Some exciting news. My short play Inside My Head will be staged by the Bread & Roses Theatre Company in February, as part of their regular Platform event.
The show is on Friday 22 and Saturday 23 February, and will include several other new plays on the same bill. Times and ticket details to follow very soon.
You can read an excerpt of Inside My Head here, or if you’d rather come to it fresh forget that and come to the show next month!
In a year of huge personal milestones – getting married, moving to London –I’ve also managed to get some writing done. And now I come to the end of 2012 with a small stack of projects nearly ready for the outside world.
As well as my new play, Closed, I’ve been working on a screen adaptation of my novel Exit Strategies. This has been a challenging and rewarding project as I’ve had to strip the story back to its basics and build it anew as a feature film. Minor characters and subplots have gone by the wayside and I’ve had to ask myself: what is this story really about? What is the point of this film?
And the answer I’ve found is a very old question: can money buy happiness? My central character, Vic, believes that it can. Indeed, he knows the precise figure which will trigger a life of blissful content. The trouble is, how can he prove his theory true without causing others to be unhappy? I finished the first draft of the screenplay just this morning and I can’t wait to get started on the rigorous second draft in the New Year.
Also in the New Year I want to film a short adaptation of my play The Interview. I’ve got a script ready and I’m talking to a few people about putting a production together. More news on that soon I hope.
Away from my own work, highlights of the year included Duncan Macmillan’s Lungs at Shoreditch Town Hall, a wonderfully sharp, witty and genuinely touching play about a couple deciding whether to have a child. The writing is uncannily, sometimes unbearably accurate about the contradictions, deceptions and self-deceptions of human relationships.
Also, the North Sea Scrolls at St Pancras Old Church was a treat. This collaboration between Luke Haines, Cathal Coughlan and Andrew Mueller presents an alternative history of the British Isles strung around a set of beautifully crafted songs. Esoteric, hilarious, bizarre – and, crucially, the playful conceit doesn’t dull the melodic intensity. And there’s an album too.
So there we have it. Another year passes into history. See you on the other side.
