00:00:02 My name is Nick Thomas and I’m working doing press and PR and marketing at The Pierian Centre. I do a lot of proof reading and preparing of printed matter that we produce and send out. Getting the word about what we’re doing, why it would interest people and so on. But another thing I do is writing. Mainly stage plays, theatre plays and that’s not easy when you’re spending sort of four days a week doing the main job. But it means an awful lot to me, it really does, yeah.
00:00:37 I enjoyed school. I mean, I was quite good at school so that was alright. I chose to go to a boarding school at the age of 12. My parents had split up and so it was a family full of women, full of sisters and mothers and things like that and I was really relieved to get out of that. For the first three years up until the age of about 15, up until I’d done O Levels as they were then, it was great. Then it got very small and claustrophobic. There was no stimulation, really. So, I was very ready, you know, I was very ready to move on.
00:01:10 My family are all in theatre. My Mum, my Dad, both my sisters are or were in theatre. So, that’s what I felt comfortable in. I worked in small theatre companies touring schools, touring pub theatre. I’d be working as an actor, I’d be writing bits and pieces, I hadn’t really found “me”. I hadn’t found something that made me feel “this absolutely feels like me, this is how I can express myself.”
00:01:41 Eventually my then partner and I set up our own theatre company. We were writing, we were acting and gradually I began to realise that I had to learn to let go of things that I’d spent a lot of time working on, little bits of script that I thought were fabulous but in fact they weren’t. They weren’t telling the story. My lesson was to learn to cut back, to make it simple enough to be effective.
00:02:12 My background is theatre and here at The Pierian Centre it feels absolutely no different. We have four or five rooms here that we rent out to different people doing different kinds of work and it feels for me as though it is a show. It’s the same excitement. It’s got the same meaning and if it didn’t have that then it would become fairly routine. You’d just think, “Oh, well, I’m just rearranging the coffee ups or whatever.”
00:02:41 But it matters. I think I’ve learnt that it only works for me when I’m comfortable with what I’m doing. I had a job, a temping job doing telemarketing stuff for a software firm and I had no idea what I was doing and I was awful at it. Here at The Pierian Centre, I'm actually doing exactly the same stuff I’m using the phone, I’m marketing but it’s got meaning.
00:03:09 So, when I pick the phone up I can describe it in exactly the way that it excites me and that’s what I’ve learnt to be myself and to be honest about what I’m doing. Next for me, I hope, is more writing. I haven’t as yet got a proper career as a playwright, as a writer of theatre and I still want to be working at The Pierian Centre but I want to be getting my scripts on the stage.
00:03:40 I want people to be reacting to them. I want them to be produced again and again. That’s what I’m hoping is next.
ENDS
Nick Thomas
Nick Thomas
My name is Nick Thomas and I’m working doing press and PR and marketing at The Pierian Centre. I do a lot of proof reading and preparing of printed matter that we produce and send out. Getting the word about what we’re doing, why it would interest people and so on. But another thing I do is writing. Mainly stage plays, theatre plays and that’s not easy when you’re spending sort of four days a week doing the main job. But it means an awful lot to me, it really does, yeah.
I enjoyed school. I mean, I was quite good at school so that was alright. I chose to go to a boarding school at the age of 12. My parents had split up and so it was a family full of women, full of sisters and mothers and things like that and I was really relieved to get out of that. For the first three years up until the age of about 15, up until I’d done O Levels as they were then, it was great. Then it got very small and claustrophobic. There was no stimulation, really. So, I was very ready, you know, I was very ready to move on.
My family are all in theatre. My Mum, my Dad, both my sisters are or were in theatre. So, that’s what I felt comfortable in. I worked in small theatre companies touring schools, touring pub theatre. I’d be working as an actor, I’d be writing bits and pieces, I hadn’t really found “me”. I hadn’t found something that made me feel “this absolutely feels like me, this is how I can express myself.”
Eventually my then partner and I set up our own theatre company. We were writing, we were acting and gradually I began to realise that I had to learn to let go of things that I’d spent a lot of time working on, little bits of script that I thought were fabulous but in fact they weren’t. They weren’t telling the story. My lesson was to learn to cut back, to make it simple enough to be effective.
My background is theatre and here at The Pierian Centre it feels absolutely no different. We have four or five rooms here that we rent out to different people doing different kinds of work and it feels for me as though it is a show. It’s the same excitement. It’s got the same meaning and if it didn’t have that then it would become fairly routine. You’d just think, “Oh, well, I’m just rearranging the coffee ups or whatever.”
But it matters. I think I’ve learnt that it only works for me when I’m comfortable with what I’m doing. I had a job, a temping job doing telemarketing stuff for a software firm and I had no idea what I was doing and I was awful at it. Here at The Pierian Centre, I'm actually doing exactly the same stuff I’m using the phone, I’m marketing but it’s got meaning.
So, when I pick the phone up I can describe it in exactly the way that it excites me and that’s what I’ve learnt to be myself and to be honest about what I’m doing. Next for me, I hope, is more writing. I haven’t as yet got a proper career as a playwright, as a writer of theatre and I still want to be working at The Pierian Centre but I want to be getting my scripts on the stage.
I want people to be reacting to them. I want them to be produced again and again. That’s what I’m hoping is next.
ENDS
Public Relations Officer/ Marketing Executive/ Manager
Age at filming:
46-55,
Employer's name:
The Pierian Centre,
Job location:
Bristol
Public Relations Manager at The Pierian Centre, Nick Thomas has spent his entire career in the theatre. Following the family tradition he became an actor, writer and set up his own theatre company. He explains the importance of believing in what you do.
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