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April 12
Broken News sold out at the New Wimbledon and we had some great audience feeback and reviews so well done to a fantastic cast and my co-writers Andy and Adam. As a result, it will go on a short tour next January and is heading for Edinburgh in 2013! I really enjoyed writing for this energetic, emerging theatre company and have no doubt Squint and I will cross paths again. The reading at the Essex Book Festival seems a life time away but it went down well and I will be continuing to work on that project. I plan to workshop it this summer. Apart from that, I am meeting a talented actress next week who performed a comic monologue of mine a couple of years ago in Cambridge and I hope to be writing more for her - an evening of Clare Shaw monologues is on the cards so watch this space! I love a monologue and every now and then make myself a cup of tea and a crumpet and sit down and listen to the master, Alan Bennett. Alan Bennett and Thora Hird were the winning combination when it came to poignant and darkly comic monologues - maybe Debbie and I will follow in their footsteps.....
February 12
I said I wanted to work with Squint again and I am! I am one of the writers involved in 'Broken News' which will be on at the New Wimbldon Theatre from 4th - 7th of April and it looks to be a very exciting production and all due to the inspiration of the very talented writer and director, Andy Whyment. Get your tickets and read all about it on www.squintonline.com We've been very busy researching this which included a fascinating trip to the ITN newsroom where we watched the lunch time news going out and met some of the people involved. Very inspirational. But before that, I am trying out the beginning of my play set partly in the Warsaw Ghetto and partly in a nursing home - a bit of a different direction for me. Anyway, you can come to this reading at the Lakeside Theatre in Essex University on the 2nd March and it's all part of Essex Book Week. I am very pleased to be involved in this week which is getting bigger and better every year. So, life is very busy at the moment. Looking back on this blog, I notice I use the word exciting rather a,lot but then that's what play writing is to me - exciting. One minute there's a blank piece of paper or empty screen and the next thing you know, the theatre is full of people waiting to see what you've got to say and how the actors and director are going to interpret that. And you don't get more exciting than that!
January 12
Last year ended well with a really good reception for My Inner Simon Cowell in Cambridge and for my monolgue - And Now For The Main Couse - in Kent. Then the new year got off to a good start with an excellent evening at the cockpit theatre on 8th January produced by the very talented Squint Theatre Company. Their production of my play 'Start With the Kitchen Foor' was wonderful with great performances by Imogen Rose and Johannah Jolson. I hope to be able to work with this group again. Start with the kitchen floor was set in the 80s so it was a good chance to reminise about big hair and pot pourri. I am now working on a screen play which is a new direction for me but as they say, feel the fear and do it anyway!!
October 11
Its' been a busy summer writing and I am excited about a new book which should be coming out next year - but more of that later. I am also finishing the last touches to a monologue which is going to be performed by a very talented actor in December but again, more later... More immediately, I am looking forward to a rehearsed reading of 'My Inner Simon Cowell' in Cambridge on the 22nd October and hope to go on to develop this into something more, maybe even a sit com. This is a step outside my comfort zone, even though I am known for the humour in both my plays and books, and so I am going on a sitcom workshop this weekend which I am really looking forward to....I have always liked to challenge myself and humour has always got me by in life. And I always look forward to spending time with other writers - writing is often by its very nature solitary. But we do get out and about sometimes - in fact I often attend a playwriting group where we can read out initial drafts of plays and get a feel for what's working. After all, the secret of writing is re-writing and re-writing until you get it exactly how you want. Now, let me just read this through and see if anything needs changing.....
May 11
It's been a hectic couple of months but the wonderful weather has given me lots of opportunities for writing outside which always gets the creative juices well and truly flowing. Samaritan with Soup went out on Radio North earlier this month and it was a very interesting experience. The joy of writing for radio is that you don't have to worry about location or set or props or number of characters or any of those other financial limitations you have to be wary of when writing for the stage. If you want an army outside the taj mahal looking at valuable antiques, then you can have it. Three great actresses read through my play now called 'In the Mood' and all of them, plus the wonderful director David Phipps Davies pooled a lot of ideas into this play - so watch this space.... I am currently working on a play based on a local East Anglian story which I'm very excited about. But writing takes on lots of forms - I recently wrote a short tribute to my parents which I read out at their memorial service and I have been inspired to write some poetry just for the pleasure of it. As all writers will tell you 'I write because I have to...' In fact I often wonder if it's some sort of disorder - compulsive writing disorder perhaps. Anyway, I must go...I need another fix of that creativity...
