Jim Greenhalf talks to writer Toby Satterthwaite, whose drama The Odyssey, performed by his theatre company Local Space, tours Yorkshire from August 17 to October 3.

Please do not run.

It hurts our lips and tongues to speak the words of living men.

We will not keep you long.

When the blood ran warm beneath our skin we committed a great sin,

Which the gods have not forgiven.

It has been our punishment to sail the winedark sea, and tell

An ancient tale to strangers.

Thus the ghosts of Odysseus's crew, drowned by the gods for their crimes, addressed the expectant audiences who acclaimed Toby Satterthwaite's verse drama, The Odyssey, at last year's Ripon Festival.

About 1,000 people saw it. The Ripon Gazette declared: "A wonderful piece of theatre...the audience were enthralled by the excellent direction and ghostly music...the modern additions blend seamlessly into a 3,000-year-old story."

One woman took her three children to see it. She later said they hadn't stopped talking about it. Another member of the audience said it was the best thing he'd seen in years.

Their praise is the reason why Yorkshire and Humberside Arts decided to fund an eight-date tour by Satterthwaite's professional company Local Space this year. The tour starts in Leeds on August 17, where it runs for six nights, and ends with a six-night run at the Viaduct Theatre, Dean Clough, Halifax, starting on September 29.

This re-working of Homer, fast-moving and strongly visual, lasts for two hours with one intermission.

The man behind it, playwright, director and book editor Toby Satterthwaite, was born and brought up in Leeds. He once worked for Bradford Festival and five years ago brought a production, Passion Dances, to the Alhambra's Studio theatre.

"I read Homer over and over again, put it down and then wrote my own version of the stories - as though mine had preceded Homer," said Toby. "His work is about the whole experience of a journey through life. Odysseus wants to come home so that he can die and complete his life.

"In my play I am trying to get all possible shades of tragedy through to comedy, to speak to everyone. I think we have achieved that. It was such an instant success last year that I think we touched a chord."

The play is performed, not merely recited, by five members of Local Space, a professional Leeds-based company which has been going since 1995. Their success at Ripon and the on-going success of Barrie Rutter's Northern Broadsides company at Halifax surely proves there is an audience with a big appetite for quality drama in the North.

"What I find most difficult to cope with is the ingrained pessimism that's part of the culture of Yorkshire, in the sense that people don't believe things are possible," Toby added. "In the past people have been uncertain we would find audiences for our work, but everything we have done so far has been sold out. We have proved the pessimists wrong."

Toby lives in both Leeds and London. When I spoke to him he had just completed a six-month project for English National Opera under the Baylis Community Programme. This entails creating an original work based on ordinary people's experiences.

Toby spent three months with 20 elderly people, The Hoxton Singers, in London's East End. He talked to them and encouraged them to tell their stories. Then he got together with a composer and put together The Fire Bucket, a love story set in the Blitz. The show was performed at two venues in the East End and was, he said, a great success.

His next project for Local Space in 1999 may be a piece about the Vikings in Yorkshire, depending what happens between now and then.

After eight years of writing, directing and earning a living as a book editor for HarperCollins, he says his creative work is just starting to pay. He accepts that obstacles and difficulties will always be there, but does not waste time hoping to catch the eye of reviewers for heavyweight national newspapers.

"That way madness lies," he said. "You've just got to go on. There's a new spirit in the North. Perhaps there will be an explosion of new ideas and creativity."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.