I have been
wondering recently if there is any point writing anymore. My last few plays have garnered great
responses and have made the long-list in various writing schemes, but nothing
further has happened. And now I’m
finding I don’t even get acknowledgements when I forward a script, let alone a
response, positive or not. Whilst I was
touring with the RSC I wrote a play I had sketched out many years ago, and as
it featured a Shakespearean theme I thought this was the obvious time to
complete it... it even featured a pandemic, which actually occurred shortly
after I had completed the play. One of
the reasons I took the job with the RSC was because they announced that they
were interested in actors other talents, so I took the opportunity to pitch the
idea in a meeting to their artistic director, and set up a reading of the first
few scenes with some of the actors of the company, and although everyone
involved loved it and laughed their socks off, no one from the literary team
bothered to turn up. Since I’ve finished
the play I sent it to pretty much everyone I thought might be interested in the
company and again I haven’t even received a single acknowledgement. But I have to admit this counts for every
other theatre I’ve contacted too... no response whatever. I wonder if anyone has even bothered to take
a look at the script at all. I reckon I
have a pretty good writing CV; my plays have a long list of great reviews and
have been produced at wonderful theatres all over the world, so this kind of
negativity puzzles me. I wonder also if
it may have had something to do with the spat I had with Ayckbourn some years ago,
and had been warned that some kind of unofficial black list might be linked to
my name, but I don’t regret standing up for my work as more than once I have
suffered from others taking from me and it hurts. So now I’m thinking is it all a bit
pointless... and I love the writing process and creating a new piece of work,
and I’m often inspired by injustices and want to represent the ‘little man’ (or
woman for that instance) whose stories are often ignored, but are important,
and of course I have been writing about the environment and climate change for
as long as I can remember. But if no one
out there can even be bothered to respond to my voice... well what’s the
point? I’m still working in the care
home, and believe me its hard work, so I do have a regular income thank God and
I do feel I’m doing something important in a small way, but boy do I miss being
involved in theatre and having a voice out there. Anyway just for the record here’s the
synopsis of my latest play. I love it!
THE PARAGON OF ANIMALS
A life-affirming inter-galactic love story.
Climate change and a global pandemic have left small communities, regulated by NHS death squads desperately isolated. At the top of the bleak Yorkshire Moors, Victoria, the beautiful daughter of the landlord of the last working pub in England is struggling to find meaning in her lonely existence... until Pip; an alien being that looks very much like a young William Shakespeare comes crashing into her life. But when Robert, a jealous government inspector turns up too, it triggers a deadly battle for the very soul of humanity, where the cumulative history of planet Earth may be forever lost.
