ACTOR, director and teacher Anna Friend reckons that, like her theatre company, she is a quirky bird.

Passionate about theatre, articulate about its benefits for young and old, fresh from the success of her latest production, Spur of the Moment at the Shoebox Theatre, Anna’s gamble in setting up Quirky Bird Theatre is evidently paying all manner of dividends.

She’s involved not only in Quirky Bird, but also with a theatre company in Bristol and a collaboration for a major community drama project in Swindon at the end of this year.

“It was lovely to take Spur of the Moment to the Shoebox Theatre – it went fantastically well,” she said. “It sold out on the first night, and the other two nights were also really well attended.”

Anna was born in Portsmouth but grew up in Berkshire. She moved to Thornbury with her parents when she was 16, where she lived for two years before heading for Middlesex University to study for a degree in English and drama.

“Over the course of three years, I fell in love with directing and design,” she said. “I did lots of design work and looking after the backstage stuff.”

After graduating, she gained a job in a film company, where she worked for eight years making music videos.

“It’s a small industry within a massive industry, so you can rise very quickly,” she said. The job included working with some glittering stars of the music industry, including All Saints, the Sugarbabes and Artful Dodger. She recalled that the All Saints hated each other by the time she worked with them – demanding separate rooms and refusing to be filmed together.

“We made videos with the Spice Girls and Chemical Brothers. It was really heady – there was money for music videos and some really vibrant, amazing young directors, like Jonathan Glaser, who went on to direct the film Sexy Beast, and Michel Gondry, who did Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” Anna said. “It was an amazing time to be part of music videos.”

She became an executive producer and worked in artistic liaison, but when she reached her late twenties, decided to make a move into a new career.

“I found I was surrounded by people making commercials and it was soul destroying. I lost the love and decided to do something more worthwhile,” she said.

Anna retrained as a drama specialist at the Central School of Speech and Drama, and started teaching in London, where she worked for a couple of years in a school in north London. It was a performing arts academy, and she said it gave her a great grounding in teaching.

“It was in a diverse community, with some challenging children and a challenging environment, but I loved my first school. I met some wonderful young people, and lots of them are now in their twenties and I still know them and what they are up to.”

She moved to the Wells Cathedral School in Somerset to take the post of head of department, where she set up her first youth theatre group – the Wells Community Theatre.

“We did a couple of productions each year and were fortunate to have a strong core of amazing young actors. I rediscovered how much I loved directing.”

She also met her husband at this time. In 2012 he got a teaching job in Wiltshire and they lived in Calne, Marlborough and Wootton Bassett, before settling in their current home in Purton. Now a mother of two, decided to take up a new challenge.

“I worked for Stagecoach in Swindon for a while, then set up Marlborough Young Actors in 2013. I was working with actors between the ages of 12 and 17, and we did some lovely productions. We used to rehearse and perform at St John’s School,” she said.

With a cast of young actors, she went to the Harold Jolliffe One Act Play Festival with a 50-minute version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream – which won eight awards and reached to semi-finals. They performed Teechers by John Godber and DNA by Dennis Kelly.

“In the summer of 2015, we discussed what I was going to do, and I decided to make this bigger and more substantial, make it the thing I do. I rebranded and racked my brains for a name – and chose Quirky Bird Theatre. I wanted the name to appeal to families and children, but one that reflected who we are and what we do. And I’m a quirky bird,” she said.

Three years later, Quirky Bird is thriving. It is a project with a number of strands, including regular drama classes, the Quirky Bird Company and Young Company. Sessions take place at the Royal Wootton Bassett Methodist church, and the Ellendune Centre in Wroughton. The Minis group is for four to seven-year-olds, with an intermediate group for children aged seven to 11, and the Seniors group, aged 11 plus. She also runs a drama group for adults.

“There is such unfettered joy, in the classes, especially with the minis,” Ann said. “So much imagination and energy. It’s all about process rather than performance at this age. The process each child goes through and the outcome both vary as each child is different. One might gain confidence, another might end up becoming part of the young company.”

The Quirky Bird Young Company was set up in 2016, as a performing company for young actors aged 11 to around 15. Youngsters audition for admittance and rehearse once a week. The company has performed 50-minute and 40-minute versions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Macbeth back to back at the Alma Tavern in Bristol. The production of Macbeth had a contemporary interpretation, set in a school and all about popularity and status in the social pecking order. The young company will be auditioning in September for their next play, which will be a contemporary play.

“I like to find texts where children are able to play children, but the characters have depth and meaning and great dialogue,” Anna said.

Quirky Bird’s main company does one production a year, using both adult actors and young people – as in their latest play, Spur of the Moment.

She is also a talented actor and performer in her own right – and played the seminal role of Beverly in Mike Leigh’s play Abigail’s Party, produced by the Alma Tavern’s in-house company Schoolhouse Productions. The play was performed at Alma Tavern theatre, Bristol, in November last year. The production was so popular they had a re-run in January. She will also be part of their next project will be Tennessee William's masterpiece The Glass Menagerie, in the autumn.

She is also organising a week-long drama experience at the Alma Tavern in the summer holidays. Any keen young actors aged 11 plus who fancy spending a week from August 26 to September 1, taking part of a production of Gorgeous by Anna Furse are welcome to contact Quirky Bird Theatre, as transport may be available from Swindon.

For more information about the play in a week, or any other Quirky Bird activities, visit quirkybirdtheatre.com.