March 11
My short radio play - Samaritan with Soup - has been recorded and due to be broadcast on 1st May so watch this website for details. This has given me a taste for radio so I am ploughing on with my adaptation of The Other Roof. I am also busy re-writing one of my earlier plays for a read through with the actors and director in April. This is about three generations of women but does feature the music of Glen Miller. I am keen to re-vamp this as my parents were great fans of Glen Miller and my father actually met him. As my father sadly died in December and my mother a few weeks later in February, this will, I hope, be a fitting tribute to them. I have just been to see the Umbrellas of Cherborg by the wonderful Knee High Theatre Company and it has inspired me to use more music in my plays, and perhaps one day be involved in writing the book for a full blown musical. And yes, I take back all I ever said about musicals... Except maybe the Abba one, oh and we will rock you, oh and....
December 10
Where did November go? Some of it went on looking after my father who sadly died on 16th December of cancer. I have so much to thank him for and I doubt I would have been a writer without him. When I was a child, he took my brothers and I to the pantomime at the Palladium every boxing day and that is surely where my love of all things theatrical began. Then, when I was a student in Londn, he often took me to the theatre and it was then that I was introduced to Tom Stoppard and I began to see the possibilites of play writing. So thanks for that, Dad, and for always having a book in your hand as I was growing up, albeit biographies and murder mysteries. I am currently busy writing a poem for his funeral on the 30th and will resume all other writing in January. So, Happy New Year to everyone and good reading, writing and play watching to all....
October 10
The Other Roof has been postponed until January and will now be shown at The Pleasance - a new venue for me so I'm really looking forward to it. During October, I had a chance to see a rehearsed reading at Cambridge of my duologue - Things We Didn't Know - which went down very well. Those evenings at the ADC theatre in Cambridge are great fun so google writeon and get yourselves along there... I'm sure there's a link somewhere on this website. In the meantime, I have been asked to do a short piece for radio and, at the same time, I am adpating 'The Other Roof' for radio. I'm very excited about getting involved in the world of the 'wireless' which I read is making a comeback. So long as no one's tempted to do any reality radio, it's a safe haven. I hope.
September 10
August was a very busy month. The highlight was meeting the very talented spilt milk theatre group. I saw what they can do at the Proud Caberet Club where you can watch some wonderful theatre and have dinner (or work you way through the cocktails). Do google this and take yourself along to one of the milk club evenings (usually a Wednesday). This group made a very good job of my play 'Surveillance' at the chicken and hens in Islington. Hope to work with them again - some real talent there. I am busy writing a rather more serious play - can't say too much about it at the moment but watch this space. In the meantime my play 'The Other Roof' is to be given another platform with Writer's Avenue, this time at the Soho theatre studio and that will be in December - dates to be confirmed shortly. And I still found time to watch other people's plays this summer - loved 'Earthquakes of London', 'Through a glass darkly' 'All my sons' and 'The beauty queen of Lenane.'They all inspired me as a playwright and daughter Jessica as an actor. London theatre is alive and well.
August 10
I hope you like the new look website - all thanks to Coleen (you can find her on my contacts page).
When I was choosing the quotes to put on my home page, I was perturbed to see how many of them relate to madness. Are all writers really a little bit mad? (Answers on a postcard please)
The sun is shining and I am now writing in my summer quiet place - a shed in the garden, where I can tap away on my laptop to the sound of birdsong. Wonderful.I'm still thinking about the great perfomances for my play at the Rosemary Branch (The Other Roof) and hope it all goes well at the end of August when 'Surveillance' is given its first airing (see my plays page). But for now,I am pressing on with my novel....
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