That feeling when you wake up and another month has gone, and somehow you can’t remember what you did? That’s February, in this house. I spent a large part of the month head-down at the laptop, writing plays. Not as impressive as it sounds, as they will accept even one page wonders and utterly dud plays (as they said; “Who are you cheating if you write something that you don’t count as a play?”). I have a stack of 28 plays of lengths varying between five and twenty minutes, some of them interesting enough to expand into 45 minute radio dramas or even a decent sixty to ninety minute plays.
And some, I admit it, are complete shit. You can predict it, really, that when the brief asked for a play about the body parts or systems, that I wrote about the digestive system with the bowels as the hero (title: ‘This Is Shit’). The one I had the most hope for, the call for a one act play that was a match to one of the previous plays in the series, was probably the worst turkey of the whole flock – I thought I’d mirror writing Hamlet as a black comedy by turning the Merry Wives of Windsor into the kind of over-the-top slaughterfest that turns up in the last scene of the real Hamlet.
The theme of redemption sent most of the other playwrights off on spiritual quests, while my main character pawned her fiancee’s engagement ring and then frantically tried to retrieve it (too late…). The play to explain my name took a long time, as I lay claim to three surnames and three first names, but the jazz play based on a frantic family morning was short and real fun to write. Far more fun than the brief asking for our take on AI and the nature of truth.
The final brief brought us back to the first brief – about time – by asking for a play about a place where there was no time. Sad git that I am, first stop was the New Scientist to find their thoughts on the nature of Time. Basically – if there is no time passing, nothing can happen, which sort of defeats the object of putting on a stage play. By early afternoon today, I finished it, added a title and sent it. And that was it. Twenty eight plays later, and I’m free… to catch up on all the things I put to one side.
Just as I submitted that last play, Globe Soup sent an email to all contestants to announce the winners of last year’s Paranormal contest. And I’m on it. Not the winner, but one of thirty runners up. Nobody upset me by saying that there were only thirty one entries. Please.
Julia Chalkley 