Endorsements

"It was the most offended I've ever been by a Killer Whale story." Mrs. Trellis of North Wales

"I liked the video bit, that was quite good." J. Stephenson of Tucson, Arizona.

"Nope, never heard of it." Business Secretary, Vince Cable MP


Friday 10 June 2011

That Was That Was The Week That Was...

The title doesn't really relate to the content. You're more than welcome to ignore it.

Last weekend was quite interesting. But permit me to take you back yet further than that, to May 6th. It's roughly 1.30 AM and I'm in bed, but unable to sleep. A repeat of Just A Minute from the early 90s is on. Paul Merton is rambling on with his easy, natural humour, Clement Freud is listing things and then just petering out before being challenged by Derek Nimmo and I'm rolling around. For a bit more context, I was having doubts about myself and my ability in my chosen field.

The most recent of a slew of rejections had come way back in March, but the long period where I realised that I had nothing out there was perhaps even worse. If you don't buy a ticket, you can't win the lottery (obviously, if you do buy a ticket you've still got a greater chance of being struck by lightning than winning, but at least it's not factually impossible). My initially prolific work rate (1 full-length play, 3 half-hour one acts and 2 15 minute shorts in 6 months or so ((not to mention a sitcom pilot and several unfinished bits and pieces)) - not necessarily good, but in existence, at least) had completely tailed off. I had no ideas and little inclination to write even if I'd had any.

I was at a very low ebb, both professionally and personally. I'd been undergoing counselling and was unable to shake myself out of the funk I was in. For the above reasons, I had not checked my Gmail inbox with the feverish regularity of old for some time. But, as I listened to Nicholas Parsons struggling to keep his panellists in check back in the 90s through the magic of radio, I thumbed the email icon on my phone and left it thinking, the arrow chasing its own tail round and round.

I rolled listlessly for half a minute or so, before being disturbed by the vibration of my phone indicating the recognition of a number of emails which I had already looked through on the laptop earlier and was preparing to simply check off one-by-one on my phone. However, up popped an email in my professional account from Mark, the organiser of the Bristol Folk House's Saturday Shorts competition for writers in the South West to which I had submitted one of the aforementioned 15 minute shorts (Chess with Vasily). My heart jumped with nervous anticipation (of yet another failure- I should add- not the good kind). I began to read the brief extract of the email afforded by the mail client "Dear Samuel, Thank you for your entry to Saturday Shorts. Sorry for the-"

I sighed. I'd heard of it all before- the platitudes, the 'we really enjoyed your play...', 'we felt your submission was very strong, but...'s. Nonetheless, I figured I should at least finish reading the email (they'd bothered to read 14-odd pages of my drivel, after all). I prodded the email and it filled the screen. I flicked my eyes back to the 'sorry', as painful as it always was. 'Sorry for the long delay. There were over 100 entries so it's been a hard job to decide.'. Don't be nice to me, Mark. It's always worse when they're nice to you. This is probably a lie, but in many ways as a writer you want to know that your piece wasn't picked because it was derivative shite rather than in a 'substantial amount of strong submissions'. I sighed and felt that familiar, horrible knotted weight in my stomach- I know it passes... eventually, but it's still utterly demoralising for that moment.

I eventually resolved to carry on. '... But we were very impressed with 'Chess with Vasily' and would like to put this on...' Yadayadaya- Hang on. What?! I read it again. And again. And still it hadn't sunk in. 'This can't be correct' I thought. The message asked for me to email back to confirm they had my permission to put on the play. I hurriedly tapped out a fawning, sycophantic email, as much to make sure that it was true- that the email wasn't meant for someone else, that it wasn't some kind of mistake- as to allow them to put it in the showcase. I was emailed back asking for any biographical details I wanted them to use in publicity. I hate writing bios. I can't write them without feeling like a cock, obsessed with his own achievement and thoroughly arrogant in his belief that he is of significance. To that end, I gratefully accepted the help of the quite staggeringly brilliant Dr. Simon Best, who was able to spare my blushes and turn a list of minor successes (swimming badges, deputy head boy etc.) into a professional sounding bio. [That's a joke. I never did the swimming badges...]

