,

the spirit of something that was so
in you seemed to really connect with him.

PATRÍCIA: He was great.

PAUL: I think the three of you were made
for each other, which was

an extraordinary thing.

Then that show took on a force of its own.

I still hear people talk about that show
and that dynamic, the three of you.

Was it three or did you
have a musician as well?

MERCÈ: Yes.
It was the three of us performing.

Then Maria was part of the company,
was on stage with us, and she was playing.

She's an incredible
Spanish classic guitarist.

She was on stage with us.

Yeah.
PATRÍCIA: Yeah, well, Stephen was great.

He taught us how to...

I learned with him so much, especially,
well, during the rehearsal period,

but also in Edinburgh, he was so naughty.

He played the audience so well as well.

I remember.

He was so great.

Honestly, I find myself,
I'm sure it happened to you too,

but I find myself sometimes laughing
on the street on my own, remember things.

PAUL: Without a doubt.

It takes me unaware sometimes by surprise.

While getting in a room,
luckily with other people like yourselves

who remember him, and we will laugh.

Sometimes to the point,
and obviously it's mixed with loads

of other emotions,
but to the point of crying at something

that Steve would have done.

Well, or had the audacity to do.

I mean, audacity is the right word.

He was incredibly audacious,
and I was so thrilled for him that he

found that show and that you cast him.

Sometimes Steve, obviously,
he was a core part of our family and was

amazing, and he did
lots of amazing things.

But see him so liberated,
I think I always felt that was a really

wonderful thing that you embraced
all of that wonderful thing he had.

Then obviously, I
wanted to touch on when we all

collaborated it on Heads Will Roll,
a show that remains dear to our heart.

You talk about things where
you laugh in the street.

We still have one of the strongest
running jokes in our office is,

'you touched my budget'.

Now, I will try and give it some context.

In Heads Will Roll, we merged the story,
as you remember,

of the Spanish conquistadors searching
for the lost city of gold, El Dorado,

at the same time that the BBC, the doomed
BBC, so far, it was being created.

You played both the conquistadors
and two high-powered TV executives.

I think you were improvising as one of you
in annoying said,

'You've touched my budget'.

That's the budget.

This will never be as funny as I recall
it, but then it became a rift on, No,

I didn't, you did you touched my budget.

It is a phrase which it crops
up in our office randomly.

One of our team will say that and we
all will rift around that.

But also my memories of that show was your
really wonderful commitment

to the sense of what you're playing.

That sounds an obvious thing to say,
but there was such a commitment

to pursuing these sometimes wild ideas
of two conquistadors finding what they

think is gold in a in a toilet bowl.

It's a DVD of El Dorado, the BBC's sitcom.

You played it with such awe and such
commitment to the idea.

It remains a very very favourite
show of ours in our catalogue.

It's a wonderful thing.

As you know,
I'm consistently attempting to-

PATRÍCIA: For us, it was great.

We had a lot of fun with you in the room.

We learned a lot from your book.

It was an amazing team.
PAUL: It was.

Me too, yeah.
PATRÍCIA: Amazing, amazing, amazing team.

Of course, you have to commit to.

I know, but...

With all your heart
and soul to the extreme.

PAUL: As we jump, sadly, towards the end of this
lovely heartwarming episode for me

in particular, I want to touch on that

idea of when you have a relationship

that you created, creatively together,
and then you're cast in something

where you are together.

Hayley and I both found ourselves both in
Omar's wonderful production of Rhinoceros.

We hadn't been on stage together for many
years because Hayley had

been doing different things.

If she was on our stage,
I was directing her.

The joy that I found,
and I hope Hayley did, of just being…

We didn't have a lot to do in it,
but the joy I had of being with her on

stage and in the room, I think, resonates.

I just wonder how you feel about going
into something else which isn't yours,

but you are together.

MERCÈ: Yeah, I'm super excited.

I'm really, really
I feel really excited to also

spend a lot of time with Patricia on stage
because that's going

to be quite a long run.

I'm really excited to be in a room
together, to not have the responsibility

as well of running a project.

I feel like that's going to give us a lot
of room to play and to also have fun.

But without that…
There's always…

We have wonderful teams when
we put the show together.

But there's that always in the back
of your mind that you have those

other hats that you need to fulfil.

But in here, there's none of that.

I'm so looking forward to that time.

It's like none of the other responsibility
is just being an actor with you,

like having fun on stage.

PATRÍCIA: I'm so happy.

Also, it's a combination
of several things.

Definitely going back to work with Mercè,
we're already thinking about stuff.

We are already going like,
I'm going to make this,

I'm going to make this,
even when we were preparing this,

we were like, Oh, let's sing
this song when this time happens.

We are already plotting our little minds.

But I subscribe everything Mercè say,
and I will also add as well,

going back to London and to a room where
this language is shared,

I'm really, really looking forward to it
because here, I'm not struggling.

I'm having a good time here.

But it's going to...

Some things I feel they're going to move
faster because we share that language.

PAUL: Do you have any thoughts around what
the next Little Soldier show might be?

Or can you say anything about that?
Or you got a client?

PATRÍCIA: Yeah, I think we could say a little bit.

It's going to be about...

Art, status?

Can I say more Mercè?

MERCÈ: We are working with a dramaturg.

No, I think this is it.

We're touching on art and artists,
and we are working with a dramaturg

called Kirsty Housley at the minute.

We'll see where that take us.

We are in the very early stages,
so we've done an R&D, and then we are

just still in the finding stories stage.

Moving slowly, but towards it.

PAUL: I'm already intrigued
to see you two discovering art

and deciding who gets to do it or see it.

I will come and see you do
anything anywhere at any time.

PATRÍCIA: Thank you.

PAUL: Little Soldier, thank you
so much for joining us.

When you're in London,
let's go and have a glass of wine

together and hang out a bit, for sure.
But thanks, guys.

Thank you so much.
MERCÈ: Thank you so much.

Thank you.

PATRÍCIA: Thank you.

Thank you for having us.

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