Tom Green
 
Having written a play about the death of Margaret Thatcher, I feel strangely sensitive (perhaps even protective) about the event itself.

So this story on BBC News today caught my attention:

A misconstrued text message announcing the passing of a beloved pet has sparked a flurry of diplomatic activity in Canada.

Transport Minister John Baird sent a message reading: "Thatcher has died".

Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper was soon informed that 84-year-old former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had passed away.

But it was actually Mr Baird's beloved cat, named after his political heroine, who had died.

Of course, the fact that such a non-story made the news, and the traffic to the blog about my Thatcher play tripled overnight, shows just how much fascination her eventual demise continues to hold.

Update: Obviously this post should have been titled "The death of Moggie Thatcher"
 
 
The dialogue in Orphans by Dennis Kelly might be described as ultra-naturalistic. But, to me, it played as ultra-stylised. All those hesitations and false starts and repetitions and restatements as questions - I found it a barrier to my enjoyment of the play.

Why, it led me to wonder, did the Pinter dialogue in The Birthday Party (I recently saw the old BBC TV production) seem so much more real - even though the characters often say quite unlikely things?

Obviously we accept all sorts of 'unreal' things in any kind of fiction, so perhaps the whole notion of naturalistic or stylised is flawed. It's all stylised in one way or another.

The secret, I suppose, is for the dialogue and the characters to feel truthful. That's the magic connection (or not) between writer, performer and audience.

In The Author by Tim Crouch, I found that connection missing most of the time. I enjoyed it, and found it interesting, but was never fully involved. Perhaps that was the point. 

The previous plays of his that I've seen, and loved - My Arm and An Oak Tree - make various (apparent) attempts to create distance from the audience that in fact draw you in. Whereas in The Author the cast sit among the audience but I didn't feel close to them.

My favourite part was the character playing an audience member. His monologue at the start, "I love this. This is great. Isn't this great? etc", about being an audience member at the start of a play range completely true in a way that, for me, the rest didn't.
 
 
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I wonder if Lucy Prebble's Enron, a play about greed and excess, might be best served by a production that's stripped down and austere.

Director Rupert Goold certainly didn't think so. Songs, video projection, dance routines, special effects, the inevitable slow-motion miming bits (including a man jumping from on of the Twin Towers).

I guess I have quite ascetic tastes (more so than the critics, who loved it) but I found all the showbiz got in the way of a good, mainly documentary, play about what used to be America's biggest ever bankruptcy. I'm not sure how much if it was new - the idea about how long it would take to count to a million and then a billion, for example, comes from John Allen Paulos's  book “Innumeracy” - see a reference in this article by John Lanchester) and presumably a lot of the rest is indebted to The Smartest Guys In The Room (which the play has led me to order.) But it was well explained, witty and fairly even-handed. Great performances, too - especially from Samuel West.

I preferred the much smaller-scale Stockwell, however (full disclosure: I know Kieron Barry, who edited the transcripts from the inquest into the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, and have worked with him in the past).

I've not seen any of the previous transcript plays and was, for some reason, a little sceptical. But this made for compelling theatre and a powerful indictment of the Met Police's incompetence and arrogance. And the clarity of the production worked perfectly with the text.  

 
 
I reckon most writers feel they know what high concept means - an idea that's instantly understandable and captures the whole script in a phrase. Get the concept high enough and you only need the title: Snakes On A Plane.

But digging a bit deeper today I found a couple of articles that got me thinking.

Initially I found them quite persuasive.

From this piece by Steve Kaire the point that stood out for me was the first: 'Your idea should be original and unique'. Hard to argue with that.

And in Conquering the high concept James Bonnet  suggests four requirements for high concept pitches:

1.    The fascinating subject,
2.    The great title,
3.    The inciting action, which is the problem of your story, and
4.    The hook, which reveals the uniqueness or special circumstances of your story.

Again, hard to argue with.

