PRESS RELEASE - 23 June 2003
Ten new stage and radio plays will be making their first appearance at the nationally-recognised Tobacco Factory in July. They are all winning entries in the acclaimed Southwest Scriptwriters annual drama competition.
The week-long festival of new plays, each starting at 7.45pm, will begin on Monday 14th of July with "Matthew's Splinter" and "Interviewing Alice" by Heather Lister. On Tuesday 15th July, "Honeysuckle Cottage" by Bruce Fellows and "Freehold & Free" by Ann Gawthorpe and Lesley Bown, will be performed. Wednesday 16th July will bring "Falling Through" by Shiona Morton and "The Breakaway Blues" by Eileen O'Haire. "The Radicals" by Mark Breckon will be shown on Thursday 17th of July. Friday the 18th July offers "Fly Me To The Moon" by Ed Viney and "Percy" by William House.
The week will climax with a production of "The Trials of Thomas Weaving", overall winner of the competition on Saturday 19th of July. Tickets are available from the Tobacco Factory box office on 0117 902 0344.
Southwest Scriptwriters is a new-writing workshop based at the Bristol Old Vic. It works to promote stage, screen and radio writing in the area, using a mixture of talks, courses and reading workshops to develop and encourage new work.
Former group presidents include writer of the hit West End musical "Mamma Mia!", Catherine Johnson, and the creator of "Cold Feet", Mike Bullen. Current members have won a number of awards and written episodes of TV series such as BBC1's "Doctors" and ITV's "The Bill".
Scriptwriters' artistic director, Tim Massey, called this year's readings the most exciting yet; "We're putting on ten plays this year as opposed to last year's six and the standard of the work just keeps getting better and better," he said.
The first two plays in the season, "Matthew's Splinter" and "Interviewing Alice", will be performed on Monday 14th July. Written by Bristol-based teacher and charity worker, Heather Lister, "Matthew's Splinter" is a powerful drama about the effect the death of a young soldier has on his family and friends. "Interviewing Alice" has a slightly more surreal tone. Heather describes it as "'Waiting for Godot' meets 'Alice in Wonderland' with a simple job interview deteriorating into terror and mayhem."
Heather has written a number of plays, stories and poems and won several awards for her work. In 2000, her play "Dividing Walls" came third in the "Play On Words" competition and "The Trouble with Alex", highly-commended in the Tipperary drama festival. She describes the script reader's comments for this competition as "incredibly valuable. You always get good feedback at Southwest Scriptwriters."
On Tuesday 15th of July, "Honeysuckle Cottage" by Bruce Fellows, will be followed by "Freehold & Free" by Ann Gawthorpe and Lesley Bown. By day, Bruce Fellows is Director of Studies at the English Language Centre in Bristol, but he's followed a parallel writing career for over 35 years. His play is a romance set during the Second World War and concerns the ill-fated relationship between a young Lincolnshire girl and a Dam Busters hero. On being one of the runners-up in the competition, Bruce says: "it's a bit like being Steve McQueen in 'The Thomas Crown Affair' when he realises the bank raid has been successful."
Ann Gawthorpe and Lesley Bown are old hands at the Southwest Scriptwriters competition and several of their plays have been performed in rehearsed readings at the New Vic. Both retired and living in the Bristol area, they specialise in stage comedies, particularly farces. "Freehold & Free" is a radio play concerning the efforts of a disparate bunch of tenants to buy the freehold on their building, despite the efforts of a devious milkman. "Every time we see one of our plays performed," says Ann, "it gives us a tremendous boost and the will to do even better next time."
Wednesday the 16th of July brings two more plays by women writers, "Falling Through" by Shiona Morton, and "The Breakaway Blues" by Eileen O'Haire. "Falling Through" is a touching radio drama about an old man coming to Clevedon to retire and the memories that won't leave him alone. Backwell-based Shiona Morton teaches drama to 11 to 18 year olds and has been writing seriously for about six years. In 2000, she got through to the final round of the world-renown Verity Bargate Award in London and was also short listed for Theatre West's "Search for a Script" in 2002. Though frequently recognised, Shiona's work has been less frequently performed so she's "delighted to see my work performed in a professional context."
Charity case worker Eileen O'Haire describes her play "The Breakaway Blues" as "a 'Thelma & Louise' for the SAGA generation." It's the most recent of several pieces she's written. Like Shiona, she's been short listed for Theatre West's "Search for a Script" and her screenplay "Undertow" was made into a short film. "Seeing your work performed gives you the encouragement to keep going," she says.
"The Radicals", to be performed on Thursday 17th July, is the second play by Mark Breckon to be showcased at The Tobacco Factory. His previous play "The Camp" was performed by Bristol's Show Of Strength theatre company, and was placed in The Independent's list of Top Ten plays outside of London. "The Radicals" is a complex drama about a group of friends who are forced to reassess their political views in the light of September 11th. Mark, who recently had an episode of "Doctors" screened on BBC1, is enthusiastic about the rehearsed reading process. "It helped a lot with my previous scripts," he says, "and helped to get 'The Camp' produced."
Friday 18th July brings a double bill of plays by Cotham-based teacher Ed Viney and Keynsham GP William House. Ed Viney is a veteran of the Edinburgh fringe and his new play "Fly Me to the Moon" won joint second prize with Mark Breckon. The play is a dark fantasy about two World War I soldiers stuck in a trench awaiting the inevitable. Directing the play himself, Ed is "looking forward to seeing the theatrical effects play out on stage."
William House combines playwriting with his medical practice and the two interests come together in his new play "Percy", which he describes as an "experimental absurdist play about ritual, routine and relics." Strongly influenced by the style of Samuel Beckett, William has been writing for five years and "Percy" is his second rehearsed reading. "Writing a play is very hard to fit into a professional life," he says, "but it helps me to understand humanity in a new and richer way."
Finally, Saturday 19th July will see the performance of the overall competition winner, "The Trials of Thomas Weaving" by Brian Weaving. Brian's play follows a period of time tracing his ancestors and is a dramatic reconstruction of the life of one such, Thomas Weaving. "It's particularly exciting for me to see the play staged," says retired businessman Brian, "as Thomas was my great, great, great grandfather." It's not the first time Marshfield-based Brian has won awards for his writing. His last full-length stage play "In Charge", a powerful drama about a tragic school trip and its aftermath, won second prize in the 2002 competition. He has also won a silver medal in the 2003 Mid Somerset Festival and the "Evelyn Sandford Cup" at the same festival in 2000.
For more information on Southwest Scriptwriters, email info@southwest-scriptwriters.co.uk.
