Firstly apologies for this article being late. I do appreciate being invited to season launches and aim to give coverage as swiftly as possible, but the unfortunate news about the Vault Festival took precedence. But now there is time to catch up.
Just a reminder before we start that this is not a comprehensive guide to everything covered at the launch – I leave that up to other media outlets. My interest is more with what grabs my attention. Much of this comes down to whims; something the doesn’t get my attention can turn out to be a gem – and very occasionally, something I was convinced was a surefire hit is a let-down. My final of what’s worth watching is always after this has come and gone.
That caveat established, let’s go. There are aspects of all three main plays that grab my attention, then I’ll move on to some other highlights. One unusual observation: after a crowded autumn/winter 2023, there’s a big gap in main stage productions until May 2024, with the three main plays scheduled between then and March 2025. I’m a bit surprised they’ve picked May over March, because the conventional wisdom’s always been that the colder months (except January) tend to sell better than warmer months. Not reading anything into that: just a curiosity.
Now, out of the three main plays, my hot bet is Champion by Ishy Din. He is one of the writers I have the most respect for, and in my opinion, his previous Live play Approaching Empty was very under-rated. Although he predominantly writes characters of Asian descent, the themes are almost always universal and could just as easily be anybody’s story. I was particularly impressed with the characterisation. In a story where everybody uses and betrays those closest to them, you always – with the exception of one character who’s a hardened criminal – understand why each of them felt they were doing the right thing. I also credit him with giving some of the best advice to aspiring writers: in particular, he has spoken a lot of sense about the “big breakthrough” myth which far too much of the new writing ecosystem still subscribes do. Anyway, the subject of the new play? The visit of Mohammed Ali in 1977 to South Shields, although there’s hints that the real subject of the play is a mixed-race family living in South Shields at the time.
Going backwards, we have Saint Maud. This is probably a coincidence, but there’s a lot of Halloween-heavy programming in the north-east this year. This is an adaptation of a recent film which I haven’t seen and don’t know much about – but I have heard a lot of talk about this film in theatre circles. That’s a big deal, because there is usually little crossover between the two. It begins with a devout Christian nurse tending to a terminally ill ex-dancer, but escalates into something a lot more sinister. Jack McNamara did give away what the ending is, which I’m not going to repeat as it’s a spoiler, but I can tell you it’s pretty twisted.
But first, we have The Bounds, which is a play about football. But not football as we know it. It’s not even that stupid sport Americans play. You might have seen this if you’ve ever seen preparations for Ashbourne Shrovetide Football, where all the shops board up their windows and everyone takes cover for a game that involves getting a ball from one side of the town to the other by any means necessary. Well, this goes back to the 16th century when this version of “foot” ball was all the all the rage. This one’s in Northumberland, and they say “Men will die today” which may or may not have been spoken in jest. This is a co-production with the Royal Court – yet to be determined how big the cast will be and how many pieces they are in by the end of the story.
Various other upcoming things were also presented, but one thing that was notable is how much Alphabetti/Live crossover there is. Much-respected founder Ali Pritchard has now either left Alphabetti as Artistic Director or is leaving imminently, but he’s not leaving directing because he’s been taken on to revive and direct an old Christmas play Present. This is a play about a homeless man at Christmas, and I admit when I saw first saw this I wondered if this was going to be any different from all the other plays about homelessness at Christmas, but it’s worth it for the ending, which is lovely – and if you don’t know what Crisis Skylight does on Christmas Day, this is a great way to find out. Before then, also notable, is All White Everything but Me, about the first black tennis player to win Wimbledon, in 1957, long before the Williams sisters dominated the game. That is in early July.
But the season launch was only the side-show. The headline news was:
The North East Playwriting Award
Full disclosure: I entered this award and got longlisted. As far as I can tell, this has not influenced my coverage, but I’ll leave it up to you to decide if you agree.
I have some scepticism over the value of playwriting competitions. The winners and finalists of big national competitions such as Bruntwood and Verity Bargate are almost exclusively playwrights who already have made names for themselves. Not an issue in itself, but it does become a problem when this is routinely confused as an opportunity for entry-level playwright – or worse, considered a substitute for things that might actually help entry-level playwrights. If you’re serious about opportunities for aspiring writers, you need a much wider strategy, which to be fair Live does, but it’s a much bigger issue than one theatre alone can solve. We can discuss that strategy another day.
But if you’re going to make a playwriting competition part of your strategy, Live Theatre’s approach is the way to do it. There is one in-built advantage of a regional competition over a big national one: it is possible to win without a big catalogue of credits. But the thing too few playwriting competitions place a value on – Papatango excepted – is feedback. Interestingly, I notice the format of feedback is quite different between Live and Papatango, but that’s something I’ll look into another day. I did hear a quip during the presentation about the amount of admin work that went into sending out the feedback, which might just have been a sign that Live Theatre’s having second thoughts about doing feedback in future. Please don’t. For many writers, that feedback is the only means they have to learn and improve. I understand the feedback is written anyway in the process of judging – if the admin is a problem, it wouldn’t be too difficult to set up a system to automate that. I’ll even help you set that up for free.
The other thing that was notable was the option to write a “detailed treatment” of a play instead of writing a whole script – the reason being that writing a whole script is a lot of unpaid work. I’m please somebody has finally brought up this issue. People are, quite rightly, railing against exploitation through unpaid work, but there’s next to no scrutiny of big competitions encouraging thousands of people to “get writing” – the majority of whom have no chance of getting anything in return for their work (and no, giving an “opportunity” doesn’t count). Whether this alternative of a ten-page outline of a play is a viable alternative is currently unclear – I would be very interested to know how many entrants took up this offer and how they fared against conventional scripts. But I applaud the fact that one theatre has finally picked up on a ethically questionable practice and attempted to address it.
Now, there are three names I recognise amongst the shortlists and winners. There’s a 16-25 category, and and an open category. In the open category, I saw Miles Kinsley and Stephen Honour, who impressed me with It’s All in Your Head and The Case of Charles Dexter Ward respectively. In the 16-25 category, the winner was Connor Dorian, who I worked with at Durham Fringe and has carved out quite a niche with BrainSoup Collective, possibly the only theatre/clowning ensemble in the north-east.
So, in terms of opportunities, how does this compare to the big competitions? Well, it doesn’t offer a big breakthrough from a writer starting at square zero. Most of the finalists already had credits to their name. Realistically this was always going to be the case – is it near-impossible to have full-length plays picked up by professional theatres without some sort of experience having your work on stage. But – crucially – it’s nowhere near the extensive list of credits needed to stand a chance in the big competitions. There is one other important observation I made: Miles Kinsley and Stephen Honour both proactively got their own productions on stage. I repeat to all aspiring playwrights: if you have the means to get your work on stage, do it – even it’s on a tiny budget and you do all the work. Experience shows you stand a much better chance of making it than just hoping for the thumbs up of a reading room.
And the winner? It’s Emilie Robson with Dogs on the Metro, in a play that seems to cover a single Metro line – but over multiple alternate timelines. How will this compare to Live’s other main-stage productions? We will see.
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