Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Aaron Burton: I'll dance around you, but you be the anchor!
42 Plays4 months ago
Joining me for the show this week is Actor Aaron Burton!
We had a few technical difficulties recording this one, but still managed to have a great conversation about the monologue Aaron is performing at Ryton Music Festival, how he got started in acting and his experiences as a visually impaired actor.
Show Logo: Craig Pearson
Theme Song: Adam Sams
Recommended
Transcript
Recording Challenges and Audio Quality
00:00:01
Speaker
Hello everyone, it's Ryan here. I just wanted to mention at the start of the show that when I was recording with Aaron, there were a few recording issues that meant we basically couldn't record remotely, and so we had to record in person, which is not something I've done before. Dan from the Actors Forge kindly let us record at the Actors Forge studio, which allowed us to actually do the episode, but unfortunately the room we recorded in was quite echoey, and that is...
00:00:27
Speaker
quite noticeable on the recording. I've done my best to sort of lessen it through editing and things, but it's it's definitely still there. But I think it's still listenable. I think it's still listenable. It's a shorter episode than normal as well. So it's not like you have to listen to a full hour of it. um I definitely encourage you to listen though, because Aaron um aaron gave an amazing uh interview about being a visually impaired artist and there's some stuff there's some stuff in there about his experience with being a visually impaired actor that that i think is really worth listening to um so thank you to anybody who bears with me for this episode and here we go
00:01:24
Speaker
Hello and welcome to What Makes a Tick Season 2, a conversation podcast where I, Ryan Watson, speak to actors, writers, filmmakers and a range of other artists from the North East of England and sometimes beyond about what they do, how they make it work and the media that inspires them to do that work.
Introducing Aaron Burton
00:01:37
Speaker
Today I'm speaking with Aaron Burton. Aaron is an actor who's a member of the Actors Forge and he's been in Virginia Woolf's Night and Day as part of Durham Fringe 2023 and also the Include Fest 2025.
00:01:48
Speaker
As well as this, he's an oil painter, which I didn't know until recently. You can see his work on Instagram if you go to at Also, I'll talk to you about this in a second Aaron, but you're secretly highbrow aren't you? How are you doing Aaron? I'm secretly very highbrow. Yeah, I was looking on your Instagram today and you had like, I've written it down here, Anabasis of Alexander, you were posting pictures about that. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I did that this morning because I've got a, so every year there's like a competition in writing and it's basically about
00:02:21
Speaker
anything you can do with music, you do speeches, sometimes people do full plays, and I'm doing a monologue and I've chose Alexander the Great's speech.
Aaron's Journey into Acting
00:02:32
Speaker
Now, the thing about that is that it's not really written in one particular play, it's an extract taken from a book, and the speech is actually being, it changes, varies depending on what publisher,
00:02:52
Speaker
a singing one to do and I've also got a piano one to do. The speech changes based on the publisher of the Yeah, because the actual guy who wrote it, that's based on the actual book, when different publishers, so like Penguin and that, they'll change the variations how it
00:03:14
Speaker
publisher. Is it like a translation thing? Yeah, it's like a word-for-word translation because that translation's been lost to time. From eyewitness accounts and various other sources, he's just like pulled it together basically and put it in his book hundreds and hundreds years, thousands of years ago. Okay, what's the, is there a bit from the speech that recognise? Probably not. Basically when saw, when he went down campaigns, all people who was leading through all the, what, through like E.J.
00:03:44
Speaker
because they felt like getting basically, lack of a better term, hard done by. And he was like, well, what I held back from you apart from this cloak and crown? Nothing.
00:03:58
Speaker
Because they pillaged every village and city they took, and they were paid well enough anyway on of that. So he was sort of like, done more for you, so why are you doing this? But if you don't want to, go away, do it, won't.
00:04:08
Speaker
So, ah yeah, are you quite into this? It depends on what it is. i'm not I'm not that massive. I couldn't tell you off the top my head what was going on. and i know little bits and paintings full-blown lecture. And what's the event called?
00:04:23
Speaker
Ryton Music and Drama. You don't have to write in your own material or anything like that? ah No, no, you don't write Well, you can. So when I did it one year, some people wrote a 40-minute play and they put that on and they have of like a professional who sits there and critiques it.
