Fortuitous sunshine in the midst of this car-wash summer (thanks Audrey for the apt phrase) as Stourhead becomes a concert hall for local community choirs, so no better way to spend Saturday than picnicking by the lake listening to massed voices singing Dance me to the end of love...

That evening was the last night of my play Mascara at the Alma Tavern Theatre, with the best performance of the run. This has been the most intense experience of my writing life ~ not even publication of my first novel came near the excitement of being included in a close team all much more experienced than me in this chaotic, emotional, seductive world of theatre... Now the get-out's over, set dismantled, the imaginary world we visited nightly for two weeks gone forever, and it feels a bit weird. All that's remains is those audience messages after each show. So here, as a way of pinching myself to prove it's all true, is another selection ~ a bit long, but indulge me, there are lots more too!
"Powerful, real, intense, upsetting, brilliantly acted, relevant. I couldn’t fault it."... Fantastic. Actress stunning and sexy. Thanks for a good night!... Wow!...WOW!!...clubbing scene was hilarious and the end really packed a punch... Clever shifts in tempo to keep the pace going, clever mirroring of relationships ..."A very impressive performance all round: a well crafted and thought-provoking script, a superbly directed mise-en-scène and wonderful acting – Olivia particularly subtle and one to watch. " ...Brilliant explosive and chilling ending. Great performances... The author did a wonderful job on threading opposing views.. I loved this... I was riveted throughout... "We regularly go to the theatre all over, including London and this performance was equal to any." ...gripping, thought-provoking play, excellently acted, directed, set... The most insightful and powerful studio production I've ever seen....deserves to be seen elsewhere. Highly engrossing. Beautifully subtle and sensitive writing – intriguing and challenging subject matter, adapted and implemented with intelligence and skill... original and fascinating... welcome moments of humour. Strong performances and perceptive, well-judged direction with a visually arresting set. ...highly emotive and beautifully performed. I would definitely recommend it to others. I was captivated and completely engaged from start to finish. "The actors gripped me from the moment they came on stage. They were able to switch between characters so effectively – they really took the audience with them through the whole journey... Thank you all for such a fantastic evening!" ...Fantastic, incredibly intense and the tension built to a great climax...definitely a hit. Terrific. Absolutely brilliant. Clever and complex. Totally engaging all the way through – varied pace and clever dialogue, sensitively written and consistently intriguing. An amazing evening. Deeply moving and thought-provoking. Brilliantly written and staged. God! Riveting performances of an amazing, deeply disturbing play.. "I kept thinking these were the actual people not actors!!! Even though I cried I thought the acting was superb and the writing of the script very clever and the twist brilliant... The best play I have seen."...Very well staged and acted, with an original and exciting script. Dynamic performances and directing– hugely enjoyable evening! Well done all round! Very emotional. Loved the club scene! Well done Stepping Out!...Powerful, educational, amazing drama, loved the disco scene. Acting fantastic. Moving....Fantastic performance. Well-written play, well directed... should be should be shown again, perhaps even afar. Congratulations, a fab show. ...Riveting – superbly acted overall, fantastic theatre....What good theatre is all about. Very sensitively done, fine writing, well directed. A thought-provoking exploration of the subject. Congratulations.... the nightclub scene was genius...Best play I've seen in a long time. ...All that one would hope from a play... "Huge congratulations on Mascara. The writing was incredibly condensed and raised so many unnerving questions about the family and social norms – I could watch it several times over and still get something new from it. I love the way it never tells the audience what to think – you have to think for yourself! It is an excellent piece of writing and certainly deserves many further outings. I do hope it can be brought to London at some point as I am sure it would be perfect for a fringe audience down here."

