Plays

Volume 1 of 5 features The Waiting Room - 1983 in a deserted railway station waiting room. A stranger waits, but is he waiting for a train or is there some other, more mysterious reason? . . .The Bond - Kick-started by certain scenes in Harold Pinter’s ’The Homecoming’ on British television around 1984 and by regular trips to Manchester on the train to see my girlfriend in student accommodation, ’The Bond’ sees the return from Australia of a man to a family of small-time crooks in England, claiming to be their long-lost brother. Neither we the audience nor they the family are quite sure if the man is who he says he is. When it comes to family, blood is always thicker than water, but must we take those loyalties to our graves? . . .The Conformist - Growing up in Italy in the mid-1920’s, lonely and largely ignored by his wealthy parents, 13 year-old Marcello Clerici lives in a fantasy world. After accidentally shooting a chauffeur, Marcello determines to live as ’normal’ a life as possible by adhering to the demands of Mussolini’s Fascism. Twenty years later, as Italy surrenders, he bumps into the chauffeur who hadn’t died at all and realises how his entire life was built on a lie.The play was adapted from ’The Conformist’ by Alberto Moravia and performed in 1985. . . .London Cousins - It is the late 1980’s and three young men, migrants to London, all from different parts of the UK - Scotland, North East England and Brighton - are brought together by fate, choice, coincidence and economic reality, their lives brushing almost imperceptibly against each other as they seek to redefine their identities in a rapidly-changing world. Barely conscious of who they are or what they seek, they surrender to the life-altering forces of the sprawling metropolis known as London. 'London Cousins', based on real events, started life as an audition speech for the actor Steve Payne in 1988. . . .1979 - written in 1984 it concerns school-leaver Graham who tries to adjust to adulthood. With his working class background, limited education and narrow view, he vows to reinvent himself and make sense of the world he inhabits: the economic wasteland of Thatcher’s Britain in the early 1980’s. Unable to adjust, he ends up in a psychiatric ward until escaping with Emily to create their own Nirvana.