00:04:39
Speaker
And if they win it, they get like a cup or like a medal or something like that. And so you've done it before. What's the vibe like, is it? The vibe's alright, really, to be honest. it's m It's quite old-timey.
00:04:50
Speaker
if makes sense. So you have different people from different backgrounds come in, so people like ourselves. You can have people who are like amateur, who would just come in do it for a of fun. There's people over there who are trying to build the confidence.
00:05:02
Speaker
and were couple the colleges who have done it in the past students forward to do bits and pieces because builds the skills but um would say it's very very very good opportunity um so i guess um the first main question i always like to get into is just can you tell me about your background how did you come to acting and i mean i've got 40 minutes that's the that's the point of the show man so i actually initially didn't want to be an actor went to design games like the
00:05:41
Speaker
as part of my GCSEs and I took media so the media was because I wanted to learn video game development but there was no other way to do that so I went off and did that said that's fine. But at the time I had like I was pretty bad with like social anxiety and stuff like that so was like need to do something about this to sort yourself out otherwise this is just going to continue.
Overcoming Social Anxiety and Career Shift
00:06:05
Speaker
So one day in business class we had a chance to go and they do like some group research in the outpa apartment
00:06:14
Speaker
guy in my form room, turned out to be a guy that I know to this day who was like mad at the theatre and stuff like that when he was younger. And I was like, oh that's cool that, that's planning the same, if that work out then I'll go and do that instead. So went to media when I did college and I just ended up not liking it because it was basically all writing paperwork, very little like actually hands-on stuff.
00:06:43
Speaker
But there was one unit where we had to do short film. And my first, and i was like, oh, right, this might be my chance to start it. Because at this point, I was like, I don't know this. want to try something different. So I went and done that. My first role was the donor.
00:06:58
Speaker
police doc. Police doc. Yeah, yeah. So I was walking around Framble Gate, Mumbai. On all fours. As police doc. Nice. In public.
00:07:10
Speaker
Yeah. So I was like, It wasn't all this embarrassing, I just got up after doing it, I can't believe So the next year when I had re-envolve into stuff, I was like, right, there's a course that's doing it where I was at college.
00:07:26
Speaker
I went in to do on level two, oh well no, I went in this to audition for the level three course but because i had no prior experience people like you can't get home So I had go into my level two, do all the two stuff which I actually did quite well at, even business side and things like that, making the grasp of getting basics.
00:07:47
Speaker
But then I was, they declined my application to do the level three, but they said it was all the work designed to do the same course. Because initially, like, you can't do the dance because of the arts.
00:08:04
Speaker
but when i went to div the el elsewhere sunland they were like, hey yeah, you can get them to choose all these different things. so you can do one unit, you can choose whether or not you can do acting or dancing. And was like, that's brilliant.
00:08:19
Speaker
So went and done that. That was for one unit. They marketed it as the whole course, but then they did as one unit.
00:08:29
Speaker
a contemporary all these things then had to do like musical bits and pieces like that and I was like, this is a bit like, but it is what it is. And then I ended up going to uni to study it and that was when I studied the actual drama side of it. So i dropped all dance and I went and moved on to all the drama stuff. So you did the virginia wolf Virginia's Wolf night and day? i was for a that was for a film and that was like my first popular thinga it was an initial
00:09:02
Speaker
an extra role, but I was basically in the same scene as Timothy Spall and Hayley Bennett. That nice. Yeah, so done that. Jack Whitehall was in that as well, but I never got to meet him.
00:09:14
Speaker
He was off doing other things. and But yeah, I never got to do that. But it was like, I was always and centre, but whether not they're going cut that scene, or whatever bits I'm in on the track and floor, that's by the by. Oh, so is that still coming?
00:09:38
Speaker
or something like that. But when it killed when it came to that, that was the film. And then da's book quite not did, I did Macbeth. I was a supernumerary Macbeth for Elysium TC for Dermot Fringe 2023.
00:09:58
Speaker
And that basically had us crawling on earth on his idea it was he wanted us crawling on our floors like like demons coming out the floor you can't do a lot of crawling on the floor don't you yeah i tend to do a lot from the dog to well apart from virginia wolf but yeah he wanted was he wanted us to go out of like out of the ground as if we're going to like spiders out on the ground but like dead bodies and stuff like that when he's getting like when the old do in their which stop
00:10:28
Speaker
all adjust and it's really fun It was probably one of the the best experiences they ever had. We went out from being, like starting out from, from getting nowhere, dog patrol, to crawling up the ground. And then we went to, we toured it, so we went to the actual Derm Fringe tent. But prior to that we did, I believe it was Usher House.
