When the big swears come unbidden

…but what do they TELL you?

Got a bit of a shock when I opened Facebook this morning. Saw this…. It’s a cutting from The Guardian Guide.

Yes, we’re in the museum of ye olde printed times, when every Saturday, Guardian readers enjoyed a thick A5 booklet of info about fun-having opportunities in the week ahead. And this was in there, under “BATH”. FIFTEEN YEARS AGO TODAY.

And when I saw this ‘memory’ on Facebook, the VERY BIG SWEARS leapt out at me.

This play was a corker – you can even read about it (repeatedly) on this site….look, I’ll even treat you to a search bar (who knows what you might find?).

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Water’s Not So Thick unlocked so many things for me: my first prize, my first professional show, MANY valued relationships with professional directors, actors, dramaturg (singular!) and technicians. Not to mention a highly sought-after, six-month (paid!) place on Channel 4’s 4Screenwriting. And confidence, too. Every one of these things, invaluable.

Fifteen years. [When my child was 5 months old, I realise…]

And it only happened because …ready?!….

• …theatre director Alison Farina and Rondo Theatre AD Ian McGlynn saw a script-in-hand version of it as part of….
• Andrew Smaje’s Ustinov Theatre Writers’ programme at Theatre Royal Bath, which was directed by the brilliant Sita-Calvert Ennals…
• ….that had been supported by outstanding dramaturg David Lane, after…
• it won a script in hand show at Bristol Tobacco Factory’s Script Space., because…
• …I had got annoyed by someone being rude about my *first* completed script, heard that were submitting for Script Space in 3 weeks’ time, and I thought, ‘Let’s see how I get on…’

To every theatre, audio and TV superstar who’s had contact with me because of this script, a huge thanks. A writer is just a solo scribbler until you guys come along. We are nothing without you, and you make our work sing.

But if these folk hadn’t been around, nor would anything that followed. Invest in the arts, my friends: support fringe work by people you don’t know who don’t have big budgets. This is where it begins, and where it grows.

Thank you!