My Last Show... At Drama School: Oscar Dobbins Talks 'Landmines'

Last year, Italia Conti kicked off their spring season acting productions with what some may deem an unorthodox show, Phil Davies’ Landmines. The show tells the story of Vida, who embarks on a dangerous mission to confront the rise in bigotry and fascism after a peaceful politician is killed in her hometown. Davies’ show explores political upheaval and the media’s relationship with civil violence and terrorism in modern Britain. On the surface, the play appears brimming with potential as it dares to tackle hard-hitting subjects in an unapologetic manner. However, the final product didn’t leave audiences with the impactful feeling it likely desired. But in the end, despite its flaws, Landmines strangely felt like a success by effectively spotlighting a host of supremely talented students in roles that catered to their strengths as performers. The freedom afforded to the students allowed them to show creative depth by successfully integrating their own ideas on stage while also learning new ones.

One of those “supremely talented” students was Italia Conti acting graduate Oscar Dobbins, who played Murray – the racist and misogynistic boss of The Altar. Murray is a truly despicable character, yet Oscar brought such an energy and charm that you could not help but laugh, not at his words, but at the conviction in which he delivered such absurd lines. For this reason, it was fascinating to chat with Oscar about his memories and key takeaways from one of his final productions at drama school. Enjoy.

The show is quite divisive and it doesn’t necessarily appeal to everyone’s sensibilities. What was your initial reaction to being cast in this show?

“My initial reaction being cast in Landmines, especially as Murray, was excitement. It was definitely a character I had never played before – someone with quite a high degree of power or status even. Although I was a little bit nervous, I was excited to sink my teeth into the script and do some research.”

Landmines deals with some very sensitive topics, and your character, Murray, the boss at the media company ‘The Altar’, discusses these topics in a less than tasteful manner. What was the preparation like to play a blatantly racist and pretty despicable character? 

“Well, I needed to find somebody who I could link Murray to, someone in the real world. So, I went down the path of the EDL leader, Tommy Robinson. I watched lots of videos on him and his beliefs and how he worded things in interviews and stuff. And for one moment in the play, where I’m talking directly to the audience, giving my final statement about being asked to go to court, I looked at Piers Morgan. He’s arguably not a racist, but some people may argue he is. He’s really good at talking to an audience, talking to a camera, and making people feel. So, especially for that scene, I channelled Piers Morgan’s delivery, and Tommy Robinson’s opinions, which I think became quite an effective way of looking at it.”

Your first scene is a perfect introduction to your character, as he applauds the leaking of a video showing a murder and then proceeds to kiss all of his employees, be it male or female. What was your initial reaction to reading that scene, and then what was it like performing that the first time?

“I had a laugh at the start – thinking that I have to kiss four different people. But once I got into why he would do it, it became clear, and it became a nice thing for my character. He’s just misogynistic, racist, and just invasive in people’s personal space. He doesn’t care. In his world, it is only him – a very selfish person.  Performing it for the first time? We did a lot of work on it. We had an intimacy coach to ensure we did everything right and everything was above board.

“But performing it for the first time and hearing the reaction was quite nice. Although people laughed, I think people laughed because they were uncomfortable. You know, I had come in shouting at people, and people could tell that I was the boss of the company. It was a nice introduction, and people felt uncomfortable, which is exactly how I wanted people to feel about my character.”

Comedy comes quite naturally to you, and somehow, you made Murray an entertaining character despite him saying the most offensive things. Was that something you tried to do?

“Comedy does come quite naturally to me, actually. I think Murray is an entertaining character, regardless of who plays him. The lengths of racism that he goes to - it is baffling. And people who feel uncomfortable sometimes laugh as a reaction. I didn’t try to make him funny. I wanted him to be as serious as he could be. But with a lot of the back-story work that I did, it lent itself to being young and naïve and not understanding a lot of things properly. I think that’s why he became this entertaining and quite comedic character.”

Many of the cast spoke about the freedom to develop ideas and construct this production together during the rehearsal process. How did you find that experience because it appears there was a lot of independence?

“It was something I had not done before in that much depth. The show became a devised piece - with the director obviously having the final say. But the text was so complex, and the structure was weird - it was just a hard play to get our heads around. So by devising, we came up with - sort of ripping the story apart and how Vida’s monologues were moments that were happening in her head that she was thinking about, which, after hearing people’s feedback, did not necessarily come across. But overall, it was a good process to go through and understand how some people work and some plays are put on.”

A criticism one could have against Landmines is that the narrative feels disjointed and it’s difficult to link the scenes together to form a cohesive narrative. Was that difficult when trying to understand your character’s journey and how he may be feeling going into a certain scene?

“The narrative felt disjointed, which was a struggle for us to get our heads around. But, something that helped me with my character’s through line and arc, which, to be fair, he never really achieved his arc in the end, was all the research and putting things to time and putting in the extra groundwork. I knew exactly where my character had come from, previous circumstances - the time frames were very clear for me even though they weren’t set up in the play, which is a criticism that could have been voiced.”

What will be your lasting memory of Landmines?

“My last memory of Landmines will be burning the script – no, I’m joking. The last memory will be playing a powerful character, someone with the highest status, because, in other plays, such as Oppenheimer or Life of Galileo, I’ve always played a lower-class character. This is my casting, and I’m completely aware of that. And although it could be argued that Murray is a working-class man, arguably with working-class beliefs, I had the most status, which is something I enjoyed playing with and hope to do again in the future.”