Episode 15 - Vodka and orange

Christine and Denise

I’m Gillian Richmond. I’ve spent more than thirty years writing for UK stage, TV and radio. People often ask me how I got started. Welcome to episode 15 of the path to my breakthrough play.

Image by Prihodko Danik from Pixabay

Previously on ‘This Writer’s Journey’…

In the mid-1980s, I have junked the first draft of my army wives play for the Royal Court and am starting over.

Deeper in the past, my father has bought me a ticket on a Wives’ Club outing to see Engelbert Humperdinck in concert. I really don’t want to go.

That night with Engelbert wasn’t easy.

None of the wives talked to me. No-one returned my smiles. No-one even nodded in my direction. Why would they? I was a fourteen year old geek from the posh end of the camp and they were out to have fun. Before the show, while they were in the pub getting tanked up, I sat outside, on my own. In the theatre, while they danced and jiggled and threw their knickers at the stage, I sat at the end of the row and waited for it all to be over.

What possessed my dad to put me, his shy, fourteen-year-old daughter, onto a coach full of soldiers’ wives, all of them off the leash and on the lash? Did he maybe yearn to be on that bus himself, off to Southampton to see a bona fide crooner at the height of his fame? Or was it something deeper? How comfortable, after all, did he feel in the officer class, the poor boy from the Gorbals? Was he longing for a night off, partying with people he understood?

I have no way of knowing. He’s been dead a long time and I can’t ask him.

But, really, did he truly think it was a good idea to put me on that bus?

Well. Here’s the thing. It was a fantastic idea.

Because in the autumn of 1985, it gives me the springboard into my new play.

I settle on the sofa with a biro and a pad of narrow-ruled A4 paper. No synopsis, no scene breakdown. Just two women - Denise and Christine - and me and a story that starts with a wives’ club outing to see Engelbert Humperdinck.

The words flow like the vodka on that unforgettable night. As my two women unfold their story, they make me laugh and they make me cry. I totally love them.

That term I lead a simple life. School and writing. Writing and school.

At school, Caroline can still tantrum for England, but the meltdowns are coming a little less frequently, and I catch her sometimes, taking a moment to breathe before she decides whether or not to explode. Gaynor’s attendance, still not perfect, is improving and I’m no longer overhearing so many whispered corridor conversations about her behaviour in the playground.

In the Christmas holidays I type up the play on my Commodore 64 and give it to David to read.

In Ambridge, Sid Perks is dating Kathy Holland. In Albert Square, Michelle is telling Den he’s the father of her baby.

In Hackney, I’m holding my breath.

I love it, says David.

I print out a second copy and mail it to the Royal Court.

For some months now I’ve been going along to Tony Craze’s workshops at the Soho Poly Theatre. Many member of the group are already recognised playwrights. Tony himself, Deborah Levy, Melissa Murray, Winsome Pinnock, Ayshe Raif, to mention only a few. The sessions start with a reading from a work in progress, whch is followed by a discussion. The analysis is always serious, but there’s a lot of warmth and laughter and support in the room.

At the far side of the stage, a small woman with an excellent haircut always sits alone: Sue Dunderdale, the Artistic Director of the Soho Poly. Known for her sharp eye and fierce intelligence, she leans forward in her seat, eyes narrowed in concentration, listening hard to the play and the discussion afterwards. Passionate about theatre, she weighs her words with care.¹

A Sunday in the spring of 1986. My play, The Last Waltz, is to be workshopped. I’m as nervous as I’ve ever been in my life. And then some.

Hilary Salmon from the Royal Court comes along and takes a seat beside me in the front row.

The reading goes well. There’s laughter and applause. People smile.

But the real point of these sessions is the discussion.

The discussion after my play goes on and on.

There’s a lengthy disagreement among the audience about the importance of Denise’s vodka habit. Some people feel I should go more deeply into the reasons for her drinking. Others disagree: for them the writing is already doing the job, and making things more obvious would damage the play.

To understate or to show more depth on the surface? In the years that follow, it’s an issue I’ll grapple with over and again. I’m so wary of scenes being leaden, or obvious, or on the nose, that I usually err on the side of underwriting. I run the risk of a reader or an audience misunderstanding what I mean, or taking the text at face value - but at least I don’t make my toes curl.

At the end of the Soho Poly workshop, after Hilary has left and I’m pulling on my coat, Sue comes over to talk. She tells me that she enjoyed the play, that she found it subtle and it had made her laugh. I blush and thank her, and head for the door.

Wait, she says. Before you go, there’s something I want to ask you.

The names of children mentioned in this piece have been changed.

My play, The Last Waltz is available as an e-book. (Link here)

1. Inspiring then and inspiring now, Sue Dunderdale is still working as a director and a teacher. She recently published her book Directing the Decades (Routledge, 2022). Part memoir, part theatre handbook, it’s a fascinating read, giving a glimpse into her life in theatre over half a century, a sketch of the nitty gritty of British fringe theatre from the early 1970s on, and an insight into what a theatre director actually does.