At Home on the Peninsula
Running your own company is something many of us dream about, but for Nina Flitman and Dan Dawes, it’s a reality. Together they assembled, moulded and continue to manage their theatre company, Idle Discourse Theatre (don’t let the nod to Samuel Beckett pass you by – “Let us not waste our time in idle discourse!”). But they’ve got other things going on, too: Nina is a financial journalist, and Dan is a full-time actor, often travelling for weeks at a time with a show.
So when they invited The Peninsulist into their home, we jumped at the chance to delve into their theatrical world. Most of the time, on entering someone else’s home, you might notice the odd pop of colour, but Nina and Dan’s apartment is a swathe of arresting visuals, turning you every which way. It takes a moment to pick something and settle on it, so eager are you to analyse each and every piece that adorns the walls. But it wasn’t always like this, Dan says: “When we moved in, we had an outdoor table and chair set, an inflatable mattress and one sofa chair.”
It’s quite the leap from that to the apartment’s current look. Nina says they were excited to work with the blank canvas, using a wide palette to give the white walls a splash of colour and create something balanced but visually stimulating. And it points directly to their craft: Dan explains that they are always heavily involved with the design of their sets, so the blank space is one that gives them joy, knowing what it can become with a little spontaneity.
Spontaneity, it seems, is the key to much of Nina and Dan’s lives. “We came to the Peninsula on a complete whim,” Dan explains. “We’d been looking to buy a flat for a while, and then I saw an advertisement on the tube. So we came down to see the showroom, and we thought it would just be a case of looking at a beautiful space and then going back to our rented flat, and thinking it over for a while. But it ended up being the complete opposite. We walked away that day having bought a flat on the spot!”
Nina says that when they moved in, they were the first ones in the building for a while, “which was quite strange, but great. We make spur-of-the-moment decisions, but it always pays off.” With already demanding jobs, you can’t help but wonder about the trials of adding in the running of a theatre company, too. But Nina says that this was made possible, in part, by the location. “My ‘regular’ job is down at Canary Wharf, so it made sense for us to move here, and I can’t tell you how much of a difference it’s made to my day. I love being able to get home from work in 15 minutes, and it also means that I have so much of my day left. I get to spend that time working on something I’m really passionate about – the theatre.”
Dan says that it’s also about being by the river. “We’re both from coastal towns, so being here has a nice tranquility to it. And part of the appeal was that we were moving into somewhere that doesn’t quite have its own fixed identity yet. We get to be a part of that now, and help to shape it in some small way.”
“"We came to the peninsula on a complete whim. We’d been looking to buy a flat for a while, and then I saw an advertisement on the tube, so we came down to see the showroom. We walked away that day having bought a flat on the spot!" – Dan”
Their theatre company, though, takes up the majority of their time, with six shows this year, two of which Dan has written. “We spend most of our time getting funding for projects and then finding the location. Nina produces, and I write, direct and act full-time. I love to sit here at the dining table actually, because there’s an amazing view straight out across the whole of the area and out to the river. I prefer to write at night because it’s so quiet and still.”
“He often writes until 4am,” interjects Nina, “blaring whichever music he’s chosen to score our current play with. Most recently it’s been tracks from the Red Army to match our Soviet space-race play, Tales from Star City.” They have a playful back and forth, and it’s obvious that they both care deeply for their craft.
Dan explains that music and movement is essential to their work. “If I’ve got an idea for a play, I have to find a soundtrack to get the ideas flowing. We also went to the Science Museum and got this Russian poster, and that really inspired things.”
The pair evidently surround themselves with the inspirational, and when it comes to the shaping of their apartment, “eclectic” is their chosen descriptor. “Our most recent production was sweet and funny and also devastatingly sad,” muses Nina. “And so it wasn’t possible to categorise. I think that’s what we really love, and that’s what the apartment is built around. That, and the sofa chair.”
“"We're both from coastal towns, so being here has a nice tranquility to it." – Dan on living on the Thames.”
So they have slowly collected little mementos that are carefully arranged around the flat. There’s a tea set from a trip to Morocco, prayer flags from India, a very enticing selection of spirits from a show Dan did in Belgium, a carefully balanced set of wooden boxes that make up a shelving cabinet. “We like to pick up bits from wherever we go, be that travelling or from a show.” It all serves as a little reminder that influences can come from anywhere, shaping us in little and myriad ways.
Nina and Dan’s apartment has a rare quality. For all the colour and vibrancy, it reminds you to stop and really look at something, for the story behind it and the story ahead.
If you'd like to discover more homes on the Peninsula, view our riverside properties.
