START-UP ADVICE

Back then, to be an actress was a rare
and exotic thing, and, to a certain extent,
Mariele became a victim of her mother’s
success, crowded out of key auditions by
the sheer weight of numbers of people
desperate to follow in the footsteps of the
trailblazing actresses of the 60’s and 70’s.
On the other hand, perhaps casting agents
saw something in her that she hadn’t yet
recognised in herself, that she was going
to be a huge success behind the camera,
rather than in front of it.
Not one to dwell on disappointment,
Mariele, who trained at East 15, the
renowned Acting School affiliated to
the University of Essex, whose “extreme
methods”, Mariele recalls “meant a lot
of people running around naked”, she
decided to produce her own dramas for
radio. Beginning with just a microphone,
a script, and a rented recording studio in
Marylebone, she leveraged the skills of
her friends and contacts, many of whom
she met whilst working at the London
Dungeon, where she describes the pool of
talent as “unbelievable, just a lot of actors
messing around and having fun”.
Mariele seems refreshingly unaware of
her own leadership skills, often attributing
the success of her business to friends,
family, actors or writers, when it is her
who had the vision to start putting the
plays online (at her Dad’s suggestion,
of course). She realised she might be
on to something when her well-built
website crashed under the weight of
demand for downloads; she had attracted
15,000 subscribers and produced 150
plays without really realising it, by doing
something she loved. Extremely well.
So Mariele decided she would become
Wireless Theatre’s first full time employee.
She has introduced subscription
fees, £3 for 3 plays, £25 for unlimited
downloads, and despite a slight downturn
in audience, an inevitable consequence
of the new paywall, she still manages
to attract around 10,000 unique visitors
each month, an even more impressive
achievement considering that she has
never allocated herself a marketing
budget beyond a few hundred pounds
spent here and there. She wrote to every
actor she could think of, somewhat
ingeniously securing their services by
selling the Wireless Theatre story to them,
then suggesting they help to fund the
project, or “if you can’t give me money,
give me 45 minutes of your time”. The
result? Stephen Fry, Nicholas Parsons,
Lionel Blair, Julian Glover, Jo Brand, and
many others have all read parts for
her. When I suggest that she possesses
the instinct of a true entrepreneur, she
demurs, “entrepreneurs make a lot of
money, I’m enterprising!”
She has since shown however that
she can attract investment, initially to
help redevelop the website which was
becoming “like an Indian street”, with
links and shortcuts all over the place.
She found, to her surprise (though not
to mine) that she enjoyed the funding
roadshows, and investors were keen to
share in the success of Wireless Theatre.
She is cautious about giving away too
large a share of the business, but keen to
address the lack of a full time marketing
manager, and writers, actors and directors
all have to be paid. When you think about
the amount of responsibility Mariele has
taken on, it is a staggering achievement,
and with so many people in the acting
community dependent on her, she admits
to being a workaholic. Learning to trust
her own instincts, and realising that “there
is no right or wrong way” to run a business
have been key to her ability to manage
well.
Making BBC radio’s preferred list of
suppliers, and contributing a first play
to the corporation, who are notoriously
difficult to please, which aired in October
last year, is a “stamp of quality” that is
likely to help bring in more funding for
Wireless Theatre when it is next required,
as is the OGLE awards the Company has
picked up; a silver last year, and gold this
year. Mariele was unable to travel to the
awards ceremony in Kansas, as she was
too busy back in London, and her travel
budget would not allow it, but in a typical
display of generosity she is delighted that
the show’s writers did attend. Her time
will come, surely. Constantly innovating,
she has experimented with ITunes
downloads, but believes the cut taken by
Apple (nearly 50%) to be too large. She
makes sure she hires a new actor for each
new production, and has also diversified
into producing voice reels for aspiring
voice actors. She knows how hard it can
be for actors struggling to find work, and
accepts that many actors, particularly
men, leave the industry for better paid
work elsewhere as they settle down and
start families.
She admits to still feeling a pang of
jealousy when an old friend or colleague
picks up a prestigious acting role, but
may end up spending more time in
the limelight than she thinks. The next
big project for Wireless Theatre will be
recording “8 plays in 8 days”, at the world
famous Edinburgh festival in August, live,
with sound effects, and plenty of audience
engagement. The theme of the plays is
“Couples who changed the world”, and
it promises to be a cracking and truly
diverse series, featuring a script from
comedian Arthur Smith, and revealing,
at times shocking characterisations of,
amongst others, Adam and Eve, and Henry
Ford and Adolf Hitler. There’s clearly no
barrier preventing Wireless Theatre from
being cutting edge and avant garde; The
Radio play might be an historic tradition,
but Wireless writers know that listeners
also like to be challenged.
Mariele is used to leading by now, and
getting used to the success it brings.
She could do with an admin assistant,
accountant, another producer and an
artistic director, to help out at the studios
she uses in Soho, Willesden Green and
Bow, where she now lives, having grown
up in Earls Court and attended the Elliot
school, which she describes as “tough,
but some of the best years of my life”. To
succeed in drama one has to have poise, a
sense of timing, and know your audience.
Coincidentally managing a growing
start-up requires a similar skill set. The
future looks bright, and the spotlight is on
Wireless Theatre, and Mariele.
Mariele Runacre-Temple is Artistic
Director and Founder of the Wireless
Theatre Company, the award winning
audio content producers, who also run
workshops and talks in schools around
the country through its Wireless Theatre
In Education Programme.
Download the first episode of “Spring
Heel’d Jack” the award winning Drama
set in Victorian London, here: http://
wirelesstheatre.co.uk/the-strange-case-ofspringheeld-jack-episode-one-the-ghostof-clapham-common/
See Mariele and the Wireless Theatre
team perform their shows “Couples Who
Changed the World” at the Edinburgh
Festival: https://www.pleasance.co.uk/
event/wireless-theatre-presents-coupleswho-changed-world
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