{"id":13158,"date":"2012-11-13T12:17:09","date_gmt":"2012-11-13T12:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jomec.co.uk\/altcardiff\/?p=13158"},"modified":"2012-11-13T12:17:09","modified_gmt":"2012-11-13T12:17:09","slug":"cardiff-character-simon-riordan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/2012\/11\/13\/cardiff-character-simon-riordan\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardiff character: Simon Riordan"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_13199\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"width: 480px\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2012\/11\/Cardiff-character-Simon-Riordan-Big-EP.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13199\" title=\"Cardiff character Simon Riordan Big EP\" src=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2012\/11\/Cardiff-character-Simon-Riordan-Big-EP.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"248\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2012\/11\/Cardiff-character-Simon-Riordan-Big-EP.jpg 480w, https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2012\/11\/Cardiff-character-Simon-Riordan-Big-EP-300x155.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13199\" title=\"Cardiff character Simon Riordan Big EP\" src=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2012\/11\/Cardiff-character-Simon-Riordan-Big-EP.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"248\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2012\/11\/Cardiff-character-Simon-Riordan-Big-EP.jpg 480w, https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2012\/11\/Cardiff-character-Simon-Riordan-Big-EP-300x155.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><\/noscript><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Simon takes a hands-on approach when working with his cast.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>It takes time, money and an awful lot of determination to set up your own theatre company but Simon Riordan did just that, with very little training and a self-confessed lack of business knowledge. Two years on Bare Knuckle Theatre is consistently producing profit and well-satisfied audiences.<\/p>\n<p>29-year-old Simon picked up his directing abilities while volunteering at a sixth-from college in Cardiff and it\u2019s easy to see this informal approach in his work. He is rarely still during rehearsals and takes a hands on approach with his cast, teaching stage combat and standing in for trees at every available possibility.<\/p>\n<p>Simon came late to acting and decided not to go to university for fear of the debt. He took small acting roles in theatre and television before training as a drama teacher and taking a backstage job.<\/p>\n<p>Launching his own company was no mean feat. \u201cThe night before we did <em>Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream<\/em> I was interviewed for a making of DVD and I\u2019m a shambles,\u201d Simon laughed. \u201cIt\u2019s four days since my pay-day and I don\u2019t have a shirt, I\u2019m just wearing a hoody, I\u2019m a mess and there\u2019s about eight pounds left in my bank account.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bare Knuckle is committed to the re-imagination of Shakespeare. There are no stuffy costumes or formalities at the cast\u2019s rehearsal of upcoming performance <em>The Tempest<\/em> and Simon hopes to show people the raw emotion of the plays.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI genuinely hated Shakespeare when I was at school,\u201d he said, \u201cI absolutely loathed it. I just didn\u2019t get it but it\u2019s not complicated and when you see a good production of it.\u00a0 It\u2019s all the stuff that I loved as a kid, it\u2019s all violence and murder and fighting and sex.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As well as directing and acting, running an independent company means you need to have a great many strings to your bow. Simon puts together all the scripts himself and is also trained in stage combat. He can show you how to make a strangling look convincing or even hold a full scale riot, he\u2019s full of enthusiasm as the talks about it, \u201cI think no matter how old you get you\u2019re a boy and you\u2019re given toy swords and you have a great time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bare Knuckle is currently an unpaid company but Simon hopes to change this in the near future. Next year\u2019s production is to be <em>Titus Andronicus<\/em> and he\u2019d like to tour a production or even produce something brand new. But his continuing mission at the moment is to bring accessible theatre to the venues of Cardiff.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI very much like the fact that if people are still talking about a play that we\u2019ve done when they get into the car to go home we\u2019ve succeeded to at that point I\u2019m happy,\u201d said Simon. \u201cIf we can do anything else with it it would be paying people for the time and the commitment they make to the company. Without them it\u2019s just me in a room with a book.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It takes time, money and an awful lot of determination to set up your own theatre company but Simon Riordan did just that, with very little training and a self-confessed lack of business knowledge. Two years on Bare Knuckle Theatre is consistently producing profit and well-satisfied audiences. 29-year-old Simon picked up his directing abilities while volunteering at a sixth-from college in Cardiff and it\u2019s easy to see this informal approach in his work. He is rarely still during rehearsals and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":252,"featured_media":13212,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[2414,173,1050,2415,2416,613],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-13158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-bare-knuckle-theatrre","tag-cardiff-character","tag-interview","tag-simon-riordan","tag-the-tempest","tag-wales-millennium-centre"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Cardiff character: Simon Riordan - alt.cardiff<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/2012\/11\/13\/cardiff-character-simon-riordan\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cardiff character: Simon Riordan - alt.cardiff\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It takes time, money and an awful lot of determination to set up your own theatre company but Simon Riordan did just that, with very little training and a self-confessed lack of business knowledge. Two years on Bare Knuckle Theatre is consistently producing profit and well-satisfied audiences. 29-year-old Simon picked up his directing abilities while volunteering at a sixth-from college in Cardiff and it\u2019s easy to see this informal approach in his work. 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