00:10:52
Speaker
then we did the actual Derham Fringe afterwards. And when did you start the Actors Forge?
Joining the Actors Forge
00:10:58
Speaker
So I came out of uni and needed something to do. So I was up on Facebook one day and I found that and I was oh, Actors Forge, that's it. So I started it round about September of 2024. And remember the first time speaking to was was on the phone room on the rooftop of the spoons in some of them. That's what it was because I was talking to my mates and I was like, oh, do you want to do this after sports thing? It sounds really good. And they had phone number, so I rang his phone and I was like, hello, don't do this guy. Oh, so you basically rang him while you were drunk? No, didn't. rang him while was tipsy. Okay. So what? So was a good... Durham Fringe would have been over the summer in 2023. It was. So was a good... That sort of... Bit over a year then.
00:11:49
Speaker
Yeah, that was the summer before my... It was the summer between... My second year my third year. Ah, okay, so you're still still doing job. Yeah, second and third year in uni because I got the opportunity through uni because they messaged the department. And then graduated and it was like a four, I graduated in the July and then August, September. So it was like a good like six weeks.
00:12:13
Speaker
And then I was like, I need to do something because that. I was struggling to find anything else to do and I was just stagnating at that point. So I was like, something's got to change here otherwise I'm going to lose all this that I've worked hard to get, this ability and stuff like that. I've worked so hard to try and attain and hone. So joined that. So I kind of want to just sort of, I guess it's an important piece of context, really. You came up to me at the Actors Forge Christmas Party few weeks ago and said that you'd be interested in coming on to talk about being a visually impaired actor. Yeah, yeah. And I guess it's probably quite an important thing to mention at this point. Very important thing to my friend and mother. I guess, first of all, can you explain exactly what does it mean
Visual Impairment in Acting
00:13:00
Speaker
to be visually impaired? To be visually impaired. So when people... People talk about visual impairment. It's like a spectrum.
00:13:06
Speaker
It's not because a lot of people sort go about like, oh, he's visually, he's, people don't say visual impairment, they say blind. Blind is the extreme of one end and sighted is the extreme the other end.
00:13:19
Speaker
But visually impaired is a fluctuating, like imagine like a diagram, like a volume thing, so it's like you're going up or down. And it how further down or how further up depends on person person to person.
00:13:31
Speaker
whatever leave with inassociation of their eyes and that affects their vision differently so some people can see perfectly fine but at a reduced range like myself or at a severely reduced range like myself some people can only see shadows and light perfectly fine some people have patches missing out the some people can't see anything at all that's your blind like closer to your blind spectrum area and is something like colour blind also on that spectrum or is that a spectrum? It's more about like what actually prevents you from doing that. Colorblind, it's more it's an inconvenience of course, but it's not going to stop you from driving in other bits and pieces like that. So when you're visually impaired, it's very unique to be as autism.
00:14:24
Speaker
So autism is very different from person to person. Vision impaired is different from person to person. And so you said that you can see, but it's severely reduced the distance. I can, yeah, and see.
00:14:41
Speaker
from being born, I had to learn skills and other stuff that allowed me to be independent and other things that I needed to do functioning life. So how has that affected your acting? I know you'd mentioned... How does it affected... So because people can look at things and go, ah, that's how I'm going get that.
00:15:00
Speaker
That's the facial expression. That's the, like, somebody, the cues, the physical cues and stuff like that. So that's affected my... acting ability because very early on when I didn't know an nothing people were like oh why would we do this do that I can't see I don't know what talking about so even facial expressions I had to learn facial expressions I had learn the feeling of when something should so you're more like you you learn to hone you intuitive side of acting because acting is not just about technique it's about
00:15:34
Speaker
what are you feeling in the moment what are you going to do in order to react to set moment. And that's what I had at home more than anything else. Because I couldn't rely on somebody going, oh yeah, I'm doing this here, I'm doing that there. That's not why so now my... style is let's just go up and do it and i' I'll work around you, I'll dance around you, but you can be the anchor, I'll just do it for all. You're sort coming up with techniques of reacting to people and understanding people's performances.
