Is the play the thing?

When I was writing Rum Do I had no idea that I was going to end up, like my heroine, writing plays. (Okay, back in the 1980s I did have a go at writing a radio play for a BBC competition, receipt of which wasn’t even acknowledged, let alone did it succeed.) At that time I was all about fiction.

Then I got involved with the local theatre company and was reminded why being involved in the plays was the only thing I actually enjoyed about my school days. Could I write a play? Apparently I could.

It all started in 2015.

The play wot I wrote for my friend Donna and me.

Then, in 2017 there was another one.

The play wot I wrote for my mate Charlie and me. A finalist in the 2018 Canadian National Playwriting Competition!

Then came Covid and lockdown and viral performances and the thought suddenly occurring in early 2021 that perhaps I could pull out and do something with that old radio play.

So popular that it was decided it should be performed, with some revisions, again live the following year when we finally got back on stage.

What larks! (Even if the judges of the 2023 playwriting competition trashed it. Grr.)

But before that, it was time to try to come up with something for the 2021 viral Christmas show.

Okay, at roughly ten minutes more a sketch than a play, but still.

Then a playwriting workshop and a piece of homework I realised could actually (with a bit of polishing) be performed as a short play.

And now this.

Two performances down, two to go. Great audience feedback, thank you very much.

Six one-act plays in nine years. Not bad.