Back in the real world... there's Winchester to prepare for, and Frome Festival is less than a month away... And if you're in Bristol on July 7th, there's The Complete Reworks of Shakespeare at Colston Hall including PlayText the Living Bard which since you ask is café wall projection of 2 popular plays rewritten by me & Alison as mobile texting scripts... Lord what fools these mortals be. Lol :-)

"Amazon will tell you it's incredibly easy to publish on Kindle, you just press click, but that's actually not quite true" warned marketing expert Jenni O'Connor in her Sunday workshop at New Oriel Hall for Writers Events Bath. Her power-point presentation rapid-fired through the complexities of e-book publishing in exhausting detail but Alison and I were both inspired, so blog musings may well take a kindling turn before the end of the year...


And no need to wait for July to hear sensational performances as Frome Poetry Cafe next Wednesday has a sizzling line-up of new guests. Real world looking quite bright, all in all!

First week's run of my play Mascara at the Alma Tavern Theatre has left me still reeling at the enthusiasm of audience feedback. Gripping, mesmerising, fascinating, totally absorbing, were frequently used words, along with believable, convincing, and - of course - brilliantly acted. "Worth seeing more than once" was also good to see, and appreciations of my intentions in choosing a real-life kidnap story: Excellent play, well researched and an interesting angle, cleverly brought humour into a dark subject... the way the play managed to mix humour and intensity wonderful, it raised a lot of profound questions in a very interesting way.
And I specially like this facebook review from Dave Clark:
"This is a very well acted and written two hander exploring the Natascha Kampusch story, with wider references to the nature of abuse within relationships, the meaning of love, and the role of 'victims' within society. We were gripped from start to finish - the climax has a visceral intensity which works brilliantly in this intimate space. Bloody Marvellous!"
Thanks to everyone ~ and to Jose Navarro for these evocative stills.

Back in Frome, Sunday is our annual Fun Day and streets are full of stalls selling pottery & beads, candles & retro clothes, vegan cakes & ewes cheese. There's a cup-and-saucer roundabout outside the petshop and a champagne bar by St Aldhelm's well where the excellent Pigeons are playing. My highlight is street theatre from SATCO with their mountaineering ascent of Cheap Street, gloriously achieving the summit at La Strada despite avalanches as onlookers smile and murmur "Only in Frome!" while they sip their lattes. Not true, of course, but perhaps only in Frome would the team be led by the town mayor who also smashed the mayoral chain competing in the CobbleWobble cycle race last year...
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And finally... culmination of all those weeks of planning. Mascara has opened at Alma Tavern Theatre. Ann Stiddard's set looked brilliant under Luke Murray's lighting design, the audience laughed at the meant-to-be funny bits and applauded wildly at the end, and Olivia Dennis & Oliver Millingham were simply fabulous.
I'm so proud of the whole team, including of course my intuitive and inventive director Steve Hennessy, who's also artistic director of Stepping Out Theatre Company. Phew... can't wait to see if feedback is as good as it was for the Frome preview - it should be!

If you'd been too busy for telly for two weeks and suddenly got a free day, what would you first watch On Demand? For me it's two comedies, both previously unknown and now, in their second series, suddenly recognised as writing genius. Episodes and Grandma's House are both superbly acted, full of wry social observation on the painful absurdity of relationships, and both about creative struggles ~ specifically with dramatic scripts. The Episodes couple (played by wonderful Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig) are finding Hollywood about as dreamy as a bull-invaded china-shop; Simon Amstell's hell-is-other-people experience comes from his family, who would be truly monstrous if they weren't so appallingly funny. Even Grandma can't bear to watch and goes off to count her shoes when Simon's hopes of production are crushed by the train-crash of his relations in the final episode of series 2. Will there be another? Personally I hope they quit while they're ahead - both of them - rather than go the way of some of my other favourites like Being Human, subverting initial energy into clone characters and convoluted plot twists. I'd rather mourn them as classics.


May is simmering to an end, June is poised to burst out all over, must be time to promote the next Frome Poetry Cafe. We have three terrific guests: Carrie Etter and Alasdair Paterson are joined by newcomer Robbie Vane ~ should be an amazing night at Frome's Garden Cafe on June 13th!

