CURRENT - Gay Pride and No Prejudice
My third play has just been finished and is having a performed reading in May 2012 at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. It’s an adaptation of Jane Austen’s wonderful novel, but with a twist. The title is a tad of a give-away as to how this differs from the original. The story follows that of the book religiously but with heightened humour and additional dialogue and, of course, Darcy and Bingley’s relationship is taken several steps further. Written in the style of Austen’s prose, it is a witty and diverse take on one of greatest love stories.
The Moon Is Halfway To Heaven
Finished a four-week run at Jermyn Street Theatre, London on 1st October 2011 and currently in negotiations for a transfer.
“When you die, you stop off at the moon on the way to Heaven to have lunch and wave goodbye to everyone on earth”. This is seven year-old Jamie’s theory about dying. He still has the same theory at eighty-two.
This is the story of Jamie and Paul and a lifelong friendship between 1920 and 2002. Jamie is in love with life. If he could he would hug the world. Paul is quieter, more studious and the reins that keep Jamie from flying too high.
The Moon is Halfway to Heaven. Photo by Matt Crockett
At seven they think that grown-ups know everything. Paul says it happens when you’re twenty-two and a half, because, at twenty-one, you’re allowed to vote, drink and ‘do naughties’, but it takes a year and a half to get good at them. But, as they move through adolescence to the troughs and exuberances of adulthood and old age, they begin to see that, in the grand scheme of things, we never really grow up.
They always meet in their special place; a clearing in an orchard. And, every time they go there, they make a notch in either end of ‘their’ bench. Its here that they play and philosophise; here that Jamie tries to teach Paul that he can have more fun with girls than the Encyclopaedia Britannica; here that they go to war, recover from divorce, get drunk on their retirement; and here that they eventually face their own mortality.
The play is a poignant comedy that allows us to join the life-journey of Jamie and Paul in all their fallible glory and shows that conventional family ties and marriage are sometimes superseded by the love for a friend.
Playback! – The Musical - (Script Advisor)
I am currently working as script advisor on Paul Rayfield’s terrific new musical ‘Playback’. The story centres around a TV chat show with absent fathers, DNA tests, changed identities, mayhem and intrigue. It’s a funny, frantic, bitchy new musical with some fantastic numbers.
The Last Taboo
This is my first novel. I’m now up to chapter 8, and I’ll release details when the first half has gone to the publishers.
In-House Writer @ HEARTBREAK PRODUCTIONS
| “Pride and Prejudice” | Writer/Adaptor | National Tour | 2011 |
| “The Tour” | Writer | 6-part Comedy Series (Film) | 2010 |
| “Just The Job” | Editor/Co-Writer | BBC Radio | 2010 |
| “The Secret Garden” | Writer/Adaptor | National Tour | 2010 |
| “Emma” | Co-Writer | National Tour | 2009 |
| “As You Like It” | Co-Writer | Short Film | 2009 |
| “As You Like It” | Additional Material | National Tour | 2009 |
| “Peter Pan” | Additional Material | National Tour | 2009 |
Poetry
Currently writing poems for an anthology entitled “Grandmother and Grandson in Retrospect” with my grandmother, G.Caroline Kendall
ELIZABETH
She stoops a little more
Than usual today.
Her breath is shorter.
And her face,
Creased with endeavour,
Echoes the rain-sodden pavement.
Her walk is achingly slow.
Her steps unnoticeable;
But she has reached
The grey cylindrical bin.
Her goal.
She delves deep,
Forcing her hand down.
Swirling it in pattern circles.
To catch the treasure.
A lost pin-point of memory effervesces-
And reveals a young girl.
Frills and bangs and
An English summer smile.
She dives in to the tombola,
Tiny toes tempting the grass,
And pretty face
Squeals with delight
As she catches her treasure.
She eats her apple,
Her treasure,
And dances among the people.
She holds the picture
For only a few seconds.
Her grip has nearly gone.
With tremulous mental fingers
She touches the happy cheeks and
Feels the winds’ breath
In tiny, blond ringlets.
She calls out to her………….
But the pretty little girl is no longer.
Her name was Elizabeth then.
She has no name now.
She moves away,
Garishly devouring her
Discarded, half-eaten apple,
Her treasure.
Eyes voluminous and wild,
Mirroring the moon.
Her empty face
Scans the shop fronts
And chooses a home for the night.
She puts her life down beside her;
And watches.
Past Productions
Corporate
Comedy scriptwriter for UK Veins conference 2007
Scripts for Home Office Communications Dept
Local Press Articles – Various
Save Your Kisses For Me
Originally produced at the Barons Court Theatre in 2007. The new version is in negotiations to be staged in London later this year.
“I lost my virginity at a bus stop. Total disaster, bus came before I did.”
So says Sam to Alex in a moment of alcohol fuelled male bonding. Their girlfriends, Julie and Karen, don’t need a bucket of lager to bond. Women can say “I love you” as friends. Men can’t. However, the guys are becoming very close. Maybe too close for comfort…..
This poignant comedy evokes a summer of love, laughter, friendship, impossibly large gins, the abandoning of any pretence at adulthood, and a story of what happens between two straight men when the macho barriers collapse and friendship becomes love.