00:16:05
Speaker
It's understanding as well who they are as well as a person. Because some people are more reserved, some people are more flamboyant, some people are in the middle.
00:16:16
Speaker
So you have to learn in quick succession what that kind of person is of what that kind of person reacts to and how you should react to that and that's how I've learned to act all the time. It's like archetypes in a video game. So like some, like a mage is very good at spells.
00:16:36
Speaker
work on that. So it's pointless you putting something in that doesn't synergise with that might do as well. So you have to learn to be that synergist. Okay. that you know So I guess in terms of examples, like what comes to mind is that scene you were doing with ah with Jack last term, it with a yeah wreck Keith Lemon version Hairy Piker's. And it was such like sort of over-the-top silly energy. But I guess when you're explaining that, i'm like, you know, you you know Jack quite well and you know what Jack's capable of. I know what Jack's skills are, so I can work around his skills. the comparison to that is Charlotte is a very intrusive actor, so she's very in on herself as an actor.
00:17:19
Speaker
So you've got to learn to not only... be present in scene also not go over the top of her. Because if you go over the top her, especially in that scene because it's a tender moment, you've ruined the emotional quality of the scene. So you've got stay in that pocket and that's what I've, because of my eyes, that's what I've learned to do. I've learned to feel when to stay in the pocket and when to not.
00:17:41
Speaker
I feel like I do something like that's like um a minor version of that, you know, like almost without noticing. But it's like, it's so interesting just understanding, like sort of giving your specific perspective on things. I don't care what the other actor does. Yeah. just bothered about what's he doing next and what, well, not what he's doing next. It's like, he's doing I doing? Mm-hmm.
00:18:02
Speaker
So you don't react on the fly. I wondered in terms of, um because this was something you also mentioned to me, and I think you sort of touched on it with uni. You said there there were certain things you were not able to do because of like health and safety reasons and things. Is that something that comes up a lot?
00:18:21
Speaker
I've noticed in a lot of professional stuff, the more reluctant, because when you have, this is not just for theatre, this is for jobs and everything.
Challenges and Representation in Acting
00:18:32
Speaker
you have to get, the company has to get like license like insurance and licenses and that to be able to put that person in that work environment and you have to do extensive health and safety checks to ensure that basically the company's not going to sued and if anything goes awry.
00:18:49
Speaker
So that's been quite a battle and I'm not going to name the company, but I applied recently to another job and I put the application in and then it came back to us and said they couldn't was like alright, I'll just talk to whoever I need to talk to. So I talked to got it up, got it up, signed up and then because of my spotlight stipulates what I've got with my eyes. It says that because I've put on that on there because it's also good for casting as well.
00:19:20
Speaker
Don't make swap. But anyway, went in and then I was like, as I was typing the email to turn and say right I can get the time off, I just, a gut feeling was like I better just tell them, I better just tell them.
00:19:32
Speaker
next The next day I get another email in quick flight saying, would like to talk to you about, you mentioned the visual impairment. I think it was on the application.
00:19:43
Speaker
You could have said this long before, you could have this conversation long before you even put the thing about your time off, not being able to do that.
00:19:58
Speaker
They were like, yeah, yeah, we'll see you on the 17th or the 18th January for an audition. I'll get another email the next day saying, I'll process your audition because of the health and safety on online. So I guess it's not even just the frustration about health and safety stopping you from doing it, but it's the communication of the issue. It's communication because you get questions as well when you're vision impaired. The most common one, or one of the most common, is what can you see?
00:20:27
Speaker
Because you have, if you're born with it like yourself, you can't have a comparison. So it's like, well, I can just tell you why i see what I say, but they don't want to hear that.
00:20:38
Speaker
They want to know exactly what you say, but you can't really, you can't really tell Because you don't know what you say. You just say what you say. Similar if anyone's ever tried to explaining a colour without using the name of any colours. It's like explaining to somebody who's never seen the colour red, what could what red looks like. Yeah.
00:20:57
Speaker
Or someone who's never been able to say before, because he used to know as laden primary school. He was born completely, like, full-on, like, nothing at all. It's like explaining to him what colour black is.
