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Thursday, February 05, 2015

Where Can I Read Your Plays?

Some people have asked me where they can obtain copies of my work.  Well here is (as close a I can manage) the complete list of plays.  There are 42 including collaborations and short pieces. Some of them are obtainable from my online publishers LazyBee Scripts and one is published in paperback form by Roving Press Ltd.  The rest are in dusty old folders on my shelves. Click on the links for contacts.

Title
M/F
Outline
Running Time
Obtainable From
The Spirit of the Land
4F/4M Plus extras
The church closes and the battle begins over the next few years to transform it into an amenity for the village. Vested interests and crooked dealings lead to a final scene set in the floods of 2014 with the villagers gathering in the encircled building.
4 Acts/
4Scenes
120 minutes
Not available for production yet
He’s Dead
2F/3M
Rose's horrific nightmares become reality when her friend Maria is fatally stabbed. As the plot twists and turns ulterior motives are gradually revealed
2 Acts
85 Mins
A Brief Encounter with MURDER
3F/6Mplus one
A restful holiday in a 1940s themed holiday home becomes a bizarre murder mystery as Mother goes missing with a bearded fisherman and a fat vicar lies dead in the front room. Was it the Rat Catcher, the Carpet Fitter or the French Dressmaker? And who is the Man with the Big Hammer?
2 Acts
70 mins
Pig Unit
3M/2F
Polish immigrant Paluszki comes towork at the Pig Unit with bullying Leonard and sniping Flint. When Leonard's adoptive Mother and a local girl earning money to go to college appear on the scene all hell breaks loose. And then Leonard disappears...
2 Acts
6 Scenes
90 minutes
What Would Jane Say?
1F
Jane Austen comments on her books from a 200 year perspective. She joins an online dating site and bickers with Cassandra over her cellphone.
2 Acts
70 minutes
Not available yet
Anning’s Fossil Depot
1F
Schools and young people. Mary Anning talks about her life and work and reveals her last illness
1 Act
40 minutes
The Cabinet Maker’s Daughter
1M/2F
Mary Anning, the Mad Woman of Lyme, is dying from breast cancer. Under the influence of pain deadening narcotics administered by bad tempered nurse, Susan she hallucinates about her life. When her longtime love appears is it a dream or reality?
2 Acts
90 minutes plus interval
Guerilla
3 short plays for street performance
3 F or M
Everyone Wants to be Somewhere Else
- 3 overlapping mobile phone calls delivered through megaphones
Free at the Point of Delivery
- A bizarre new NHS
Steampunk
- The Colonel and street girl Lou meet in a dystopian future
3 x 5 minutes
Mrs Adapta Iago's Knitting Circle
3F/ 1M
The knitting circle has been meeting in the front room of Mrs Adapta Iago's bungalow every Tuesday and Thursday evening for the past forty years. But everything is not as it seems - there's conspiracy in the air. What is the project they've been working on all that time? Why are the knitting circle members all intellectual women graduates from one of Oxford's top colleges? What is the secret they want to keep from Michael, the bus driver? What actually did happen to Magda? What is the solution to the four colour problem? And what happened to Connie's rash? This darkly comic tale is as full of twists and turns as a ball of wool.
2 Acts 4 Scenes
98 Minutes
She Opened the Door -The Wife and the Women who Haunted Thomas Hardy
4F
Controversial reassment of Thomas Hardy's first wife by Emma. At the time sh was thought more than a little eccentric but might there have been a very real reason for her behaviour? Something to do with an overweening Mother-in-law perhaps?
2 Acts
80 minutes