Two weeks of intense rehearsals, two frantic days of final arrangements, and we're open for business. Friday and Saturday were the Mascara previews at The Cornerhouse in Frome, both blisteringly hot evenings on which full-house audiences deserved applause themselves for remaining raptly attentive. I'm going to let a medley of comments from our feedback forms tell the good news.

I was totally riveted throughout from the opening line to the ending. Wonderful. Kept me totally enthralled throughout. Thankyou for bringing this to Frome. An immensely subtle and powerful play, passionately performed, about a very complex subject. Much food for thought. Will keep me reflecting, and talking, for a long time. Excellent play – moving, clever and poignant, extremely well acted and very disturbing. What a performance - absolutely superb, we were totally absorbed... Tremendous – varied, thought-provoking, amusing and shocking.... very convincing and mature acting... brilliant... powerful, funny , very thought-provoking. Wow! Extremely powerful play! ... talented writer... acted with sensitivity and power... both actors v. good, especially Leonie... particularly liked the music + set... props/sound/lighting effects meant the quality of acting/writing really showed through... the end was dramatic and shocking, the club scene was great too... Well crafted play that raised thought-provoking issues. I particularly liked the way the story of the kidnapped girl was woken into the couples’ relationship... Engaging, challenging, thought-provoking – great night out... very well portrayed and sympathetically explored... believable and real and it made me ‘feel’... beyond amazing... awesome... emotionally hard-hitting... Wow !!
A stunning play which carried incredible intensity in every moment. We are privileged here in Frome. Brilliant acting by both performers. Pub Theatre at its very best.

After "thought-provoking", the most repeated words were "congratulations" and "thanks". So my congratulations and thanks too, to the whole team, and to Rosie for holding my nervous hand ~ almost literally ~ at these opening nights. Opening in Bristol at the Alma Tavern Theatre on Tuesday.
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This week started with a blistering row - between my characters, that is - and discussions on music & costume... then the first part of the set arrives... full setup in hectic get-in at The Cornerhouse and looks amazing. I'm loving being involved with all this but no spoilers before our opening TONIGHT!

Between rehearsals for MASCARA and promoting the show I haven't managed to do much else this week but happily I did get to Toppings in Bath for the launch of Liz Brownlee's amazing book Animal Magic. This is the most extraordinary poetry book you'll ever read: Liz's meltingly beautiful words about some of the world's most fascinating creatures are interspersed with careful research telling simply the facts of their endangered lives. It's published by Iron Press, whose editor Peter Mortimer always gives so much support to aspiring writers ~ as I know from personal experience, as some years ago I sent him a story which he liked but declined to publish as he said it should have been a play. I rewrote it as a radio script, and it was subsequently broadcast. Peter had travelled all the way from North Shields to tell the crowded bookshop that 'of all the books I've published, this is the one of which I've been most proud.' A due accolade and a lovely event.

And my footnote for this posting has distinct, if tenuous, connection with this final image from MASCARA rehearsals: I've been reading an interview with actor Samuel West in which he says his favourite line of Shakespeare is the opening of Richard II's soliloquy in prison as he reflects on life and loss, his body constrained but his mind roaming, finding new identity as he tries to forgive the people who have wronged him. Parallels with my imprisoned character/s aside, this speech was the internal soundtrack to my teenage years. I read it, and the deposition scene that precedes it, so many times I knew them by heart. Even these days, get me started on 'Your cares set up do not pluck my cares down' and you may have a wait a while before I stop reciting. So Richard II is an intensely personal play to me, but as Samuel West points out it's modern too in its honesty about society nominating people to be 'kings' & telling them they're semi-divine, only to kill them.

Currently my days are largely obsessed with the progress of MASCARA: we now have a publicity shot, thanks to Hen & Chickens beer garden and a sunny day. I'm still overwhelmed by how much as a writer I can learn from these rehearsals as each scene is tried out in different ways ~ tenderness/anger, fun/thoughtfulness, momentum/stillness ~ to vary the light & shade and find the shape. "Don't give too much away too soon - surprise the audience sometimes," is one directorial guideline. Actors paraphrase their script to find the subtext, intentions are discussed and lines tweaked with scalpel efficiency. It's a fascinating insight into the process of bringing a play off the page into performance, exhausting as well as exhilarating.

