Hello!
After two months of radio silence, here we are again. I'd intended to provide an update ages ago but other things got in the way. Laziness, chiefly. Oh, now, that's not fair. I was also a script reader for the Papatango Theatre Company's New Writing Prize, helping the company to whittle down over five hundred scripts to a short-list of eight, not to mention being involved in deciding which play should win the prize (a guaranteed production at the Finborough Theatre and publication by Nick Hern Books). I read sixty scripts in the space of a month and it was certainly an eye-opening experience into what's getting written out there. I'd love to say what those things are but I'm fairly sure I'm bound to some unofficial secrets act, and the winner has yet to be announced...
However, I can safely talk about my own new play, Games of Love and Chance. As mentioned before, it began as an adaptation of Marivaux's 1730 romantic comedy The Game of Love and Chance, though as I work my way through the third draft it would perhaps be more accurate to say that my script takes inspiration from that earlier play.
It is 1929. Oscar Botcherby hopes to increase his wealth by marrying off his daughter, Sylvia, to the son of a prospective business partner. Sylvia is adamantly opposed to being engaged to a man she has never met before but is persuaded to observe him in secret before making up her mind. Moments before Roderick Brooke-Sharpe, the young man in question, is due to arrive, Sylvia swaps places with her maid, Edith. Unbeknownst to anybody, Roderick has himself swapped places with his valet Charlie. Misunderstandings and maladroit romances ensue, whilst Sylvia's younger brother, Martin, tries his level-headed best to remain entirely uninvolved.
The primary mechanism of Marivaux's plot remains the same and his six characters have found themselves transplanted to my play with varying levels of fidelity - but new sub-plots and an original framing narrative have been developed in the hopes of providing a rather tighter and perhaps more involving theatrical production. Oscar Botcherby positions himself as the ringmaster of the performance, inviting us to follow his schemes as he manipulates the young people around him. A romance of sorts between Oscar and Edith has also provided additional motivation for the maid's actions, which seemed somewhat lacking in the Marivaux play. And the misadventures of Martin - probably my favourite strand throughout my script - are entirely new, as the poor young man finds himself being drawn into the farcical goings on just as he thought he was going to survive the weekend unscathed. The play does not present itself as a replacement for Marivaux's comedy. It is instead an alternative.
Games will be a co-production between the newly created London-based company Zut Alors Theatre and TwoSquared Productions of Edinburgh (for whom I adapted The Wind in the Willows in 2012). It will receive a series of scratch performance nights at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts in July before a week long run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August. I've been sworn to secrecy by my production team regarding any further details but I'm sure they'll find their way here soon...
I do reckon, however, that it could be rather entertaining.
After two months of radio silence, here we are again. I'd intended to provide an update ages ago but other things got in the way. Laziness, chiefly. Oh, now, that's not fair. I was also a script reader for the Papatango Theatre Company's New Writing Prize, helping the company to whittle down over five hundred scripts to a short-list of eight, not to mention being involved in deciding which play should win the prize (a guaranteed production at the Finborough Theatre and publication by Nick Hern Books). I read sixty scripts in the space of a month and it was certainly an eye-opening experience into what's getting written out there. I'd love to say what those things are but I'm fairly sure I'm bound to some unofficial secrets act, and the winner has yet to be announced...
However, I can safely talk about my own new play, Games of Love and Chance. As mentioned before, it began as an adaptation of Marivaux's 1730 romantic comedy The Game of Love and Chance, though as I work my way through the third draft it would perhaps be more accurate to say that my script takes inspiration from that earlier play.
It is 1929. Oscar Botcherby hopes to increase his wealth by marrying off his daughter, Sylvia, to the son of a prospective business partner. Sylvia is adamantly opposed to being engaged to a man she has never met before but is persuaded to observe him in secret before making up her mind. Moments before Roderick Brooke-Sharpe, the young man in question, is due to arrive, Sylvia swaps places with her maid, Edith. Unbeknownst to anybody, Roderick has himself swapped places with his valet Charlie. Misunderstandings and maladroit romances ensue, whilst Sylvia's younger brother, Martin, tries his level-headed best to remain entirely uninvolved.
The primary mechanism of Marivaux's plot remains the same and his six characters have found themselves transplanted to my play with varying levels of fidelity - but new sub-plots and an original framing narrative have been developed in the hopes of providing a rather tighter and perhaps more involving theatrical production. Oscar Botcherby positions himself as the ringmaster of the performance, inviting us to follow his schemes as he manipulates the young people around him. A romance of sorts between Oscar and Edith has also provided additional motivation for the maid's actions, which seemed somewhat lacking in the Marivaux play. And the misadventures of Martin - probably my favourite strand throughout my script - are entirely new, as the poor young man finds himself being drawn into the farcical goings on just as he thought he was going to survive the weekend unscathed. The play does not present itself as a replacement for Marivaux's comedy. It is instead an alternative.
Games will be a co-production between the newly created London-based company Zut Alors Theatre and TwoSquared Productions of Edinburgh (for whom I adapted The Wind in the Willows in 2012). It will receive a series of scratch performance nights at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts in July before a week long run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August. I've been sworn to secrecy by my production team regarding any further details but I'm sure they'll find their way here soon...
I do reckon, however, that it could be rather entertaining.
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