I hadn't revealed why exactly I'd needed the information. In fact, I sat on the news for most of the next day before telling even extremely close friends and family. I still felt as though it was ludicrous and that at some point Mark was going to turn up at my house with Mr. Blobby and reveal it had all been a Noel Edmonds Gotcha; that it was going to be taken away. Even when I did tell my family, I said that it's probably some subversive Eurotrash thing where they take the worst 6 entries and display them exclusively to cater to a select group of hipsters and their love of schadenfreude.

I read back through Chess with Vasily (or Chess as I now refer to it, purely for tax purposes), cringing at every typo or bit that didn't work as well as it could have done and seriously struggling to comprehend how what I'd written was capable of being in the top 100 of their entries, let alone the top 6. Around this point, I desperately sought assurance from people, which consequently led to me going public about the performance on Twitter. The cat was out of the bag, the only question was whether it was the kind of cat that purrs and curls up on your lap or the kind that scratches at your settee and pisses everywhere.

Details of rehearsals and suchlike were sketchy, but it was eventually revealed that on the Friday before the Saturday performance one would be taking place at the Folk House. So at 6:30 on Friday morning I got up, showered, donned my blue jumper (complete with geography teacher elbows) and hopped on the train for Bristol Temple Meads (on what turned out to be the hottest day since records began [that may not be true] - the jumper lasted all of the 22 minutes it took to walk to the venue from the station but no longer).

I'd had a brief phone exchange with my director, the very capable Duncan Bonner, but I would be meeting him in person and my two actors for the first time. They'd begun setting up (which predominantly involved rigging a game of KerPlunk), so I quietly took a seat at the back of the room and watched the words I'd written spoken by actual, real people who say other people's words for a living. I'd brought a notebook- best to at least look like you know what you're doing- into which I wrote the words 'Practical implications of KerPlunk?' and very little else over the course of two hours. I gave one directorial note, but otherwise let Duncan have free reign (and probably afforded him the only opportunity to say "the balls drop on page 9" of his directorial career. I'm not one of those writers who consider slight dialogue alterations personal attacks (or at least I can do a very good job of pretending that's the case...).

I made the trip again on Saturday and, before I knew it, I was shuffling into the main hall of the Folk House to witness the showcase; to witness the maiden performance of Chess... Something struck me about the other plays in the showcase- they had messages or morals; they were plays about real issues, from a light-hearted look at a dystopian future in which the government has collapsed to a harrowing monologue delivered by an abusive immigration officer. Mine was ostensibly about two grown men playing KerPlunk.

But you know what? I made an entire hall complicit in watching two grown men playing KerPlunk and they enjoyed it. The two actors were brilliant and Duncan (who had a cameo appearance himself) had done a great job of bringing it to life. It got laughs in all the right places and a hearty round of applause, which I enjoyed (I got a second round of applause later when us playwright's were made to stand up, which I enjoyed less - goes back to the thing about the bios, I suppose). Later in the week I received an email from Mark thanking me and saying that he'd received some correspondence from someone citing 'the kerplunk one' as their favourite. My work here was done.

It was a crazy experience. In many ways, I still can't quite believe it- that someone actually put my play on and that in excess of one person actually enjoyed it. The hard bit, though, is to go back from having your work on to being just another failed writer. Unless there's something out there, someone breathing life into your words, then it's very hard to feel like you're making progress. I can't say I've been blessed with an embarrassment of riches in the ideas department since either. But what seeing my work up on stage, hearing people laughing at jokes that I'd written and seeing the projected sales figures of KerPlunk skyrocket (I can't corroborate this... this is all conjecture) has done is given me faith again; In myself, in my choices, in my ability to write something that will actually bring some degree of pleasure to other people. And for that, I cannot thank Mark and the Folk House enough.

(Right, that's very long. Well done if you made it this far. Sorry it all turned a bit Nikki Sixx Heroin Diaries for some reason, but, if you have been, thanks for reading).

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