And turning elsewhere: Tim Clare brought his touring show How to be a Leader to the monthly Word of Mouth event in BOV Basement. There as six rules, apparently, from the satirically plausible to the sublimely ridiculous, all wittily expounded by Tim with ruthless certainty and powerpoint presentation. I especially liked the Margaret Thatcher rap ("Iron lay-dee? ~ do your own fucking ironing...")
Over in Bath, it was interesting for Rosie & I to see Alliance at the Rondo, since this set of 6 short plays were all penned by the Bath scriptwriting group, curated by David Lassman and directed by Hannah Drake. The quandary set was "co-operation in the 21st Century - is it possible?" and writers' responses ranged from competition between job interviewees to survival instincts afloat after a shipwreck. Some fantastically strong acting ~ step forward Oliver Millingham ~ provided plenty of laughs in several of the pieces and I especially enjoyed the story of the unstable Occupy undercover agent.

Terrific hiphop dancing in the Egg foyer before the night's performance of DNA. Hull Truck has Arts funding and writer Dennis Kelly has won awards, so I’m confident they'll easily withstand carping so.... for me the first few words (“Dead! uttered repeatedly like the opening expletive of Four Weddings & a Funeral) were the highlight of the show. It's a tale of school bullying off even the Daily Mail scale, resulting in an apparent murder and a complex evasion, provided by a morose and munching mute with a mind worthy of Miss Marple, which leads to The Cops fingering an innocent fat postman. The plot fails the first credibility test (ie what happens when suspect produces alibi and gives a description of the missing boy's associates who foistered the fake evidence on him), but more importantly the characters are neither credible nor empathetic, and the torrential banality of the dialogue made the Revenger's Tragedy seem like a haiku. Quite well performed, though, and striking set.

Still in Bath, something really good to end with: Sarah Ruhl's play In The Next Room, the third in director Laurence Boswell's American season at the Ustinov, is inspired by early medical treatment for female hysteria.It's aptly subtitled The Vibrator Play and the equipment in question may look like a primitive dental drill but it's capable, sometimes with human intervention too, of delivering sexual ecstasy on the scale of Barbarella's pleasure machine. Everyone in the story is in some state of yearning and denial, and all in differently comical ways find relief with this scientific equipment, sometimes in hilarious tableaux of suppressed emotions. Engaging characters and great dialogue, as well as deeper emotional and social strands in the narrative, ensure this is so much more than a sexy farce, and the ending is bold, beautiful, and surprisingly touching. It's fabulously well acted, superbly dressed, and the splendid double-decker set is simply inspired. Two and a half hours of sheer enjoyment: five stars, at least.

Bristol-based theatre company Living Spit is fulfilling its mission statement 'to make poorly researched historical comedy-drama shows about people that at least one of us vaguely looks like' with The Six Wives of Henry VIII, at Bristol Old Vic till May 12th. Howard Coggins looks uncannily like Henry VIII. Stu Mcloughlin doesn’t look like any of his wives, or anybody’s wife for that matter... Believe me when I say it’s not a problem. This comic duo sustained meta-theatrical, quasi-historical, belly-achingly funny absurdity for a two-hour animated lecture which rarely flagged for a moment from the hilarious start as they introduce themselves via a duff review from their previous show. Much of the mirth comes from blatant irrelevancies featuring the allegedly fractious relationship between the two performers, and from anachronisms like the brilliant Catherine Howard-and-the-lie-detector sequence, and Henry's mobile phone calls: "Popey! ... need an annulment, mate..." Nice use of exposition too, as when Jane Seymour, docilely embroidering a cushion with Battersea Power Station, consoles her spouse for his various “rash decisions notably involving decapitation and inventing your own spin-off religion”. Like all really successful comedies there are plaintive notes too, as we see Henry's father disdain him in childhood and torment him in dreams... a wonderful show which, as Howard repeatedly and grumpily points out, deserves a wider showing than the BOV Basement - but do catch it there while you can.