With supporting research and notes on the production.
Eve of War
1F
Knights inshining armour or gas masks and refugees? What stories will Nanny Cummins read from her book “Little Arthur's History of England” toexplain the oming horror to her small charge? And will that mean confronting the darkness buried in her own past?
2 Acts
90 minutes
Not available for production
Welcome to the Future
1 F/ 1M plus 1 child
Jimmy wakes on New Year's day in the year 2000 to see a world transformed with silver suits and hover cars.
20 minutes
Chelsey and Baz (With Tara Dominick)
1F/1M
Rich heiress Chelsey alone on her yacht picks up castaway Baz from his raft in the middle of the ocean. His story changes minute by minute and so does the posibility of romance.
35 minutes
The Lady of Shallott
1F
Bad tempered Arthritic Jacqueline watches the goings on in the street below from her window . A group of kids smokingin the bus shelter. A policeman practising for his role in a Gilbert and Sullivan production. Meanwhile she tries to complete a tapestry for the local shopping centre.
2 Acts
50 minutes
Conversations at the Sorrento
- A bouquetof short table plays for performing in cafe spaces
Various
A woman is dumped by her husband via her mobile phone. Two walkers consider what would have happened if one of them had fallen from the clif. Two members of the flower show committee try to have a meeting. An elderly day tripper tries to decide whether to have a panini for lunch.
5 x 10 and 15 minute pieces.
The Town Hall Fish
Various but minimum 4F /3M plus 6 girls, 1 boy and several extras.
A day in the life of a small seaside town. Various characters come and go and a disagreement escalates between and the manage of the local aquarium. At the end of day the sight of a drowning sailor makes think she has seen an angel.
2 Acts
110 minutes
Dead Air
1F/ 1M
Susie Strong hosts the Very Very Very Early Show on Radio Violet. But today nothing in the stdio is working and with the studio technician not due in for another hour or two she's on her own. Then she hears footsteps in the corridor outside.
2 Acts
40 minutes
The Time Machine
2F/ 2M
Plus puppets
Adaptation of H.G.Wells' story. But with the added complication of two white mice hiding in the machine and who get trapped in the future.
2 Acts
70 minutes
We Call it Home
Various
An history in songs and sketches commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of a Scout and Guide headquarters in Dorset. Very specific but could be used as a blueprint for similar events.
40 minutes
Dick Whittington and his Crazee Cat
1994
Knockabout, updated version of the traditional pantomime.
2 Acts
90 minutes
Captain Pugwash and the Monster of Green Island
4 M plus 1 F to play Tom the Cabin Boy
Based on characters created by John Ryan. Pugwash wants to stand as toen mayor but he needs to make a grand gesture to be elected. He decides to set sail for Green Island to capture a monster for the town zoo. Black Jake stows away on board the black pig and pandemonium ensues.
2 Acts
90minutes
Licence for characters needed. Reading copy only Spyway Projects
Shahrazad (with the Company)
2F/2M
Adaptation and conflation of some of the original Arabian Nights tales as Shahrazad and her sister Dunyazid take on the wily old King Shahria and try to put off her execution.
2 Acts
70 minutes
The Trumpet Major
F 1/M4 with doubling.
8 without doubling The old Anne Garland could be doubled by her younger self.
Thomas Hardy's novel of life in the Napoleonic era, with soldiers massing to repel invasion, and village life in turmoil as a result.
130 mins
Hiawatha
2F / 3M
Adaptation of the Longfellow poem. The story told by a band of Jesuit priests traversing the wilds of Canada.
80 minutes
Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Vanishing Author
1F/2M
Author Conan Doyle is gradually taken over by his creation Sherlock Holmes, but then the attempt to kill off his creation, results in Holmes using all of his skills to escape death.
2 Acts/
5 Scenes
90 minutes
Published by LazyBee Scripts
The Runaway Train (with Jem Barnes)
2F / 3M
Pantomime play. Something is blocking the drains in the small wayside station where the old engine Ethel May Winthrop is being restored. But what happened to the gold that disappeared on her fateful last run? Requires full size practical steam engine.
2 Acts
90 minutes
Little Arthur’s History of England
1F
Original version of the play “Eve of War”

No longer available for production
The Mayor of Casterbridge
2f / 3M
A faithful retelling of Thomas
Hardy's well-loved novel for small company. Michael Henchard sells his wife after a bout of drunkeness. Vowing never to drink again he does well and rises to become Mayor. But when his wife and daughter reappear years later his life spirals into tragedy.
90 minutes
Jane Eyre (with Helen Palmer
2F /2M
An adaptation of the Charlotte Bronte novel for a small cast in flexible settings.
80 minutes
Painting the Clouds with Sunshine
1F/2M
Young girl has dreams of Hollywood in the 1930. Her adventureson the way to stardom
70 minutes
Robinson Crusoe
2 F / 3M
including cross dressing dame and principal boy
Traditonal panto for small cast touring prouction
80 minutes
Little Red Riding Hood
19792 F / 3M
including cross dressing dame and principal boy
Traditonal panto for small cast touring prouction. Little Red Riding Hood lives in the greenwood with her father Robin and outrageous Grandmother. The Sheriff of Nottingham disguises himself as a wolf for the usual reasons. With songs.
2 Acts
80 minutes
I Want to Fly
2F/2M
Play for young people in schools with classroom particiption. Four characters want to learn how they can fly and explore the history of mankind's attempts to do so.
Half day project. Play itself round thirty minutes
Brog Seven (with Jem Barnes)
2F /2M
A play for young people about Energy Conservation. Christine and he mother run a launderette. Brog Seven arrives from the year 2401 to sabotage their machines and point out what their misuse of energy will mean for the future. Meanwhile the dastardly Sir John Montague wants to corne the energy market for his own ends.
40 minutes
Krondos (with Jem Barnes)
3 F or M
A play for young people about Energy Conservation. Representatives from three planets meet to decide which is the most efficient energy source before the Galaxy runs out altogether.
30 minutes with discussion
The Web (with Jem Barnes)
1f / 3M
A play for young people about Energy Conservation. Perhaps the Wheeler Energy Box will be the answer to all our problems. But the villainous Grabbitt and Runne have their eyes on it fo themselves.
30 minutes
Damion and the Plague of Words(with Jem Barnes)
1F /3M
A play for young people to encourage reading with participation. Prince Damion is losing control of the kingdom through a md deluge of words. Perhaps the children can help by taking the words topiece and reassembling themin a more organised way.
30 minutes
The Jolly Farmer (with Jem Barnes)
1F/ 3M
The life and times of eighteenth century political activist William Cobbett. With songs.
80 minutes
A Grave Matter (with Jem Barnes)
1F / 3M
A hot summer in the seventeenth century and the wife of a prominent Basingstike business man is buried aive twice. Humorous retelling of a genuine piece of Basingstoke history.
80 minutes
Mummers’ Play
All sorts of permutations for a cast of five
Performance version of the ancient tradition with plenty of modern allusion and knockabout humour.
20 minutes
A Christmas Carol (with Jem Barnes)
Cast of five
An adaptation for flexible company of Charles Dickens' evergreen tale. Interspersed with traditional carols
90 minutes
Whistling
2M
A young volunteer visits an elderly blind man holding out against eviction
1 Act
40 minutes