Uncle John

My Great Uncle John (or simply Uncle John as we called him) was the other playwright in our family. As far as I know, Uncle John never had anything professionally produced but he was a teacher in Manchester for years and wrote the school plays.

Uncle John once wrote a song for a school production called 'Take Me Back To Manchester Where It's Always Raining'. Decades later one of his pupils, Mike Leigh, used it in his film 'Naked'. Apparently Mike Leigh had tried and failed to find the writer of the song and had assumed it was a traditional Manchester song. There followed a series of phone calls which ended with Uncle John and Mike Leigh singing down the phone to each other.

I only found all this out much later. Uncle John was an incredibly modest man and one of the most gentlemanly. He told the story with a glint in his eye, more from enjoyment than pride.

Uncle John was always a great supporter of my writing. Back when I was starting out, he and his wife Maria would turn up unannounced to see whatever fringe production I had on. He never asked for a freebie and sometimes made up 100% of the audience. Afterwards, Uncle John would hang around and chat to the actors or the director and later, would write me a beautiful hand-written note of encouragement.

I can't tell you what these letters meant to me.

When you are starting out as a playwright it is difficult to get your friends and family to take you seriously, let alone anyone else. Uncle John was always encouraging and often extremely kind at my false steps and pretentiousness.

In the last few years, Uncle John had had a period of ill health and so had not seen anything recently. But he would occasionally catch one or two of my radio plays and I would duly receive another lovely letter.

In September last year, I was appointed to a post at the University of St Andrews, the town he was born in, had retired to and loved. My dad tells me that Uncle John was incredibly chuffed (his great Uncle had been a part of the University too) but although I had seen him a couple of times in the last few years since moving to Scotland, I had not seen him recently.

Sadly Uncle John passed away yesterday at the age of 89 so I will never get the opportunity to say how much I appreciated his support. He was a real character, a fantastic teller of stories and someone who I felt was on my team.

Thank you, John, for all your support and kindness. You will be missed.

CATS nominations for Dragon

Very pleased to say that Dragon, my play for Vox Motus, the National Theatre of Scotland, and Tianjin Peoples Arts Theatre has been nominated for 5 Critics' Awards for Theatre in Scotland.

We're up for Best New Play, Best Production for Children and Young People, Best Technical Presentation, Best Design and Best Ensemble.

It was a total team effort so each nomination is brilliant!

And it's lovely to be celebrated in such amazing company with all the other great shows from last year.

The full list of nominees is here.

The winners are announced in June.

Fingers and tallons crossed.

Elvis in Prestwick - BBC Radio 4Extra

My short story Elvis In Prestwick about Presley's one and only visit to Great Britain is being repeated on BBC Radio 4 Extra this Sunday and will be on iPlayer for seven days. It's read by the brilliant Laura Fraser.

Check it out here.

A play on repeat...

One of the odd things about writing for radio is that you never know when a play is going to be repeated. (Playwrights grumble a bit about this but, to be honest, there's so much content that it's obviously impossible to inform everyone). The happiest moment is when someone emails to say that they enjoyed listening to a play which you didn't even know was on.

Last night, I got such an email from a pal about Albion Street, the short play I wrote about the independence debate in Scotland that was first broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland in February.

When I tell people a play of mine is being repeated the most common response is: ooh, that will mean a nice repeat fee, eh? This makes me laugh. I would have to check my contract but I believe the broadcaster gets two repeats before any new 'fee' is issued. And it's rare for a radio drama to get more than two repeats...

No, the truth is that the real positive about a repeat is that more folk can listen to your play. Downloads and iPlayer have had a massive (and positive) effect on how we listen to radio and have changed it forever.

But there's still nothing quite like a repeat.

NEW - MLitt in Creative Writing - Writing For Performance

New for 2014-15 is this new strand to the already brilliant MLitt in Creative Writing at University of St Andrews - Writing for Performance.

Lead by Zinnie Harris and myself, the course offers a broad range of experience and skills for writing for stage, screen, radio and for young people. We focus in particular on new writing from Scotland with teaching taking the form of weekly seminars, workshops and one-to-one tuition.

See here for more information.

The Adventures of Robin Hood - the book!

Hurrah!

The lovely people at Oberon Books have published my new play The Adventures of Robin Hood. It was a very swift turnaround so many thanks are due to Andrew Welby and everyone at Oberon.

Next week we take the show to the Kennedy Center in Washington DC as part of World Stages Festival. 

We are back in Scotland in a few weeks.

Until then, you can buy the book at all good theatre bookshops and on Amazon.

Playwright (etc.)

(Photo by Eoin Carey)

Last Edinburgh Fringe, the Playwright Studio Scotland were kind enough to invite me to lead a workshop called 'Playwright (etc.)' about ideas, where they come from and the different roles that a playwright has within a process.

And I'm delighted to say that the PSS have asked me back again as part of their TalkFest at the Tron this April.

Find info and tickets for 'Playwright (etc.)' here.

It's not just me either. There is a workshop with the splendid Douglas Maxwell, the brilliant David Harrower, and the awesome Clare Duffy.

Each workshop is £3 so frankly you'd be bonkers not to go to them all.

I hope to see some of you there!