When I started writing plays I wrote conventional plays, mostly based on real life situations, stories I came across, or read about, sometimes with lots of characters, sometimes not.
'It Started With A Touch' a play about a Mother who witnesses her son beating up an innocent man, reporting him to the police, and her son being sent to prison, was my first London production, part of Wimbledon Studio's Fresh Ideas, and later ' Runaway' a two- hander loosely based on the Jeremy Forrest situation, a schoolteacher eloping with a schoolgirl to France, produced by Small But Mighty Theatre in Toronto.
It wasn't until I met Colin Burden the Artistic Director of The Bootleg Theatre Company in Salisbury that I ever regarded monologues as plays, or could be, that they could have value dramatically. It was something I had never considered. Who would want to come watch one person on a stage telling a story? Where's the 'drama' in that? What's the point? You may as well read a book or listen to the radio!
But I thought I'd give it a try. I wrote a play called 'Torched' sent it to Colin, he liked it and together with another monologue by Annie L Cooper entitled 'Cookie' forming a double bill under the title
of 'Deal With It', it was staged at Barons Court Theatre and toured the south west, very successfully and got great reviews.
It was followed by another monologue I wrote entitled 'Birth' about a lonely vicar's daughter, a virgin, who is raped , gets pregnant and has the child of her attacker, and her life is changed for the better because of it, winner of the Lost Theatre's One Act play festival, and perhaps the most successful to date. And 'Brotherly Love' about a brother's unhealthy love for his sister, which played at Barons Court a while back. I began to see the value in monologues. They weren't such a bad idea after all. And far better writers than me had proved they worked.
'It Started With A Touch' a play about a Mother who witnesses her son beating up an innocent man, reporting him to the police, and her son being sent to prison, was my first London production, part of Wimbledon Studio's Fresh Ideas, and later ' Runaway' a two- hander loosely based on the Jeremy Forrest situation, a schoolteacher eloping with a schoolgirl to France, produced by Small But Mighty Theatre in Toronto.
It wasn't until I met Colin Burden the Artistic Director of The Bootleg Theatre Company in Salisbury that I ever regarded monologues as plays, or could be, that they could have value dramatically. It was something I had never considered. Who would want to come watch one person on a stage telling a story? Where's the 'drama' in that? What's the point? You may as well read a book or listen to the radio!
But I thought I'd give it a try. I wrote a play called 'Torched' sent it to Colin, he liked it and together with another monologue by Annie L Cooper entitled 'Cookie' forming a double bill under the title
of 'Deal With It', it was staged at Barons Court Theatre and toured the south west, very successfully and got great reviews.
It was followed by another monologue I wrote entitled 'Birth' about a lonely vicar's daughter, a virgin, who is raped , gets pregnant and has the child of her attacker, and her life is changed for the better because of it, winner of the Lost Theatre's One Act play festival, and perhaps the most successful to date. And 'Brotherly Love' about a brother's unhealthy love for his sister, which played at Barons Court a while back. I began to see the value in monologues. They weren't such a bad idea after all. And far better writers than me had proved they worked.