Plays
I write plays on commission or inspiration, mainly for stage or radio: full length plays with live music and songs, to five minute sketches: surreal comedy, and mythical, historical and biographical plays. Recent commissions are:
The BBC commissioned Nowt to Look At, a play for Radio 3's The Wire drama slot. A three character play: two youngsters and a severed head in a specimen jar! This arose from work with a London BBC producer, after being selected for a BBC/Graeae residency at The Hurst, Shropshire, and a New Writing North radio drama course, Ignite, at Sunderland University. I am keen to write more plays for radio, especially comedy and surreal drama.
The Selkie, a full length professional stage production, with original songs, opened at Sage Gateshead, touring the north from Berwick to York in February 2008 to enthusiastic audiences. It began as a radio play, The Seal, runner-up in the BBC Radio 4 Alfred Bradley Award, in 2007. Updating the Selkie myth of the seal woman, set in a dysfunctional Geordie family, it is both funny and moving.
My short poetic play Mine was shortlisted in the Live Theatre 2006 Competition.
Hadaway, The Making of a Writer was commissioned by Cloud Nine for the Tom Hadaway Festival in October 2003. It was the only new full length play written for the festival, performed to packed houses and a wonderful response from literary and local people. It may be unique as a play about the life of a then living playwright. Tom Hadaway's rags-to-riches and often tragic life made a very moving, violent and funny play which has been published by Iron Press.
More about Hadaway, The Making of a Writer.
I also wrote a suite of plays in 2005/4 for Pluto Theatre Company, working with the Darlington Railway Museum.
- It Is Rocket Science! is a half hour comedy for children exploring the impact of the railways on ordinary people's lives through action packed knockabout humour, and was performed to schools.
- George Stephenson, This Is Your Life was made into a twenty minute film for September '04 performances and interactive CD-ROM to be played in museums.
- two thirty-minute plays on railway history, about real characters - a ghost, a female lion tamer etc - as promenade performances in the museum. Three Tales of Trains Gone By and Four Tales of the Rails were performed throughout '05.
I also wrote Who Killed the Commodore?, a murder mystery, for Stage Focus company, performed at various local venues in winter 2002, involving audience participation.
Collingwood and the Tars of the Tyne, was a full length play with songs written for Tynemouth Pageant, and performed in Tynemouth Priory in the open air.
I've also had comedy sketches performed as part of Cloud Nine's Comedy Bites and Laughter Factory. I'm always interested in new venues and outlets for my plays.