Meeting Frantic Assembly's Scott Graham

Frantic Assembly's latest show, Lost Atoms, coming to the Belgrade Theatre. Photo courtesy of Frantic Assembly.

This week Frantic Assembly will be staging their latest production – Lost Atoms, at The Belgrade Theatre from 21-25 October as part of their UK tour which runs to the end of February 2026. Lost Atoms is written by Anna Jordan and directed by Scott Graham, co-founder of Frantic Assembly which is celebrating its 30th year.

Lost Atoms stars Joe Layton as Robbie and Hannah Sinclair Robinson as Jess, who meet, fall in love and experience a life-changing relationship – or rather, their recollection of it. But can their memories be trusted?

It was the concept of how two people look back on their memories from different perspectives that intrigued Scott Graham and Anna Jordan, inspiring them to collaborate on this production which marks a major milestone in Frantic Assembly’s story.

Elementary WhatsOn were thrilled to chat to Scott recently to discover more about Frantic Assembly and its work. And they have certainly packed a lot into the last 30 years. With 25 full productions under their belt plus another 20 that they’ve been involved in as co-director or movement director; plus having worked in over 40 countries world-wide; they are also studied as leading contemporary theatre practitioners on five British and International academic syllabuses. On top of that, their flagship programme Ignition is an innovative, free vocational training programme for young people aged 16-24.

So my first question for Scott Graham was, could he ever have imagined such a long and successful career since his student days at Swansea University where he first discovered the world of theatre.

Anna Jordan and Scott Graham. Photo courtesy of Frantic Assembly.

"We never envisioned this - I certainly didn’t,” said Scott who comes from Corby, Northants. “My whole reasoning for starting a company with my friends was that I’d suddenly been inspired by a theatre company called Volcano who had come in and worked with the students. Another co-founder, Steven Hoggett was in the show, so we both experienced it from either side. It was just extraordinary – there was this hugely physical and visual performance that just felt so alive and so different from anything that I’d seen or could have imagined. Steven and I just wanted to devour this and learn more about it.

“We weren’t theatre students, I had no intention, no awareness of this kind of world beforehand. So I joined a drama group and luckily Volcano took an interest in me and Steven. They gave us advice and opportunities to train and do workshops and just experience that world. That had a huge impact not just on the direct experience we had, but the act of generosity, it was that act of opening the door for someone which had a huge impact.”

Building their business was hard work but getting onto the Enterprise Allowance Scheme helped. “We were living on £40 a week so the incentive to work hard and succeed was there!” Scott recalled. “We wrote letters to everybody - to every theatre, trying to get a foot in the door, and the moment we got a foot in the door we offered our services to schools and colleges in that area. Interestingly and I think vitally, what we were offering was skills rather than an exploration of the themes of the play. We were always about empowering the people who we were working with to make their own work and that continues right to this day.”

As for Scott’s inspiration for Lost Atoms, he said, “I was inspired by Alain de Botton’s book, Essays of Love, about a relationship which began by chance, flourished, then burnt out. De Botton charts that, written from a perspective of memory. I thought there was something really interesting about that and approached writer Anna Jordan who has worked with Frantic before, but with another director. Her first reaction was to say, yes it is interesting, but I’d like to hear what the other person in the relationship thought. So, we quickly started to focus on the discrepancies in memory of their relationship.”

Over the next 18 months or so, Scott and Anna developed lots of ideas, from just talking about experience of love and relationships to the possibilities of how these characters might emerge and crucially working with the two actors that they wanted to be in the show.

Scott admitted that it is difficult to find a meeting of two minds and usually he will approach someone and invite them to work on a project with him. The writer’s job being to create a fully structured story while he explores choreography with the characters and how the story can be told through movement and image. He added, “I feel that the writer should write with freedom, and I should direct with freedom.”

In addition to their brilliant productions, Frantic Assembly runs courses all year round and up to 350 workshops a year. But is this training something anyone could enjoy and benefit from, I wondered.

“Yes,” said Scott. “Our commitment within any workshop is that the experience should be transformative. So, if you think this is your limitation, we will endeavour to push you beyond that – you are capable of more. But it doesn’t come with a set criteria of being this fit or this able. It’s about pushing forward. I think within any workshop it’s important to invite people of different size, shape, experiences and ages to test themselves.”

Joe Layton and Hannah Sinclair Robinson. Photo courtesy of Frantic Assembly.

When it comes to rehearsals, Scott says that it’s really important to do a lot of fitness work. "Every day we’ll be doing circuit training and strength training, that’s of course to build actors who are capable of climbing all over walls. To build human beings who can feel every day they are getting stronger. So, they are capable of more each day. And that creates a mindset of possibility which is hugely important and hugely rewarding to the person who is involved in that. Otherwise rehearsal could be a dark place, you’re dealing with a lot of human trauma within plays and I think you need to compartmentalise that somewhere. Put simply, going to work should be fun. Leave work with more than you arrived with rather than thinking you’ve just given something of yourself and leaving the rest."

For anyone who has seen a Frantic Assembly show, they will know the movement of the actors is often stunning and complex – even looking dangerous at times! Scott commented, “It is complicated if you look at it in a particular way, and that’s down to the choreography which might look complicated when its finished. But to create that complexity you start with simplicity. And that is part of the ethos of the company. The actors work through what I call building blocks. Which means every step is a simple, solid step. And once you’ve mastered that, you move on and move on, It can appear very complex from the outside but for the people doing it, it’s secure and safe.”

With a set such as in Lost Atoms, with its wall of filing cabinet drawers, I wondered if that posed a risk to the actors. Scott explained, “This set is designed to look like a very complex thing but where you create that complexity is step by step, you have the stage management team behind, you work very carefully, step by step with the actors, because actually, if one drawer is pushed out at the wrong time it will push them off the wall. So, it’s not without risk, but that risk is reduced through choreography, repetition and trust.”

For tickets to see Lost Atoms: https://www.belgrade.co.uk/events/lost-atoms

For more on Frantic Assembly:  https://www.franticassembly.co.uk/

The third edition of The Frantic Assembly Book of Devising Theatre by Scott Graham and Steven Hoggett is out at the end of November.