Thursday 26 January 2012

The Staged Reading

Hey,

I promised a longer update this time, but am not really sure what you would like to hear about. Firstly I should report back on the staged reading of my script, "Things you can do with Chips". I was disappointed that the seating was very poor. Half the room was full of low settees, and there were high chairs in front of these. Half of the audience said that they couldn't see anything at all, and had to treat it as a radio play. This was a real pity, and it meant that many people must have gone away with a completely wrong impression at the end when the terrible Megan suggested to Bill that they should run away together. Everyone who could see the stage was in no doubt of his reaction, but those who couldn't see - or at least one of them - assumed that it had happened! (With hindsight I should have marked in the script that they both went out on different sides of the stage, but lack of experience had made me unaware of this.) Everybody who could see (and hear) gave me wonderful feedback. The consensus that seemed to be emerging was that it was easy to follow, 'unpretentious' and it made people laugh. Some particularly liked the satire in the scene with the Prime Minister, some the robots... but I really couldn't have asked for any better comments. I'm going to try and enter the one act play in a competition (when the right one comes up)- and write a version for TV as well. (Don't know how I'll get on with that, but watch this space!)