Homerton pensioners return to the stage now kids have left home
Alison Mullin and Jack Moylett rehearsing The Immortalist ahead of their performance at The Hive Dalston on July 29. (Picture: Polly Hancock) - Credit: Archant
What do you do when the kids have flown the nest and retirement has been and gone? You rewind 50 years and get back to that old acting thing, of course.
At least, that’s what performing pensioners Jack Moylett and Alison Mullin have done.
The pair gave up their showbiz lives to raise a family in Jack’s homeland of Ireland, where he worked in restaurants and bars. But they have now moved to Hackney to pursue their dreams.
“We’ve decided to concentrate on our careers again,” said Jack. “I went to Drama Centre London years ago and moved to America to work and started the Transatlantic Theatre Company.
“I met Alison who went to Rada and we bought a house in Ireland and spent the next 25 years doing it up and raising a family.
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“We put our careers on the backburner but now the children have moved out we decided to have an adventure. We went to Berlin and did some shows there and now we’re performing in Hackney.”
The couple have adapted The Immortalist by Heathcoate Williams – in which a sceptical TV reporter interviews a 278-year-old man about life and the alternatives to death.
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“I’m 71 so I’m nearly there,” quipped Jack, who once appeared in an eight-hour Ken Campbell production called Illuminatus! at the National Theatre, having opened the Science Fiction Theatre of Liverpool with the same play.
Alison will direct the two-person production – which they are rehearsing at home in Daubeney Road, Homerton, though Jack says they are looking rehearsal space. And he is hoping the performance at Hive Dalston in Kingsland Road will bring the curtain up on a long career.
“We want to write plays,” he said. “I’ve already written one that was performed in Ireland. It’s based on the true story of Roger Casement, who investigated human rights abuses in Africa the early 20th century.”
The Immortalist will be performed on July 29 at 7pm. Tickets are £5 and can be bought on the door.
