Talking to myself
Given that life is short, events are pressing and people here don’t read my maunderings there, this is something that also appears on the Daylight Robbery page on the 24:7 Theatre festival website. Since I wrote it, I’ve been at a costume session with two of the actors who talked about the show with such enthusiasm and insight that it made me feel like a proper playwright. Or, as its hero Jerome Caminada would say, merry as marriage bells.
Out of all the things I thought I’d become – rock star, best selling novelist, interestingly wasted absinthe addict haunting the gutters of Montmartre – I never dreamed that I would become a hyphenate. But as writer-producer of Daylight Robbery, a hyphenate is what I am.
It’s an odd role, since traditionally a producer develops and steers a writer’s work, and a writer relies on a producer to be a wise guide, sharing the vision but standing back and pointing out how the rickety bits can be reinforced, or indeed whether sections need to be removed or replaced. When it works well, then it’s a rewarding relationship on both sides.
So here we are, just days before opening night, and the producer is thinking – should I have encouraged the writer to be less ambitious, and the writer is thinking – it would be brilliant to have a producer to hold my hand through the inevitable moments of doubt. Writers really want to be loved and reassured, and self love isn’t at all the same.
Fortunately there isn’t time to wobble because there’s a lot to be done, and while the police whistle has been bought, and major props secured through the kindness of Library Theatre, Caminada has still to attend his costume session at the Royal Exchange and, most important, the play has yet to be run through from beginning to end with all the cast in attendance. Sunday is the moment of truth when the brain has to split and the producer must talk encouragingly but firmly to the writer if flaws become apparent. The key to successful writing is rewriting, and I’ve never been involved with a script which couldn’t have benefited from more work.
As a writer, I’m extremely fortunate that 24:7 saw enough merit in the draft I submitted to invite me to take part. The play has developed a lot since then, while still retaining the original plan of having a small number of actors playing multiple roles in short, fast-moving scenes, juggling costume and props to reflect the different people and settings. Three people have described it to me as Brechtian, which is quite a heavy weight to bear.
As a producer, the whole thing has been an adventure and a really useful exercise in discovering how to mount a play on the fringe. I’ve always preferred to learn through experience rather than instruction, doing it rather than being told how to, which of course can be risky or even foolhardy, but at least I can say at the end that it was my vision, transformed to a higher level by our very talented cast, our exciting director Darren R L Gordon, and considerably supported by our ‘foot in the door’ assistant producer, Nicola Holt, who now has both feet well into the room.
In my television days I was able to call on a specialist for every task – a production manager to look after all the practicalities and manage the budget, a set designer, an art director, a costume designer – and at first thinking that I needed to cover all these specialisms was more than boggling. But doing one thing at a time, ticking off to-dos on a list, has made it all manageable, and enabled me to move from boggled to excited, albeit that the butterflies have now set up camp in my stomach and there is still more than a week to go before we move into New Century House.
However, a show without butterflies isn’t a show at all, merely an exercise in misplaced confidence. Bring on the Red Admirals.