00:21:08
Speaker
He just doesn't know what the colour black is. Like, do you feel that, I'm not sure how to put this, do you feel that, like, there's an over-cautiousness rather than people understanding? I think there's there's multiple there's multiple things to this. because a lot people there isn't over you are right in the sense that there's there is no cautiousness but there's also people who find out and then all of a sudden they change their personality.
00:21:35
Speaker
I've been on a job where I went into the meeting and the guy changed his entire personality, like how he spoke when he was talking to me specifically in the room and I'm thinking of you, mate, just talk normally.
00:21:50
Speaker
As you would talk to son, as you would talk your brother, as you would talk anybody, why is it because all of a sudden you're speaking differently to me? And then there's people who get and just like, they're not asked.
00:22:02
Speaker
Or there's people who are rude. It's like, that's a part parcel of being in life. What are your solar thoughts about how people can maybe, I guess specifically with acting, handle their approach casting visually impaired people? I know that's a huge question.
00:22:18
Speaker
and The issue is, we want representation because there's no better person who can actually play a visually impaired, let's say someone needs to play a blind role, and you're casting somebody who isn't b blind, they will never be able to accurately represent that role on a screen or a stage.
00:22:37
Speaker
It's better as the real article, because you need to learn braille. If someone is genuinely blind, full-on blind, and not be able to see below a certain threshold, that means you have to learn keying skills. You have to learn braille. You have to learn how to use guide dog.
00:22:54
Speaker
You have to learn an enhanced version of the Green Cross quote that you get taught in school. You get more in-depth training on how to make a cup tea. So, a lot of people when tore putting into them roles, they're not being taught all these obvious these yeah these um independent living skills that vision perfect and blind people are actually taught. and And that translates to a very poetic rendition when they're playing it. you just get the real person as part of it anyways. Yeah, it's like can only really truly represent it based on lived experience. I mean it was actually, when I was in, it's another year of story quite bit.
00:23:34
Speaker
So while I went in to do a short film for the film students who were doing a film about a blind relationship. Well, the guy was blind and the last wasn't. But she was plagued by like Nightmares a Creature or something.
00:23:49
Speaker
It turned out to like a... basically you imagine like a pipe cleaner guy at the end. But went up for the audition. I didn't get it and then they gave this other guy the audition. and now sat in the room because they wanted us to be a paramedic who was literally in like... I wasn't even like... like my back was just in the scene.
00:24:10
Speaker
My face wasn't even in the scene. and they asked me to kill us and said, you teach what you're the king? was like, you could have just cast me and I would have been able to do it for you. What? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's actually what happened.
00:24:23
Speaker
I was sat on the floor waiting for, like, waiting to be, like, used in the film, and now all a sudden hear the commotion of the director, and the director came and was oh, we'll just give Aaron something to do.
00:24:35
Speaker
And he said, oh, would you able to give this guy lessons on how you're the king? And I was like, you didn't cast me. how we want begin to me to teach him how to use
00:24:49
Speaker
So yeah, as mentioned, the episode is a little shorter than usual.
Episode Conclusion and Artwork Promotion
00:24:53
Speaker
Thanks again to Aaron. I had to cut off some had to cut off some talk at the end about Aaron's painting in because there were um there were there were people starting to come in to the Actors' Forge and it was starting to get very noisy on the recording. and But basically, ah you should go to Aaron's painting Instagram page, which is... Aaron underscore oil underscore art. That's Aaron with two A's. He's amazing at painting, which kind of blew my mind because um I've known him for most of the last year and I absolutely didn't know that he did painting until recently. And the stuff he does is absolutely amazing. It's these amazing landscape paintings that he does. the that he they he didn't use any reference or anything for him it's just straight from the straight from the dome and it honestly blew my brain so i definitely recommend checking that uh as well as aaron's uh other acting stuff um go to the Ryton music festival um and see him perform alexander the great's monologue there
00:25:54
Speaker
What Makes You Tick is hosted, produced and edited by me, Ryan Watson. Thank you to Adam Sams for the brand new theme music and to Craig Pearson for the show logo. Thanks again to Aaron for speaking to me for this episode and join me next week for my conversation with actor Holly Pages. There'll be an early preview of that on Monday if you go to at Makes You Tick Pod on Instagram.
00:26:12
Speaker
Thanks for listening.