I am not sure I am best placed to give the most interesting answer on that question. I was tempted to include some of the most vitriolic and hatefully negative reviews and descriptions from critics, but they are genuinely too traumatic to return to. We can all pretend that they don’t matter but they do. They hurt and lead to me questioning everything, and not just about the work I make.

I think I describe the aspiration of our work in another way. I say how workshops and every interaction must be transformational. It must change something, whether that is a performer or participant’s self-perceived limitation or our understanding of a moment between us. I am also aware that our history is littered with moments where we have described the work, who we are and what we are about. But things change.

We were committed to direct address and the relationship with the audience that brings. Then we dropped that.

We were committed to the one act play. Then dropped that. I think we considered ourselves outside the theatre tradition and establishment and felt the interval was where posh people drank overpriced wine and shared their misunderstanding of the play loudly with anyone unfortunate enough to hear. But then I realised that we were increasingly an important part of the theatre ecology, and the sad fact was that theatres needed intervals to claw back some of the money they were losing elsewhere. I embraced the interval.

We would only do devised plays. Dropped that when we got bored of our own voices or exhausted by the devising process.

We would only do new plays. Othello might have broken that rule, but we did (with respect) chop it about a lot. It felt like a new play.

If there is anything that remains, I think it might be the consistent desire to present heart in the situation. I want to get inside the characters and engage an audience on what makes that character hurt, love, ache, desire, etc. These are often the things that are not being said. The way to get there is through a physical language. The expression and style of that language is open to change but it comes from the same place. One of the points made by a respected friend about a recent production of mine was, ‘but where was the heart? It was missing that heart.’ The note hit home. Not in a painful way. It was incredibly helpful, and I think she was right. I had made a show somehow without that vital ingredient and she felt the vital Frantic element was missing.

I asked the Frantic Practitioners for their perspective on this question. They might not offer a balanced view as many of them became Practitioners through a positive and transformative interaction with the company. I would quote those negative reviewers if I could afford the therapy.

Performer and Practitioner Richard James-Neale says,

‘What I have always found so interesting about the work is the way that Frantic use physicality as a way of unlocking the world of the play. A more traditional method of making theatre may rely on the actor first to have a cerebral understanding of their motivations, obstacles and thought processes by decoding the text and then use these to drive their character’s journey through the story. However, Frantic Assembly use physicality as a fundamental cornerstone in the collaborative creation of the world and exploring the way that the characters move through that world allows the actors, the directors, the creative team and even the writer to discover and be affected by a deeper, richer truth in each moment. From there, these discoveries can be developed, heightened, and foregrounded in the storytelling for an audience. Working physically, a scene suddenly becomes alive with the truth of how these people really feel, the subtext of what is not being said and the potential of what may happen next.’

Performer and Practitioner Felipe Pacheco offers this from his experience of working within the Frantic Method on productions Othello and Metamorphosis.

‘I am definitely a visual learner and will never forget talking about film frames when we were rehearsing Othello (2022/23). Each moment, or frame, in that show (and I think all Frantic’s work) is carefully curated. We’re aiming to paint the clearest and most interesting picture of that specific beat in the story - an image that best suits our telling of it. This clarity of storytelling makes our work accessible and easily legible to an audience. We’re then left with more room to enjoy the dynamism, tenderness, beauty, efficiency, everything else that sits underneath a Frantic show.’

I don’t know if this would count as a description of the work but as far as aspirations it is a pretty good one. Designer Andrzej Goulding once described the work as like a Pixar film, in that it was accessible but had darker layers. I think that might be generous, but it is certainly something to aim for!

Simon Pittman offers something pretty succinct. It is also something I wish I had written myself.

‘They are plays and stories that are written in more places than just on the page. And I’d say they should always make you laugh, cry and think differently about something.’

The boy nailed it.