Natasia Bullock sits in F.A.C.T. on Wood Street and surveys the passing stream of people going through the day, like ghosts passing through time, the vapour trail they leave is one that is coloured and magical. The smile on her face never wavers as the assured pleasantries and the usual conversation pieces of two people who know each other well enough to be comfortable in each other’s company, not matter what side of the question they come from.

Natasia Bullock has raised an important point, one in which is hard to disagree with, even if you sit in opposition to her, the respect for this woman of theatre and music is more than enough to listen intently to her conviction and her ideas. For a passionate woman, of the stage and in her belief, Natasia Bullock cuts through life with a disarming smile and genuine affection, it isn’t after all just anyone who can place a Metallica track into a piece of superb theatre which deals with the story of Daniel.

The plan of action is simple, to bring a new type of theatre story to the attention of the city’s young and to give them an outlook on life that may have become almost non-existent in their lives, the idea of B-Tales is one in which, even to someone firmly entrenched in non participation, can only be greeted with warmth and good feeling, I ask Natasia,

So Daniel wasn’t a one-off then?

NB: “Oddly, when I started Daniel I wasn’t intending for it to be more, I was intending it to be a one-off but doing that has inspired me to create the details and it can of just makes sense as I work for other children’s theatre companies and I teach drama to children, that’s what I do every day and it’s just literally a wake-up call, why haven’t I been combining my faith with children’s theatre because that’s two things I love doing and it’s almost I could have been doing this for years why have I only thought of this now.

Yeah, doing Daniel sort of made me go “wow” and people giving me feedback and saying that it wasn’t what they expected, they were expecting something quite traditional but they were more like in awe and were not expecting to have Afroman and Metallica in a Bible story! I think people were shocked by this but enjoyed it and thought where else can I go with this?

So I thought children need to hear this and I think especially the way society is going, children are not hearing the Bible stories as often as I did when I was at school, it was more of a done thing to go to Sunday School a lot of my friends went to Sunday School because their parents thought that was what they were supposed to do but that’s not happening as much and obviously R.E. teachers in primary schools, unless you’re a church school, you’re not as confident in teaching R.E. as they don’t know a lot about it, so yeah it’s been inspired by Daniel but it makes sense that’s what I should be doing.”

I know that your faith is incredibly important to you; Daniel, even from my point of view, was magical and it worked incredibly well at the Everyman, in their ‘room’ – is that how you envisaged it to be like in a school environment with its relaxed atmosphere?

NB: “Yes, I mean with Daniel we were really lucky to have the Everyman Space and it was the first time anything had been done in their EV1 Space and that was really amazing and we had a lot of technical support and obviously I was able to have lighting and projections, amazing sound and three amazing actors, one of which has come with me on my first schools project as well. So it’s still in a school hall and it has that intimacy but I don’t have the same resources for us to do projections in, or do as big as a show but I may have an overhead projector. I’d love to make it more of a production  in the sense of a better sound system, bring in some lanterns and making it more of a production for them but definitely that intimacy in a school hall, it depends on how big the school is and the size of the stage.”

It’s interesting in a way because a lot of schoolchildren, their first introduction to theatre is through a pre-Christmas production, your typical Nativity play or a pantomime. Even though it’s a Bible story, it’s a different way of exploring theatre as well.

NB: “It is still in a kind of religious educational style, the show that we’ve just done was for Easter and there was a lot of interaction, for the last supper we got the teachers and the kids up to be The Disciples, one of which was my Tim, he didn’t know what was going to happen. It’s getting them involved; there was lots of calling for people, getting them involved in that way, just to try and get them engaged. It’s funny as we did it for Key Stage 2, which is years three, four five an d six so all of that audience interaction years three and four love but years five and six want storytelling so the task is to get each to try and get each scene is ready for a different year group to try and keep them engaged and year six they enjoyed more of the storytelling and more of the darker scenes when we did the Easter story. I played Judas and Judas was Scouse and he was a scally so they enjoyed that more than the others.   Apart from Liam, the other two guys in the cast were both Scousers as well and Tim, my Husband, said ‘Why have you got two really good Scousers in your cast and you’re playing the Scouser?’ I don’t know, it’s just the way it went! So it’s trying to engage them all, you seemed to have to do different techniques.”

With the way that you’re doing these seasonal stories, how do you see them fitting in with the first couple of years?

NB: “Obviously we did an Easter story – called it Easter Hope and did it the week before Easter we did that production. The next one we’re working on is one building up for Christmas so it will be the Nativity story with a modern twist on it going from one of the character’s perspectives and then more of a summer production – a story like Noah, something that isn’t seasonal if you like in the calendar but it’s just a nice way to end the term.”

It will be something new for them though, it won’t be the same sort of thing they are used to.

NB: “For the Easter story for example, the opening had one of the actors dressed up as the Easter Bunny and then we said the Easter Bunny is nothing to do with Easter, get off the stage – and then are opening song was Uptown Funk but we changed the lyrics to make it about Jesus which actually a lot of the words fitted already and then we had original songs in there as well with modern-day costumes so we just wanted to make it as accessible as possible and even said at the beginning what if Jesus came to town today? What would he be wearing? How would people react to him?”

I’d like to think he’d be wearing a Metallica t-shirt myself!

NB: “In my version, probably!”

Could you imagine bringing the children into the local theatres and getting them to sit down in front of a play?

NB: “Absolutely, what I’d love to do, I mean this is a future plan, I’d love to do like a rural tour of it, maybe not booking a theatre and asking people to come but to take it to people who might not get to go. So for productions like Daniel and adult productions, they are more for the theatre route but I’d love to go to village halls and take the theatre to them, I think that’s where we’re heading more and again, making it more accessible and taking the stories back to them and saying do you want to hear them and hopefully by putting a modern twist on them, they’ll want to hear them again.”

Ian D Hall