Oral History: Josie Daxter

A lot of laughter. We’d all quite often burst into spontaneous song. Um, bit ridiculous. Um, and yeah, it was just busy. It was a really… And, and full of… I mean, obviously there were the full-time staff there, but there’d be a few people like me who were, you know, previous members who maybe now freelance actors who were able to sort of come in and do a bit of ad hoc, I don’t know, envelope stuffing or- Mm-hmm at that point, yeah, you had to like frank all of the post and take it to the post office and, um- So yeah. There was a lot- Mm-hmm … of stuff going on. And the phones were always ringing actually. We’d be constantly manning the phones because, you know, we were on email, but it was 2007 probably when I started working there. And so you’re still- Mm-hmm … getting a lot of calls from, like, worried parents whose children haven’t heard whether they’d got into NYT or not, or, um, I don’t know, all, all… Manning all sorts of inquiries related to that. Mm-hmm. Does it, um… Obviously the, the building on Holloway Road has had a bit of a refurb. Yeah. Does it feel like the same space or do you feel similarities or? It actually does. I, I love what they’ve done with that building ’cause it still really feels like the same building that I knew when I first started there. And actually I’ve worked… I, I’ve kind of been in that building with so many different hats on now, ’cause as a performer, uh, we rehearsed The Master and Margarita in there, um, with Complicité. That rehearsal room is, like, one of the biggest ones in London. So I remember coming into that building as a professional actor, like working with Complicité and just kind of going like, “This is the building where I, like, started and now I’m here.” And, and then, yeah, working there as a director now and… So yeah, the building has held a lot of different experiences for me. Um- Mm-hmm … but it still feels like the, the same place. It does still smell the same which is nice. Um, but yeah, there’s sort of corners of it that just feel completely, like, untouched. Um, and then even the n- the new spaces just kind of feel like they were always there. Yeah. Mm-hmm. It’s much more open. It’s… I mean, there’s obviously loads more rooms to rehearse in and, um, yeah. But the kind of feel of it is the same. Mm-hmm. The basement is maybe my favorite place Mm-hmm all the costumes and all the props and, and now we’re starting to use it, like they’re building kind of little meeting rooms and things down there. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Having made all those transitions then of, you know, the, that NYT has seen so many versions of Josie Dexter, you know?