2010, eh. It’s been quite a twelve months. Here’s a little review of my year …

JANUARY

• I am invited on to BBC Sparks – a scheme for writers identified as having potential for radio drama. I accept. Obv.
• Deadline for submissions for Live Theatre’s Different Stages Festival. My effort, Tittle Tattle Tattletale, is a bit of a departure from my ‘usual’ style and content but it seems like an ideal opportunity to chance something different.
• I submit Maggie & Mary for the first Newcastle INK Festival.

FEBRUARY

• Auditions for Blood & Money.
• I spend a week on an organic farm in Kent with BBC Sparks. I lose the ability to form sentences and seem incapable of ‘thinking with my ears’. I wonder whether me and radio drama will ever be friends.
• Extracts from Blood & Money are performed as work-in-progress drafts at Northern Stage’s First In Three night. The audience feedback is positive. I eat too many chips.

MARCH

• Tittle Tattle Tattletale is performed at Live’s Different Stages Festival.
• I enter the Nick Darke Award with a new play, Trickle. The entry requirements are the first 20 pages and a synopsis … which is lucky as the first 20 pages and a synopsis are all I have!

 APRIL

• I am invited to write a one-act play for the Centenary Season at The People’s Theatre. There are four writers involved, each with an association with the People’s – past or present – and the theme is Past Glories.
• Blood & Money previews at The People’s Theatre – rehearsed reading.
• I submit a short for Theatre503’s PLAYlist – plays inspired by a song, that can be no longer than that song!

MAY 

• I go to York to see On The Harmful Effects of Tobacco – Forward Theatre Project are inviting writers to submit a companion play to this Chekhov short.
• Heart Shaped Hole, inspired by Cilla Black’s Anyone Who Had A Heart, is performed at Theatre503.
• Rehearsals start for Blood & Money going to Prague.
• Trickle is shortlisted for the Nick Darke Award. Woop!
• Blood & Money previews at Live Theatre.

JUNE 

• Rascally Scoundrels make their debut with Blood & Money at the Prague Fringe Festival. It is all hideously stressful while at the same time being marvellous fun. In the run up I was having terrifying anxiety dreams and breaking out in eczema, but it all worked out and we board the plane home still speaking.
• My play Can Cause Death is shortlisted to the final four as the companion play for Chekhov’s On The Harmful Effects of Tobacco.
• I write a monologue for the Newcastle-leg of Paines Plough’s Come To Where I’m From project. I also perform it. Which is an experience.
• Maggie & Mary is performed at the INK Festival.
• Can Cause Death is performed script-in-hand, along with the other shortlisted plays, at York Theatre Royal.

JULY

• Rascally Scoundrels are invited to take part in the launch of Writers Block North East. Which is nice.
• Can Cause Death is selected to be the companion play for Tobacco. I am now on a double-bill with Chekhov. Never a sentence I expected to write.
• Trickle does not win the Nick Darke Award. Close but no cigar. Never mind, those 20 pages and that synopsis will not be wasted … I make a start developing the idea into a one-act play for Past Glories. When one door closes, etc. I also start keeping a blog diary of the play that will chart it right up to performance, starting [here]

AUGUST 

• I am approached by Live Theatre, asking if I would be interested in developing my Prague play Blood into a full-length play. I am. So I make a start.
• I stumble across a recording on YouTube of Maggie & Mary – not being performed at INK but the 2009 Gi60 Festival in Brooklyn, New York! See, sometimes Googling yourself is not a bad thing … 😉
• Yackety Yak wins Live’s A Million Short Cuts event. There is no prize, just the warm glow of victory!
•  I go to London to workshop Can Cause Death with director Charlotte Bennett and actor David Bradley.

SEPTEMBER

• Deadline for Past Glories first draft – Never Rains But It Pours is up on its feet and wings its way to the powers-that-be.
• Finally I can reveal that Tobacco/Can Cause Death will debut at the National Theatre in November. Yowzah!

OCTOBER

• A round-the-table-read-through of the first drafts of all four Past Glories plays at The People’s Theatre.
• Booking opens for the Tobacco double-bill at the National Theatre. It sells out within days. I do a little dance.
• I am invited to take part in Ignite, a programme by Old Vic New Voices for alumni of The 24 Hour Plays. I head to London for the workshop weekend.

NOVEMBER

• Can Cause Death is performed at the National, starring David Bradley. A highlight of my career to date, without a doubt.
• Ignite – first draft deadline.
• Ignite – final draft deadline! (did I mention the project had a tight turnaround?!)

DECEMBER

• But Otherwise Went Well is performed at Waterloo East Theatre as part of Ignite1.
• I deliver Never Rains But It Pours rehearsal draft – auditions are scheduled for January.
• Podcasts of the Paines Plough Come To Where I’m From monologues go online.
• Tickets go on sale for Can Cause Death at Northern Stage in February. 
• I pitch, and am subsequently commissioned to write, a monologue for Live Theatre’s Boys on the Edge event in March. Writing from the perspective of a teenage boy … this one’s going to be a challenge!

Ambitions for 2011 …?

• complete, and see performed, my full-length play
• do more with my free time – ie, don’t spend it either a) feeling guilty about not working b) napping c) watching The Crystal Maze on Challenge TV d) all of the above
• more Rascals funtimes with them there Scoundrels
• make further headway into radio drama
• work with Julie Walters
• eat less cake & more vegetables (let’s not get ahead of ourselves!)

So, all that’s left to do is bid a hearty “Happy New Year!”. 2011, eh. Here’s hoping it’s a good one … xx