But on reflection I'm not sure if you can be this prescriptive.

Yes, an idea must be fascinating else why would anyone commission it. But how do you define fascinating in this context? Bonnet can't. It's completely subjective. Come to think of it, 'Original and unique' only really means: hasn't been done before in precisely this way or if it was it was a long time ago and no one will remember.

Likewise 'great title' - overwhelmingly a matter of opinion.

Meanwhile, the inciting action and the hook are (arguably) standard script requirements, that, I think, might or might not be part of a high concept pitch. 

Instead, I think the key to high concept pitches is in what Bonnet says about why they're important: because commissioners don't have time to try and work out what your script is going to be about.

So, what high concept really means is expressing an idea in the clearest and most concise way possible. Everything else is just a matter of opinion. (Actually, even 'expressing an idea in the clearest and most concise way possible' is a matter of opinion, but never mind)

So, there aren't high concept pitches and low concept pitches. There are just good pitches and less good pitches.

Maybe.
 
Jerusalem 08/18/2009
 
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I've never witnessed such a reception for a play. Any play, let alone a new play. Standing, cheering, shouting.

A stunning, heart-breaking, brilliant performance by Mark Rylance and a wonderful, perhaps great, play by Jez Butterworth.

A play about one man, but also about England past and present. I was particularly struck by the sense of the spirit of England belonging to outsiders - in this case a Romany.

Incredibly moving - a woman in the circle was sobbing for the last 20 minutes - and very funny. Bravo.
 
A new season 08/08/2009
 
Blazing hot sunshine, cricket in full flow - must be the start of the football season. ASo, off to The Valley...

A few weeks ago When Saturday Comes asked for my predictions about Charlton to go alongside those of fans from every other club for the latest issue. Here's what I said:

1. Realistically, how will you do?
Feeling optimistic: mid-table.

2. Which teams did you like and dislike most last season?
Liked Swansea. Disliked the team of rubbish loanees that Charlton used.

3. What was the best moment of last season?
News that Pardew was leaving.

4. What was the worst moment of last season?
News that Parkinson was staying.

5. If your club had a smell what would it smell of?
The water from a bouquet of flowers left in a vase for three years.

6. Who will be promoted and and who will go down?
Promoted: Leeds, MK Dons, Huddersfield
Relegated: Wycombe, Yeovil, Stockport, Orient
 
 

An idea (well, a title) for an alternative Christmas play.

Perhaps two actors, with echoes of Godot. Would need to be funny. And Christmas-y in the way that Anthony Neilson managed with God In Ruins and Conor Macpherson with The Seafarer.

Set in the present day or perhaps in theatrical golden age? Probably best to be contemporary.

Could start with two actors but broaden out.

In their dressing rooms pre-show? And following the action through the course of the panto? Could be the Christmas Eve performance. Other actors, friends, lovers, whoever popping in...

 
 

Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed doing the Two Day Intensive Film-making course at the Met Film School in London a couple of weekends ago.

There was no mucking about, we were just pitched pretty much straight into shooting scenes - first, for my group, from Kramer Versus Kramer and then, on the second day, from a short film script.

So, very practical and, with expert help on hand throughout, a good chance to learn.

And, although it was about narrative film-making I'm pretty sure I picked up stuff that will help with the short factual films I'm making (which was the reason I was on the course). For one thing, we did a lot of editing, and I realised how much more adventurous I could be even when shooting simple interviews.

But I still came away feeling a little ambivalent.

Perhaps it was the realisation of how much I have to learn. Or the sense that while (I hope) I have some talent for writing, I'm not sure that I do for directing.

The course leader, Jamie Nuttgens, was very encouraging, however and stressed that in the age of digital film-making there really are no rules when it comes to directing films; it's a case of trying things out and learning as you go.

So (deep breath) I guess that's what I should do.

