cal mccrystal director

Cal trained at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and with Philippe Gaulier and Pierre Byland. As an actor Cal has worked frequently in film and television, playing roles in Crimetime, The Curl, Dead London, Lifeforce, BTBS, The Wild House, What's Up Doc?, Motormouth, Eastenders, The Bill, The 10%ers, The Detectives, Tom Jones and Sunnyside Up. He has worked extensively in rep and commercial theatre and has toured with Talking Pictures, Compagnie Philippe Gaulier and The Pasadena Roof Orchestra. Cal is heard regularly in drama and light entertainment programmes on BBC Radio 4.

Directing credits include Let The Donkey Go, I Am A Coffee, Horses for Courses (all for Peepolykus), Between A Rock And A Hard Place (Cambridge Footlights), The Mighty Boosh (1998 Best New Comedy Perrier Award winner), Stiff (Spymonkey), The Tailors (Leikin Loppu), and Mel and Sue in Back To Our Roots (their 1999 national tour). Cal is a guest director at this year's Channel 4 sitcom festival and is currently directing a new comedy series for Carlton Television.

Having derived tremendous pleasure from directing the Footlights last year, I was delighted to be asked back for This Way Up. For this year's show I was keen to have a strong musical element, and for that reason had an ear cocked for singing ability in the workshop auditions, even though these primarily sought to detect in applicants a willingness to be creatively silly. If last year's Between a Rock and a Hard Place was a devised physical comedy, then This Way Up is a devised musical comedy.

The devising process is always taxing, no matter how experienced the performer. We start with one simple idea. Gradually, using improvisation and games, we build a whole show around it. The work I do is 'clown-based'. It is about finding fun in the simplest, most idiotic, side of yourself. We all have a clown within ourselves, but we rarely recognise it. Clown isn't just slapstick and circus routines; it is about making contact with the audience through openness. The clown loves the crowd and to be loved in return. To find this clown, the young performer must be vulnerable and willing to expose what is stupid or ridiculous about himself. They must welcome an audience that will laugh at them as well as with them.

I would like to thank the creative and technical teams for their hard work and imagination. I hope you enjoy the show.