Going For Gold: An interview with lead actor Jazz Linton

We're here at the Daphne Joseph Hackett Theatre on the set of Going for Gold with his 1970s inspired look. It tells the story of Frankie Lucas, one of the most decorated British black boxers and here with us is the star of the show, Mr Frankie Lucas himself, not really, Jazz Lintott, playing Frankie Lucas. Jazz, all the way from the UK, it's a pleasure to have you. It's a pleasure to be here man, it's such a privilege to be able to bring this show to Barbados. You know, I grew up in Barbados when I was younger and I'm back here now and it's always been a dream of mine to be able to bring some work here. So the fact that we're here, you know, thanks to the NCF and everyone who's helped support us bring it here, I'm just thrilled to be able to put on this award winning show and bring it to Barbados. And the show will be here at the Daphne Joseph Hackett Theatre from December 12th to December 15th. That's correct. And you brought back with you an amazing story, can you tell us about Frankie Lucas and what he meant to you? Yeah, Frankie Lucas was an amazing man who, you know, his story sort of reflects a whole generation of people's story, you know, it's a very wind rush story and it charts the trials and tribulations that that community had to overcome and the adversity that they had to break to achieve things and the struggles along the way. And in this particular instance, it's Frankie Lucas' story. He was a man who was born in St. Vincent, came to England when he was nine years old in the 60s and by the time he was 17, he was the British amateur boxing champion and he beat a famous English guy called Alan Minter to claim that title, but England refused to pick Frankie for the Olympic Games that year. The next year he was the champion again and again England refused to pick him for the Commonwealth Games. So in true Caribbean style, the local community all rallied round, they all raised money, they set up St. Vincent as a boxing association and they flew Frankie out to New Zealand for the 1974 Commonwealth Games, representing the island of his birth and he knocked England out in the semi-final and went on to win the gold medal. And I'm not telling you any spoilers here, this is like the first 15 minutes of the play, there's a lot more that happens in Frankie's story and it's also his partner Jean's story who's in the play throughout as well and she is actually from Barbados and that's another reason why we wanted to bring this play here because it's a very Bajan story and it's a very Caribbean story set in London. So that sounds fantastic and it's good to get that Windrush story, because there's so many stories of people who would have gone in search of a better life but then as you go through those trials and tribulations that what you said there is community is what helps altogether. Exactly. But is it correct in saying that you, I believe looking through it, that you and your mum used to have a presence in one of the markets? Well we had, my grandma used to have a green grocer in London and my mum used to work the till when she was about 11 years old and it was right next door to the gym that Frankie Lucas used to train in and he was trained by a trainer called George Francis who was known as the trainer of champions. He had 42 champions in total, all of them were black and at that time George was a white guy and he had his own challenges, he was barred from his local pub, he used to get hate mail through his letterbox for training black fighters and another one of those fighters was a guy called John Conte who was a world champion and they used to come into my grandma's green grocer shop after training and that's how my mum ended up getting to know them because she would serve them and that's sort of where this story started from. It ignited questions in my mum's mind about what happened to Frankie and that led on to research and then that led on to writing this play. So you would have come across with Frankie in your youth as well? Yes, well I came across Frankie because we made a short film first and everyone in England, the press thought that Frankie had died maybe 30 years prior and so when we made the short film, the short film won a number of awards and we said we really need to contact the family to let them know and we actually found that he was still alive and he was recovering from brain cancer and they said look my dad's just recovering but give me a couple of months and we'll show him the short film. Fast forward a few months, he saw the short film, thought it was amazing and he remembered my mum from when she was a young girl who used to serve him. So we went to interview him and we went to interview him a couple of occasions so I really knew Frankie in the latter years of his life whereas my mum sort of knew him from when he was in his prime and since then we've now developed a really close relationship with the family. In fact, Jean, the real Jean who was Frankie's love interest, she's Bajan and she's flying into Barbados today to come and watch the play here which is just fantastic. That's beautiful, that's a lovely story. So what did it take to get Frankie, his mannerisms, his character to bring that to life? It was hard because there wasn't much footage of him but we did it through, we had extensive interviews so I knew what his character was like, what his personality was like but I was really struggling with, he has this famous stare that people said, this ice cold stare that just would shoot through you. How do you do it? I'm dead now. But it took me a long time and it was basically speaking to a lot of his friends, how did Frankie dance, how did he walk, this stare that everyone talks about, what was that stare like? But the key is really, after speaking with a lot of people, the key is really portraying the essence of Frankie and what his determination and what his character was like. I'm not going to be exactly like him because I'm not him but I can do the best job that I can and as long as I portray what his inside was like and what his spirit was like then that's the best that I can do. The family have been super appreciative, they've been to see it a number of times and they also learnt a lot from the story. The son, Frankie's son, because Frankie went missing for a number of years, his son didn't know about what happened to his dad in his life but because we interviewed so many people and my mum pieced together all this information in such a beautiful way, we were able to present to the family what happened to Frankie in those years and what his journey was like. So it's been a really emotional and rewarding piece to be a part of. That's amazing and that dedication that you have for someone that you would have crossed paths with at some point and you in a way have honoured his legacy. Well you know the thing is, like I said earlier on, this is Frankie's story but it's also my dad's story, it's also my friend's