 
 

For Radio 4 drama commissioning, pitch documents are really important. Apart from your track-record, they're all your producer has got as they try to steer your proposal through the commssioning rounds (although smaple scenes are sometimes requested).

I know it can be hard finding examples of pitch documents so here's what I submitted for The Tent.

This was my first pitch to the producer (I sent it, after an initial meeting along with two others)

The Tent

It starts as a solution to a lack of space. After the birth of his third child, with no money to move house or build an extension or even buy a shed, Gavin Lang puts up a tent in the garden.

It’s a place he can go for a few hours peace and quiet in which to work. Somewhere he can make calls without distraction. It doesn’t mean anything, he tells his wife, Fay. It’s purely practical.

She tries to believe him. But the hours he spends in the tent start to increase. And when, one night, Gavin doesn’t come back inside at all, they both realise that their relationship is in crisis.

Can they learn to love (or even like) each other again? Would a caravan provide a permanent solution? 

The Tent is a comedy about a couple overwhelmed by the everyday pressures of family life. 

Then, once we'd decided to make a formal pitch, this was the final draft.

The Tent

Gavin Lang is feeling crowded out. After the birth of his third child there is no room for his books, no space for his records and barely anywhere for him to sit.

His partner Fay is feeling overstretched. She and Gavin have always tried to be equal, to share and support each other. But it feels that only one of them is really driving family life. And it’s not him. 

The tent was up in the loft. Rather than taking chucking it out to make space, Gavin puts it up in the garden. Despite old sand on the floor and mould in the corners, it becomes a place where he can grab a few quiet moments and do some work.

Those ‘moments’ soon become hours. Then whole days pass with Gavin mostly under canvas. It’s practical, he says. But when he starts spending nights out there too, Fay knows that things are going seriously wrong.

One Friday, the house empties. The kids have been despatched to stay with Fay’s parents so that she and Gavin can spend the weekend making preparations for an event that has been 10 years in the offing: their wedding.

Amid discussions about flowers and salsa bands they are forced to question whether their relationship is now about anything more than beneficial tax arrangements. What do they really share? Why is Gavin spending so much time in the tent? Can they learn to love (or even like) each other again? Would a caravan provide a permanent solution?

Things come to a head at the zoo – a putative wedding venue. All that captivity seems to make it an ideal place to get married and they finally realise that it is not for them.

Back home, they feel their relationship has run its course. Gavin starts to pack his bags but when he looks for Fay in order to tell her that he has decided to leave, he cannot find her. She is in the tent.  Gavin crawls in too. And, as rain starts to drum on the canvas, they remember the first camping holidays they shared.

With the kids not due back until the morning, they spend the night out in the garden. Cooking together, sleeping together and falling back in love.

 
Scene & Heard 07/05/2009
 
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Last night was the first Scene & Heard show I've been too... and one of the most enjoyable nights I've spent at the theatre for a long time.

Scene & Heard is:

"...a unique mentoring project that partners the inner-city children of Somers Town, London with volunteer theatre professionals, providing each child who participates with quality one-on-one adult attention and an experience of personal success through the process of writing and performing plays. "


Last night's plays were written by 9-11 year-olds and they were all brilliant. The Scene & Heard team had obviously done a great job helping them to develop and structure their ideas but the results were very much the product of the children's imagination (and not a word, we were told, had been changed).

Some of my favourite lines:
"Jam your hype" (from Missing Love by Osman Jallah, aged 9)
"I could kiss you...but you're a toilet" (from The Poison Of The Plan by Yaaseen Khalique, aged 10)
"My name's Dave and I'm the solar system. I work as a chef." (from Solar Cam by Tasmin Aktar, aged 10)
"It's a long story...but I'll still tell you."(from Weather Control by Suban Abdirahman, aged 9)

What was so wonderful was seeing the characters and situations the young writers created being realised with such complete conviction by professional actors. Funny, touching and great theatre.

Every child should have an opportunity to do something like this.