Blood and Bones. Play writng in the 21st Century.

Blood and Bones Theatre

Theatre is the oldest expression of some of the deepest human instincts.  The playwright’s job is to establish the complex process of thought that leads to that expression.  Yet in the post-rational twenty-first century just when they’re needed, many of the enormous possibilities of drama have been lost to a welter of superficial acrobatics, music and visual effect while the actual skills of playwriting - character construction and dialogue and as a vehicle for understanding the fundamentals of human nature - have been downgraded such that the playwright him or herself is thought of as mere pen holder for other theatre makers. Playwrights are kept at arm’s length from the creative process by the dread shadow of The Dramaturg and the play reading committee.

This series is not a handy how-to-do-it guide but rather a personal meditation on the place of the playwright in contemporary theatre.   It suggests that if theatre is to survive it needs to re-engage with its audiences by offering something to challenge the immediate attraction of film, television and other narratives. It needs to find its soul again and offer what is its unique properties.  To do this it needs a powerful cohort of playwrights and it needs them once again at the heart of the playmaking process.  Playwrights like me need to stop titting around with ten minute sketches and applying cap in hand to futile competitions.  We need to be bolder, braver and prouder of what we do because I firmly believe we can contribute in some way to getting the world back to a more humane, rational way of progressing.

I am particularly fortunate in that I was able to learn my craft in what, with hindsight, appears to be a golden age of theatre.  I have had opportunities to work alongside great actors and within companies who believed in the essential power of drama. I have been able to learn from people who knew their craft and I hope I have been able to pass that on in writing workshops and as a director working with young and established actors to this day.

So, if you are a playwright, actor, director. Audience member or all round lover of theatre come with me on my ramble through my own head as I try to understand what it is I’ve been playing with for the last forty years

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	LazyBee Scripts
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	LazyBee Scripts
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	Spyway Projects
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	Spyway Projects
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	Spyway Projects
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	Spyway Projects
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	LazyBee Scripts
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	Published in paperback by Roving Press Ltd. 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	Spyway Projects
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	Spyway Projects
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	Spyway Projects
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.	Spyway Projects
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	Spyway Projects
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	Spyway Projects
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	Spyway Projects
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	Spyway Projects
Dick Whittington and his Crazee Cat	1994	Knockabout, updated version of the traditional pantomime.	2 Acts 90 minutes	Spyway Projects
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	Spyway Projects
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	LazyBee Scripts
Hiawatha	2F / 3M	Adaptation of the Longfellow poem. The story told by a band of Jesuit priests traversing the wilds of Canada.	80 minutes	Spyway Projects
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	Spyway Projects
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	Spyway Projects
Jane Eyre (with Helen Palmer	2F /2M	An adaptation of the Charlotte Bronte novel for a small cast in flexible settings.	80 minutes	Spyway Projects
Painting the Clouds with Sunshine	1F/2M	Young girl has dreams of Hollywood in the 1930. Her adventureson the way to stardom	70 minutes	Spyway Projects
Robinson Crusoe	2 F / 3M including cross dressing dame and principal boy	Traditonal panto for small cast touring prouction	80 minutes	Spyway Projects
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	Spyway Projects
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	Spyway Projects
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	Spyway Projects
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	Spyway Projects
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	Spyway Projects
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	Spyway Projects
The Jolly Farmer (with Jem Barnes)	1F/ 3M	The life and times of eighteenth century political activist William Cobbett. With songs.	80 minutes	Spyway Projects
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	Spyway Projects
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	Spyway Projects
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	Spyway Projects
Whistling	2M	A young volunteer visits an elderly blind man holding out against eviction	1 Act 40 minutes	Spyway Projects

The Playwright's Christmas Do

The howling wind will make the music for the do,
The rain in diamond drops to make a bit of sparkle.
The door bell rings
They’re here.  I’ll put the kettle on.
It’s Mrs Iago
“The whole Knitting Circle?”
“As many as I could muster,
There’s something going round.
And Michael’s outside in the van.”
“I’d better open something.
This Chilean red?”
“That’ll do. Not too expensive.
I’ll check there’s no-one watching from the street.”
The bell again.  it’s Holmes,
Or is that Conan Doyle?
I never could tell the two apart.
He’ll entertain himself with a puzzle
To which there’s a seven percent solution.
Now they’re coming thick and fast:
Nanny Eve.  Arthur is already behind the curtain
Staring out the window at the past.
I know what she’ll have
There’s a bottle somewhere
For her to find.
Now Emma Hardy limping up the stars
Her hat a crumpled meringue.
Mary Anning, a few drops of laudenum
Just to keep her going for the day.
Oh here’s the panto crowd
Where?  You know very well where they are.
And someone from the very distant past
“Mr. Scrooge, isn’t it?
Still in the party mood?”
And so on in their hundreds
Filling the air with chatter.
The Hurdy Gurdy Boy, I’m glad he came.
I can’t see him, of course,
But Tamara is here to play the fiddle
And get that old Scrooge dancing
And Angelo to lurk darkly in the kitchen.
He’s cooking up something.
That lot from the house on the marsh
And the Foundation crew,
One missing, but which one?
That was the mystery.

And when they’re gone at last,
The final curtain fallen,
I’m glad the lads from the Pig Unit
Weren’t here to cause a stink.
The Time Traveller
Will come yesterday.
And many just couldn’t get in.
All in all Not a bad do.
Now back to what I love the best,
The music of the howling gale
The diamond rain drops on the pane.
And the kettle’s just boiled.

The Urban Fox Hunt

We hunt the foxes up and down

From Camberwell to Kentish Town.

On steeds of steel in coats of red

We follow Reynard to his bed.

No close or alley we don’t know

From Peckham Rye to Pimlico

Where Reynard dares to lie and hide.

We chase him like a scarlet tide;

He twists and turns with might and main

Through Marble Arch and back again.

Then, frantic at the huntsmans blast

He sees a haven safe at last

With bursting lungs and shivering skin

He dives beneath a compost bin.

He begs no mercy unaware

That safety may be close by there:

A saint, with coffee table tomes

Of bunnies, pussies and of gnomes;

A wild life lover to the core -

She’d give him shelter, that’s for sure.

Hearing the horns she ventures out

And sees the fox’s pointed snout.

“Ah, view halloo!” Your fox is here!”

She shouts with voice both loud and clear.

Alas for Reynard!  She can’t give a fig.

Last night he stole her guinea pig.

And now the hunt is at an end

The fox is lost without a friend.

The hounds are on him, rip out his throat.

The hunstman winds one final note

And far away, in Fetter Lane,

The vixen waits him, all in vain.

The cubs are anxious, they whine and fret

And ask if it is tea-time yet.