The award-winning performer speaks with Michael Cox about his upcoming dream project at The Arches.
“This is the show I’ve always wanted to do ever since I started in theatre,” says Rob Drummond about his latest production Wrestling. “It’s always been the dream show.” However, Drummond has had to wait until now to put it together. “[It] needed the proper funding: the right people, the proper support and the right time to do it.”
Everything seemed to come together last year when The Arches approached him to produce a cross-arts collaboration. The project has certainly evolved from its conception – at the beginning Drummond knew he wanted to make a play that “featured pro-wrestling” but it has evolved, in that his “expectations [for the show] are now higher”, particularly because of the immersive training Drummond has committed to during his research process, training that has been very real and has involved pain and injuries.
Drummond has had an interest in wrestling since he was 8 years old. He first encountered the world of wrestling at the home of a friend and became hooked instantly. Watching the sport for the first time, Drummond thought: What the hell is this? “I’d never seen, never heard of wrestling before. I saw this massive guy fighting…and thought how can this exist and I not know about it?” From then on, every birthday and Christmas was filled with presents about wrestling.
Drummond’s big ‘A-ha!’ moment in learning how wrestling actually functioned was when he discovered how blood effects were created. “The first thing that really opened my eyes to it was learning the blood was real. I just assumed that they had blood capsules that they applied quickly then ditched. I thought I’d seen Bret ‘the Hit-man’ Hart [his favourite wrestler as a child] do that in a match. I thought I’d seen him running blood across his head and then getting rid of the capsule under the ring apron. What I’d actually seen was him running a tiny little piece of razor blade along his forehead and then hiding the razor blade… when I learned that had been a razor blade… that turns some people off, but to me it just seemed that it made them a bit more committed to their art.”
Due to his long-standing active interest, Drummond was well-versed in ‘the language of wrestling’, but for his production he wanted to make sure that it was “an authentic theatrical experience, with a sense of disbelief”. To achieve this, Drummond approached the Scottish Wrestling Alliance (SWA). Agreeing to assist were SWA Head Trainer, Damien O’Connor, training partner James Tyler, and the current “Laird of the Ring” who has acted as a personal trainer, Joe Coffey. The research training has been tough for Drummond, both mentally and physically. “I think I would have quit if I didn’t have a show to put up at the end of it.”
Drummond admits that members of SWA were initially concerned that he wasn’t interested in creating a serious look at wrestling, that he was instead hoping to “theatre-up” wrestling or simply to deconstruct a wrestling match. Apparently there have been people in the past who would show up for only half a day, believing this was sufficient time for them to have acquired the needed knowledge to write about the sport. Drummond has proven different, not only showing an immense amount of commitment to the project but also spending months in serious training and research (including an insightful trip to America) and sustaining multiple injuries, such as a near production-ending arm injury and a recent fall that has left visible marks on his face.
Drummond expects that the audiences for this production will comprise mainly of regular theatre attendees as well as curious wrestling fans. He hopes to “challenge their expectations” as to “what is theatre” and “what is wrestling.” He also states that there should be an element of “nostalgia” for those like him who grew up with wrestling in the early 1990s. On realising a long-held ambition, Drummond is full of optimism. “I am able to put on the show that I could only have dreamed of and not really believed I could have definitely put on.”
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