A wise man once said,“Every tale has its beginning and how it progresses is dependent solely on the will and the strength of those involved to see it through to its end.”
Back in the mists of time (around 2003) there was The Knights Of The Round Table arts collective. It was small yet vibrant group of creative individuals building a new artistic scene in the middle of Belfast. At the time T.K.O.R.T was involved in four branches of creative expression:
The Pavilion Knights – A regular live music and poetry evening
The Knight Writers – The creative writing group
The Art Group – Which generated visual arts for the gig nights
The Book Group – A monthly meeting for the book fans among the knights
These were the main outlets of participation for the members and visitors of the knights and they each prospered and grew in their own way.
Then in the dark month of October 2005 a group of friends from The Knights came together around a table and discussed the formation of a new wing of the collective. A Drama Group. Many of the core Knights members had already acted and performed together in other shows so it seemed only logical to join up and form a group of our own. And thus The Knights Of The Round Table Drama Group came into being.
The list of founder members of the group consists of those who essentially formed the group for its first production and so is not an exhaustive list as soon many more people joined the group, but those around during the origins of the group were:
Tom Muinzer (Knights President), Christian Jackson (Head of Drama), Adrian Cooke (Knights secretary), Fiona Gault (knights Treasurer), Jim Johnston, Alice McCullough (Art Group Head), Scott Jamison, John Macormac, Geoff Gatt, Tom Hughes and Sarah Lyl
e.
In the early days the group met in a small 2nd floor flat on College Square North belonging to Christian Jackson, who was appointed the very first head of the group. For many evenings we would trek up the stairs to the flat to look at, discuss and rehearse our first play. This was Tom Muinzer’s musical comedy The Singing Psychiatrist. Tom penned the play especially for the group and in true Knights spirit, the group seized upon the play with all the energy it could muster.
The birth of a child truly symbolizes these times as the group was constantly growing, discovering new things, not being afraid to throw something in or do something wild and all in the casual, easy going environment of someone’s home. Each night was a fresh experience with fun being had most of the time.
Starting the group’s existence with a comedy really allowed people to let loose with each other and go for broke. At one point during a dance routine Scott Jamison caused the wooden flooring to slide apart, so vigorous were his dancing moves, a living example of the amount of energy we were all prepared to contribute.
After several meetings the group worked toward its first show. Christian Jackson was directing the play when rehearsals moved from his flat to our now regular home of the Donegal Pass Community Centre. During this period the production began to add new elements as the group decided to turn the evening of the performance into a show-case event of the Knights groups and other organisations with which the Knights had links, namely The Belfast Poets and The Delphic Players. What originally started out with a one act play became a special one night spectacular evening of entertainment involving the spoken word. Both The Belfast Poets and The Delphics happily agreed to join in the endeavour and a much fuller, more colourful and varied programme began to take shape.
As a new year wound its way on the group finally secured a venue and in its inaugural performance in the Old Museum Arts Centre on the 13th April the first ever Knights of the Round Table Drama Group production hit the stage of Belfast.
Although the production was only in the OMAC for one night, a large audience came out to see it (some even being turned away) and all the masses of hard work seemed to have paid off.
The evening had several memorable moments, audience members particularly mentioning performances from ‘Phat’ Bob Rainey, Jane Bailey, Scott Jamison and Sarah Lyle and no-one could forget the madcap compere, eloquently and unpredictably performed by Fergal McSwiggan.
After the show in the OMAC was done the Knights temporarily shifted its focus as many of those involved appeared in Geoff Gatt's Hippos in the Shower in the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival 2006 which enjoyed a tremendous amount of success and was many of the Knight’s first foray into one of Belfast’s newer festivals.
Once that was done we moved “The Singing Psychiatrist” from one side of the city to other with two evenings of performance in The Culturlann Centre on the Falls Road. This opened up the Knights to a new venue and a new community and marked the first tentative steps into reaching out to a previously unexplored avenue. With Adrian Cooke directing the play this time round, the drama group brought its variety evening to the Culturlann, to small but appreciative audience and it was extremely fulfilling working with another community centre in the city. This marked the end of The Singing Psychiatrist and the production run finished on the 22nd of may 2006
The cast of The Singing Psychiatrist after the final show, May 2006
Once the dust had settled we all sat down at the end of what had been an eventful first production and took stock of the massive learning curve we had quickly, and at times, turbulently travelled across. We saw just how much some of us had developed, discovering our limits while surpassing others, gaining new skills as well as developing new ones. With any new born child there are growing pains and this was no different with the drama group. The sheer scale of organisation which had taken us by surprise had severely taken its toll on our bodies and minds, there were those who just didn’t get what we were about and unfortunately we got some negative feedback (but then what show doesn’t?). It became apparent to us that if we what wanted to advance then the group would have to extensively change in its structure and organisation and so the first ever Annual General Meeting of The Knights of the Round Table Drama Group was convened to open the next chapter in the drama group’s history.