uncle's story, it is a whole generation of people's story so there's a lot of things that you can draw from it. So to be able to tell it, it's just been a huge privilege, it's been an emotional journey and it has been something very special for everyone involved, from production to cast, across the board I think everyone's felt very blessed to be part of such an important story. So this is like, no spoilers to it, but you said this covers 15 minutes of it, it covers his rise as a boxer. Yeah, so the whole thing is about his boxing except for the last act but it charts his journey from arriving, from when he was 9, through his amateur career, through his professional career, and then we see him towards the end of his life where he has a really beautiful third act with his son and it's a conversation between man and son and it's kind of very emotional seeing that scene and so we cover from 9 to 69. So you're familiar with boxing, you're a big boxing fan? Yeah, I love boxing and I've been training for the role, we were fortunate enough to train with some professional fighters and England's trainers, I was in the gym in the morning, 6 in the morning, then at rehearsals at 8, then at the boxing gyms in the evening from 7 till 9, then sleep, then back in the gym, back to rehearsals, back to boxing training, you know, it was intense. So you know all the stances, the correct conditioning and everything? Yeah, I got all of that. That's fantastic. It was very well researched, which shows really from your approach to the acting is a whole comprehensive process. How long have you been doing this? Well we first did this, obviously I haven't been doing it this whole time, but we first made the short film, I think it must have been 4 years ago we made the short film, but at that point it wasn't as intense research because we'd never met Frankie and we just based it off of a couple of articles that my mum had found, and when I say we, I really mean my mum, she wrote the script and she did 95% of the research on her own. So in that stage of it, it was merely just me as an actor trying to do it in a way that I thought, but last year we did the play and so really we've been a part of this project now for about 2 years. But we've obviously had other work in between, but on this particular run, we've been working on this now for at least the last 3 and a half months solid. I'd like to know about your career as an actor, what made you go into this path? Having a really supportive mum who told me don't chase the money, chase your dreams, and that's how it all started really. She signed me up for something in England called the National Youth Theatre, so I started that when I was 14, and then as I got a bit older I went down the production side, and then my mum saw that I was getting more involved with production, so I came back from doing a film in LA, from producing one there, and I arrived back that morning and my mum said I've got some good news for you and some bad news, so I was like okay, well what's the good news? And she was like well the good news is you've got an audition for Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, which is a drama school in England, and I was like okay great, yeah, that's definitely where I should be, and she was like the bad news is your audition's tomorrow and you have two 5 minute monologues. So anyway, again, my mum signed me up for that without me knowing, because she just knows what's best, and then that was the rebirth of my acting career, maybe like 5 or 6 years ago. So what was that monologue you did, what was it about? I think I did a scene from, it's Glen Gary, Glen Ross, about insurance and the art of selling. Always be selling. ABC, always be selling. I'm a movie fan, so when those things come up, the gears start moving. Something that was very interesting when I was looking through the posters is that there's one promotional poster where Frankie is like holding a guy by the throat, what's the story behind that? So if you really want to know the full story, you're going to have to come and see the play. Spoilers! But it's, you know, a lot of things happen in Frankie's professional career that are hard to deal with, and that particular scene was between Frankie and his trainer having an argument about the lack of fights, and it springs from prejudice and racism within the sport, especially back then, and that was at a point where Frankie is just all getting too much. I don't want to say too much because there will be spoilers, but it's a heightened state of desperation to make this work. Well it's definitely something to go see for the public. How was this received back home in England? It was received great. Last year we won 4 awards for it, this year we've been nominated for another award. The really beautiful thing about this is the audiences love it, and we have a mixture of audiences back home. Some nights we'll have, well a lot of the Caribbean community came out most nights, but it was great when the Caribbean community were in and they outnumbered non-Caribbean viewers. Both audiences love it, but the Caribbean culture is a lot more vocal, so we'll be doing a line, or I'll say a proverb in it, and then you hear the audience going, uh huh, yep that's right, that's right, or someone will say a line and then the audience will finish it. That's great, that's what we want, we want that. When audiences are like that, which isn't typical for theatre, so to be in a show that we really got the right audience in to see it, to have them vocally engaged with the show and it gives us as actors on stage energy. Not that we require that, because sometimes if we had a really quiet audience at the end of the show, it's a standing ovation, but it's just nice as an actor sometimes to hear the audience, you know that they're not asleep. I think for a lot of people, especially that same Windrush community, their story is the story of their parents, their grandparents, so that has a very real feeling to it. Exactly. But you're bringing that here to Barbados, where there's a lot of people who also have shared that story, so what does it feel to bring that back home? It feels amazing, it feels amazing, because to be able to bring a piece of great, I know Barbados had a good history with theatre and I know that there was a really thriving scene in the 90s and early 2000s and from what I understand that has died down a little bit. Not that that means that the talent's not here because Barbados is full of talent, it's full of talent, but to be able to bring a really high-end show that's won a number of awards back home, it's just phenomenal, like it's really special, it hasn't been easy to pull off, but the fact that we're here and we're doing it, it's just incredibly special and it's very personal for me because I grew up here when I was younger and I've always wanted to come back and to be able to bring this story, and especially with Gene being from Barbados, it's super special.