Invisible me

I know I've been a bit invisible for the past few months. I am still here, but I've been doing all the things a writer has to do, but which are far too boring to share. Such as working out funding applications, having meetings with people, and bouncing around hundreds of emails with other creative types to work out future collaborations and partnerships.

But now that's nearly all done I will soon be able to start telling you all about the fabulous projects I've got lined up to do over the next couple of years. There are still a few things to pin down, but there will be at least one new play next year, as well as exciting plans for my fabulous Scriptorium writers.

So I will try to be a bit more exciting from now on and to keep you posted on developments about 'Urban Myths', 'The Secret Life of Dads', 'Aethelflaed', and much, much more.

Theatre Review

Often as a writer watching other people's plays I see things I would do differently, but if a play is working well I just find myself sitting back and being drawn into the experience, which is what happened with a play I saw last night. 

The Visit is Spanish writer Nieves Lopez's first play written in English, and it's a claustrophobic drama that is keeping the audience on the edge of their seats at the Olympus Theatre on Barton Street this week.

The play opens with a young girl telling us her story while a video is played showing the event that triggers the action about to happen. This worked really well as a shorthand way of feeding us the back story, and from then on we were straight into the action. Two sisters, played with genuine warmth and affection by Monica Crespo and Fleur Hanby, are forced into an absurd situation with seemingly no way out but for someone to die. The rest of the story is a game driven by the extremely creepy Isabel Vargas, and the silent but deadly Lara Hall. The all female cast beautifully underplay their roles, allowing silences to speak vividly, and creating an extremely creepy and intense feel on stage.

The simple setting of the piece in a small apartment adds to the claustrophobic effect, and the audience were carried along with the story, and kept guessing about how the story would be resolved until the very last moment.

This is an extremely accomplished piece of work from a Gloucestershire based writer who is certainly one to watch as her career progresses, and I'm thrilled that she's part of the Olympus Scriptorium writers project.

 

As a bonus to the play there is an introductory appearance from Eve Loiseau as Edith Piaf, poignantly setting the mood before the play starts. And, keeping the audience glued to their seats during the interval was local singer songwriter Joel Ramsey.

The Visit offers a truly good night out at the Olympus Theatre, which is giving local talent a much needed space to develop and flourish.

 

Tom Cruise has never won an Oscar

It's worth pondering the fact above because it's relevant that one of the world's most bankable actors has never been honoured by the industry for his work.

Anyway, it stuck in my head while I've been struggling over the past few weeks to rewrite a play which was put before an audience a couple of years ago as a script-in-hand performance, and had unanimously positive feedback from the audience and the actors performing it. 

So why the rewrite? We’ll if I want to submit it to a theatre it needs to be more…well…theatrical or it just won’t be taken seriously.

So what does that mean? Well it seems that despite years of comments about theatre turning off audiences with impenetrable political issue-driven plays, if you want to be taken seriously by theatre professionals that’s what you need to be writing and putting out there. 

So I’m at a decision point. The plays I’ve written and put on stage have all received extremely positive feedback from audiences. My plays for kids have been seen by over half a million children, and some have been touring constantly for over twenty years to rave reviews. I’ve made a decent living from my writing, and I’m now teaching and mentoring a new generation of writers. 

But that’s not classed as success. As far as the theatre world is concerned I am a nobody, and in order to become a recognised talent I would need to drastically alter my writing style and to produce work that is designed to satisfy the tiny number of theatre folks who decide what is worthy, rather than simply engaging audiences.

So rant over, and decision made. If I want to keep paying the bills and doing what I love, I don’t think I’ll be winning any awards in the near future, but I will be putting something on in a theatre near you sometime soon which will leave you feeling happy, entertained, and hopefully like you’ve been transported to another world for a short while.

Isn’t that what good theatre should be?        

And I'm not the only person saying this. Playwright Anthony Neilson said this ages ago 

http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2007/mar/21/features11.g2 

The Mysterious Gentleman

So rehearsals have finally started for this production.  The script was written a few months back, but since then I've been working with the fabulous Jenny Wren Productions - director Jenny Wicks, and three brilliant actors to develop it further. Playing JN Maskelyne is an amazing actor and magician Peter Clifford. The sublime Mr Derren Brown says of him 'Peter Clifford is one of my favourite magicians and one of the loveliest people I know.'  Peter has been busy creating incredible illusions for the play, and the other actors Elise Heaven and Murray Andrews have been busy learning all the magic they need to perform.

It's been a fascinating process writing and then adapting a script to include magic effects, but collaborating with a huge team of people is going to make this play really spectacular on stage. We've got a great team building all the effects, and our set designer has come to us after working on Game of Thrones, so it's going to look amazing.

There's been so much interest and support for this project all along, and tickets are selling well, but the BBC are going to do a feature next week so if you're thinking of coming I suggest you book before that goes out on the telly!  Tickets only £10.  Dates 8,9,10th May

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