It’s been a
strange few years. I wrote this little monologue for Dirty Protest Theatre Company
and it was put on at the Royal Court, and then at Theatre Clwyd and then at
Dirty, Gifted and Welsh. It was all beyond unbelievable.
John McGrath
saw my little monologue One Hour and Forty Five Minutes and asked me to work on
a seed commission. National Theatre Wales also nominated me for BBC Writersroom
10, I didn’t get in but just being nominated, by National Theatre Wales, was
beyond unbelievable. I mean, seriously unbelievable. National Theatre Wales?
Me? A seed commission?
I was also asked
to join the all female playwright company Agent 160, and my first short play for them will be
presented this weekend as part of Fun Palaces at Wales Millennium Centre. I sat
in rehearsals the other day, listening to words I’d written being performed by
Llinos Mai, thinking - I wrote this, it’s good, it’s really funny. I love my
job.
Then on the
12th October some scenes from my seed commission will be read at the
2nd Dirty Gifted and Welsh. Now last year at this event as one of
the writers being presented by Dirty Protest, because mine had been on at the
Royal Court, feeling a little dreamlike, I watched the pieces being presented
by National Theatre Wales and I looked at the writers and I thought, that’s
where I want to be next year. To repeat last year I said that’s where I want to
be and this year I will be. I know! Unbelievable.
It’s all
just been beyond unbelievable – I spend a lot of time thinking I am going to
wake up and the last two years has been a dream. Seriously I don’t think ever since Tim Price
phoned me up and I stood in my garden (the signal is shit in the house) and he
told me my play in a bag piece was going to be on at the Royal Court it has
stopped being anything other than surreal. But I guess that’s what it has to be
like because you spend your life dreaming this dream of being a writer and
working hard to achieve this dream. Writing and writing and writing. You get
rejections, you get knocked back, you keep on writing and you keep on dreaming.
Then you sit in the audience and watch your play at the Royal Court and it all
just gets very surreal because you are living your dream.
But then now
I’m sitting at my desk working trying to get the scenes ready for Dirty Gifted
and Welsh. Yesterday I wrote a paragraph and then sat back and re-read it, I
burst out laughing and kept laughing for a few minutes because I was looking at
it thinking – that’s either utter brilliance or complete bollocks and I really
don’t know which it is. That’s the thing with writing – every time you start
something new you have to find new ways of doing things. I could just churn out
the same old stuff, the things I’ve got comfortable with but where’s the fun in
that – if I wanted to do the same thing every day I’d work in an office. Who
the hell would choose to that when you can live the dream?
