Episode 9 - The Bubble

In the Groove

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Previously on This Writer’s Journey…

The London Bubble Theatre company has given me my first writing commission - I’m going to write their late-night musical.

A big hello to recent readers and subscribers, and thank you for joining.

If you’ve read episode 1 (‘Hello’) you’ll know why I’m telling this story of mine. If not, here’s a quick intro.

For most of my working life I’ve been lucky enough to get paid to write scripts for stage, TV and radio. I’ve won some awards for my stage and TV work. In broadcasting, my name is associated particularly with two of the biggest shows in the UK: EastEnders on TV and The Archers on radio.

I also teach. In every class I teach, right up to Masters’ level, I’m always asked - how did you get started?

Screenwriting gurus will tell you that you have to stick-with-it.

Screenwriting gurus will tell you that you have to show-not-tell.

So that’s what I’m doing: showing you what sticking-with-it looked like for me.

Spoiler alert. I was not an overnight success.

My favourite book on screenwriting, by the way, is Adventures in the Screen Trade by the film writer, the late William Goldman. He famously declared in his book that in Hollywood ‘nobody knows anything.’

Cards on the table: I agree with him.

If you’re interested in William Goldman you can click here to find out more.

Right. Back to the story.

As I leave the Bubble Theatre offices, clutching that first writing commission, I want to run up to strangers and hug them.

Over the next three weeks, I sit in a corner of my Hackney bedroom and watch the play flow from my fingers. The words appearing on the page make me laugh. The ending makes me cry. To punctuate the action, I include songs from the nineteen forties. In homage to Glenn Miller’s In the Mood, I call the show In the Groove.

The readthrough at Bubble HQ is a dream. The Artistic Director says he loves the script. The freelance director who’s been employed to bring my script to life sits beside me at the table and smiles all the way through. The company laugh in all the right places. I can’t wait for rehearsals to start tomorrow.

The day dawns, sunny as my mood. I join the acting company in the rehearsal room in Hampstead, and we wait for our director.

Danny Hiller arrives. A small, wiry man, a few years older than the rest of us, he’s smiling.

Danny kicks off by saying how much he likes my play. He praises the characters, the story, the writing. He tells the cast that I am talented and have a great writing career ahead of me.I blush and stare at the floor. He produces a beach ball and starts us off on a game of keepy-uppy.

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The game does its thing. We bond.

And then we sit in a circle and Danny proposes that we put my script aside and use it as a jumping off point for the actors to improvise the show.

My stomach hits the floor.

I know the script is good. Everyone said so at the readthrough yesterday. Everyone.

But I’ve served my apprenticeship in Wales and I can read the politics of the room. The readthrough was yesterday. This is today.

If I don’t agree to Danny’s proposal, he will go ahead anyway and do the show his way. Hanging my ego on a hook won’t come easy, but I know it’s the smart thing to do.

Something else I know. I care about this story. And I care about my characters. I can’t abandon them.

Danny is waiting to see how I’m going to react.

I smile.

The actors smile.

Danny smiles.

We all smile.

He starts us on another game of keepy-uppy and follows up with some trust games. And then the performers get up on their feet to improvise, and I sit in the corner, making notes.

And that’s how the next three weeks unfold. In the daytimes I take notes, and in the evenings I write new drafts of the script.

The rehearsal period for In the Groove is the most intense, horrible, illuminating, confusing experience of what eventually turns out to be a long and lucky writing career.

But here’s the thing: that rehearsal period laid the foundations for me to survive the following thirty-plus years, writing for TV.

Drama is a collaborative medium. A thin skin is a liability. If a dramatist can learn to thicken their hide, as I did, it won’t make them a better writer, but it will make them a happier person and might mean they have a longer career. The trick, as you get more experienced, is to sift through the notes you’re given, take what you think makes your work better and, as tactfully as you can, find a way around the rest. And always, always keep on smiling.

By the time rehearsals are done, my musical play has metamorphosed into a cabaret performance.

If the scripts for In the Groove - original and improvised - are in my attic, they’re so deeply buried I wouldn’t know where to start looking. All that remains of that time is a hazy memory and a faded handbill.

Even now, seeing my first professional writing credit up there sends a tingle down the spine.

The circus goes on the road.

The Bubble tent

In the tent in the mornings I run drama workshops, in the afternoons I have an acting role in a children’s show that I helped devise. And on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights, I stand in the shadows and watch the late-night company doing the new version of my idea.

The summer peaks, the days shorten. London starts the slow slide towards winter. My mind moves to the future. The season is ending and with it my contract with the Bubble. What next? Another Community Arts project? Another small theatre company? Start auditioning for acting roles in regional theatres?

The thought of more theatrical digs and bedsits in unfamiliar towns does not fill my heart with joy.

And so it is, on a damp night at the end of August, I find myself in a chemical toilet in a field on the Thamesmead housing estate in South London, contemplating my options. Close my eyes now, and I smell again the tang of the disinfectant, feel again the chill of the metal seat against my skin.

To the rhythm of the rain thumping on the roof above my head, I make a mental list of the things that I know.

I know that I need to make up stories.

I know that I need to earn money.

I know that jobs in the cultural sector can be fun.

I know that jobs in the cultural sector are insecure and ill-paid.

I am in the shallow end of my thirties. David and I are getting on well. At some point, I would like to have children.

I ask myself this: at the age of forty, do I want to be sitting on a chemical toilet in Thamesmead in the rain?

I come to a life-changing decision.

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