This is the draft flyer for Mascara (doesn't matter if you can't read the performance dates, that's the bit that needs tweaking) which I think looks great. Press copy from the director reads: A young journalist researches the notorious Natashcha Kampusch Austrian kidnap case. As her obsession grows, it reveals a frightening web of connections with her own life. A darkly comic, tender and shocking love story.“A powerful and haunting story beautifully told” said Sarah Dickenson, Senior Reader at the Soho Theatre.
It's all getting terribly exciting. I sat in on the set design meeting with Ann Stiddard and met lighting engineer Luke Murray, both with nerve-tingling ideas for the visuals. Ann is taking the kidnap scrapbook as a starting point for her concept, moving away from a literal room to a living space that evokes the differences of perception at the heart of the story... sounds fabulous. And now the team has come together, rehearsals start next week!

Perhaps I should have taken a look at Paul Durcan's poems before blithely buying a ticket to hear him read at the final event of the Bristol Poetry Festival. I've made some great discoveries that way - Don Paterson, George Szirtes for instance - but this time, apart from one quite nice poem to Seamus Heaney and a few startling phrases like days of slapstick loneliness I sat through 50 minutes of undiverting, sometimes sneeringly judgmental, anecodotal trivia. If this guy in the custard-coloured jumper had been holding forth to strangers in a bar I would have edged away till out of earshot, and his enthusiastic reception at the Arnolfini baffled me. Blimey, the performance poets last week were ten times as lyrical, witty, and poignant too. Memo to self: avoid national treasures.

This week was, allegedly, Shakespeare's 448th birthday and Frome joined the dramatic celebrations with a slightly off-the-wall party at the Library for World Book Night, organised by ever-enterprising Wendy Miller-Williams. Around sixty people, chortling gratifyingly, viewed the screen projection of text-talk versions of Shakespeare plays as conceived by me and Alison Clink, followed by a gruelling "Bard or Not Bard?" quiz on Shakespeare quotes in common usage. Brenda Bannister won with an impressive 39 out of 60 correct.

Over in Bristol, production of my play Mascara at the Alma Tavern is now taxiing on the runway...
I sat in on the auditions on Tuesday, and was literally awed - it means respect & wonder inspired by authority, sublimity, & might - by the interpretations brought to their readings by all 8 of the actors under consideration. I'm absolutely delighted that the final choice was Oliver Millingham and Olivia Dennis, and am now avidly looking forward to watching them at rehearsal...

Happy families are all alike: every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, Tolstoy famously said, and Common Wealth took this principle to heart for their new devised show Our Glass House, ‘based on interviews with real-life women and men who have experienced domestic violence’. This is a site-specific piece and the venue, in the St George area of Bristol, is an ordinary house adapted to convey the theme and to contain six disparate stories of abuse. In a similar formula to Beyond, it’s impossible to see all aspects of the action taking place simultaneously in different rooms, and we're invited to witness "your own version". This means it’s quite hard to connect emotionally with all the disparate case studies, though there are several set-pieces to show the parallels between these trapped situations. There are some scenes of touching poignancy – the little boy’s shadow puppet theatre in his bedroom – some moments of troubling despair, and an imaginary court case to challenge current social norms, all of which worked really well in this brave and truthful production, but the sense of looking through glass at zoo animals is as disturbing as the events they relive and reimagine.

And to end this mainly theatrical posting, a wonderful night at Hip Yak Shack in Frome, the Archangel's upstairs room transformed by the magic of fairy lights & a funky sound system into a great venue for performance poetry. Liv Torc, Chris Redmond, Jonny Fluffypunk, and Anna Freeman all on fantastic form, and a great slam rightly won by Robbie Vane. Robbie's guesting at Frome Poetry Cafe on June 13th, so if you haven't heard her yet, don't miss out. If you have, you'll be there anyway.