I am not a deeply ambitious person but everyone has dreams. I’ve always fancied working in theatre in some sort of creative capacity – as an actor or a writer - but I’m extremely happy being a teacher. And even more happy surrounded by my family. Bluntly, for a long time, I’ve been quite happy writing and producing a few plays in my spare time and presenting them in small venues to small audiences, getting a bit of feedback and feeling happy with a job pretty well done.
I’ve never particularly tried to be extremely successful. I’m already quite happy with my life! I’ve sent off scripts to theatres during open window periods and to several competitions but it’s always been with the caveat that, “I probably won’t win.” When my producer on Trigonometry, Hylton Collins, invited me to put the play forward for Best New Writing at the GM Fringe, I was happy to. However, we were in a tiny venue in Dobcross which is so far out of Greater Manchester everybody who lives there insists they’re from Yorkshire. The audience numbers would total roughly 120 and for a long time, we only had one performance. I thought we’d be politely ignored and there’d be so very little fanfare that the best we could hope for would be a nice review. Or even a review.
The day before Trigonometry won the award, Hylton, as producer, was asked if I’d accept the very generous terms and conditions that WriteForTheStage had offered for the prize winner should the play take the top spot, and he thus knew the play had been shortlisted. He accepted on my behalf but decided not to tell me any of this. In fact, he waited until I was literally walking into the awards ceremony venue before it came out. Resultantly, I felt nervous as hell for an hour or two and the play was announced at the very end of the presentation!
I was a wreck when it came to an acceptance speech. I can't entirely recall my garbled, witless two-fingered salute to other festivals that had rejected the script in the past but I could have done better, I suppose. I also failed to thank Tim and Michael at The Swan in Dobcross who have been extremely kind and supportive of our efforts for a number of years, even though I’m still not sure if they’re from Yorkshire or not. I also forgot to thank Alice for bringing the characters in the play to life. But I did remember to thank Hylton, who this wouldn’t have happened without. He’s essentially been my script editor for about six years and a fine actor and a gentleman to boot!
And then the work on re-formatting the play and cutting out any bits we didn’t like in rehearsal began. And a fortnight later it was on Amazon! I couldn’t believe the turnaround. Mike at WriteForTheStage has been absolutely and wonderfully accommodating and helpful and put up with a few niggles I had which were entirely of my own making! I imagine the usual business of publishing one’s own tome is not usually quite so easy! Mike put the writing first as opposed to anything else and he did make the process an enormous, exciting pleasure!
Finally, there’s a play out there with my name on it. Whether it is any good or not isn’t really my business any more. That’s for others to judge. But I am very proud of it. In fact, it’s the play I’ve worked on for the longest amount of time and which has been through the lengthiest editorial process. So I’m glad that this one won! And finally, I’m starting to feel just that little bit more ambitious. And the next time I do send off a script or enter a competition, I might have a little bit more faith in my abilities. And I might scrap that school of thought which suggests, “I probably won’t win.” I did win. And it felt terrific! I think I might try being a writer now.
