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• #CALL TO ARMS WITH POSSE SERIES#

Advance Constitutional Change Show / hide.National Task Force on Democracy Reform & the Rule of Law.Government Targeting of Minority Communities Show / hide.Campaign Finance in the Courts Show / hide.Gerrymandering & Fair Representation Show / hide.Ensure Every American Can Vote Show / hide.Iphigenia in Splott is at the Lyric Hammersmith, London, from 26 September to 22 October. “I think it is really important to give a voice to people and places that don’t normally get heard … When theatre is specific and absolutely represents what it speaks of, it becomes universal.” While she says the phrase gets thrown around a lot, there is no better way of describing the play than “a call to arms”. Now she’s returning to her breakout role, seven years on. Earlier this year, she played Portia in The Merchant of Venice in the atmospheric, candlelit Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at the Globe. Later came Morgan Lloyd Malcolm’s raw, intense play about postpartum depression, Mum, at Soho theatre in 2021. She performed alongside Erin Doherty – as twins separated at birth, one of whom is raised by a wolf – in Ross Willis’s exuberant two-hander Wolfie at London’s Theatre 503 in 2019. Since then she has carved out a career for herself in new writing, which is where her passion lies. “It’s been a bit of a whirlwind since then.” I know that it sounds wanky, but it felt like my calling.” So she got on the coach back to Cardiff and got the job. When the audition for Iphigenia came up, she remembers reading the play and “howling”. Melville moved to London to continue her studies but found herself working all day long in a waitressing job, living in a horrid flat and feeling lonely. Intense … Melville in Mum at Soho theatre in 2021. She speaks persuasively about the important role that drama can play in education and worries that these days fewer people will have access to that release. Reading it, she felt for the first time that she could belong in the industry.Īs someone with “quite a lot of trauma growing up”, she found that drama helped her to process things emotionally.

#CALL TO ARMS WITH POSSE SERIES#

It was then she read Ghost City by Owen – a series of monologues by people “basically like me” – and it proved revelatory. Initially she was more interested in dance,but she was encouraged to give acting a go. She didn’t think that characters like her existed on stage. Melville was doing a BTec in performing arts but still considered theatre to be something for “people who come from money”. Owen was inadvertently instrumental in getting her into theatre. Part of me goes: if you dream something too big, you’re just going to have further to fall.” “To this day, I don’t really allow myself to dream.

At 16, she found herself surrounded by people who had a strong idea of what they wanted to do, while she felt lost. Neither of her parents had much of an education and, growing up, she says, “dreams and aspirations were never a thing that we spoke about”. Born in 1991, she grew up in Swansea and uses the term “criminal class” to describe her background, saying it best captures her experience. Iphigenia in Splott is a play that resonates with Melville on a personal level. Melville as Portia, with Michael Marcus, in The Merchant of Venice at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. I have to not think about what people are going to say about it. While she is excited about returning to the role, she also feels under a bit of pressure because of how well it was received before. That’s just horrendous, isn’t it? The gaps are getting bigger.” “The amount of people using food banks from 2015 to now has doubled. But the grip austerity has on the country is even tighter now,” says Melville. “After the last time we did it, I thought I wouldn’t do it again.

The play’s director, Rachel O’Riordan – formerly artistic director of the Sherman, now at the Lyric Hammersmith in London – has been attempting to remount the production for two years, but the plans were repeatedly derailed by Covid-19. A successful Edinburgh fringe run followed, before it transferred to the National Theatre’s Temporary Space in 2016 and New York in 2017. Iphigenia in Splott opened in Cardiff’s Sherman theatre in 2015.