When is a story not a story (and really a play)?

I've said in several interviews and articles that when an idea comes to me I know instantly whether it's a story, a novel or a play. Recently, though, I blushed to think that it may not be quite true, for I'm working with a producer on developing ideas for radio drama, and one is an idea that started out as an unpublished short story. And, now that I've thought about it, I remember that it's happened before:

I once wrote a story based on a wedding. I guess it was quite an innovative story in terms of form: it was done as a menu, a wedding meal menu, beginning with the sherry offered to guests arriving at the reception, but each item triggered a 'flashback' to an incident portraying family disharmony and in total signalling a poor prognosis for the happiness of the married couple. I never published the story. It was rejected at least a couple of times - it's always harder to sell innovative stories, and I guess, looking back, that those publications interested in innovative work would be uninterested in what they might consider 'bourgeois' subject matter. Perhaps it didn't help that I signalled its weirdness by giving it the title 'Marriage Menu' which sounds odd until you read the story. Anyway, since it was a time when I was having quick success with a lot of stories, I saw it as one that just hadn't worked, and gave up trying with it.

However, the basic situation stayed with me: I'd abandoned the short story but I still wanted to write about the scenario; and when, a few years later, a radio producer asked me to submit some ideas I thought of turning the situation into a radio play. The menu structure disappeared and the omniscient narrative voice was replaced by the reminiscing monologue of one of the characters, an ironically unreliable narrator, intercut by dramatised flashbacks. The wedding was still central to the story - it was the occasion the protagonist was purportedly reporting (while rambling off into the family story) - and I kept something of the original in the title: the result was my BBC Radio 4 broadcast play, Dry Sherry. The whole tenor of the thing had shifted, though: now it had become a satirical portrait of a scheming, bitter and disappointed ex-wife.

Later I even wrote a stage play based on the same situation, this time an entire monologue, in which the voice was not disembodied as in the radio play, but the character - even more monstrous, since things can be so much bigger on the stage - was in her own living room, inviting the audience, her guests, to hear her tale. This was Drinks with Natalie, which I performed myself for the 24:7 Theatre Festival, as you can see above.

But is it actually the case that the idea was really a play (or two plays) all along?  I don't think so: I've said how turning to a different form shifted the thing, turned it into a different beast and basically  - in just the same way that happens in an adaptation, as I have explained previously - changed the emphasis and thus the meaning. To my mind, the form dictates or alters the message. On the other hand, I have no wish to return to the original short story - as far as I'm concerned, it's now been done.

24:7 2010: Application process open!

It's that time of year again! This year's call for scripts for this vibrant theatre festival opens officially as of NOW.

This year the format has changed a little: of 20 plays chosen, 10 will receive full performances and 5 rehearsed readings, and the authors of a further 5 will receive mentoring. This is a good development, I think: for the audience it was always well-nigh impossible to get around all of the performances - though I know some people who made a point of doing so! - and I like the way the festival is developing its role of nurturing writers and networks for writers.

Also this year there is a process of registering your application online via the website, although you still have to send in a hard copy script.

So if you have a one-hour script waiting to be aired in the world, get it ready, or if it's an idea waiting to burst on to the page get it down there, and apply via the website.

Literary Manchester

There's been so much literary happening recently, but I've been so busy with my own stuff I haven't had time to blog about much of it. First there was the Manchester Literature Festival, of which I only managed to blog the Fay Weldon event (briefly, and without reference to what she actually said). I put up some pics of Northern Salt which I took part in myself, but haven't even managed to blog it before now. Fortunately you can read detailed accounts of most of the events on the Manchester Festival blog.

Northern Salt was great fun. Not only was I reading with three other Salt authors - John Siddique, Mark Illis, and Robert Graham - but several other Salt authors came to the event: Steve Waling, Andrew Philip, Paul Magrs and Tony Williams, though Tony's train didn't get him there for the reading and he arrived as we were leaving the Whitworth, just in time not to miss us altogether, so he was able to come for coffee with us afterwards. Looking at that list I see I was the only girl amongst the boys (I didn't notice at the time: see, I just think of myself as one of the boys!), but then our lovely publisher Jen had come all the way up from Cambridge for the event, with a bag full of books for us all to sign, and Tony's brand-new copies. Also some of my female friends came to listen: among them my actor friend Mary-Ann Coburn, my erstwhile co-editor and short-story writer Ailsa Cox, and Ann French from the reading group - a real sacrifice from Ann, I'd say, since she surely spends enough time at the Whitworth as its textile conservator! Not that I even realized they were there until the end, as the audience was amazingly big for a Sunday afternoon. As we readers sat on the front row waiting for the start, Robert wanted to know which of us it was who had so many friends! MLF's Cathy Bolton gave us glowing introductions (as Robert said, it made you think: Is she talking about me?) and I loved the readings the others gave. The questions took us a little by surprise: I guess it's hard not to ask general questions of a largish group of writers, and we ended up talking about teaching creative writing and being published by a small independent, and even the somewhat academic question of the difference between poetry and prose! Here we are on the left wondering about the audience behind us:



What else besides MLF? Well, I went to a packed final evening of JB Shorts - the evening of short plays by TV writers at the Joshua Brooks pub - or rather, correction, I went to the second part of the final evening, having attended Michael Schmidt's memorable darkened launch at the Epinay champagne bar first. (Below is my pic of Michael reading by mobile phone flashlight), missing Trevor Suthers' play which I'd been particularly keen to see, not only because I'd promised him I'd go but because I'd been told it was brilliant. I was especially disappointed when, arriving, I found that actor Arthur Bostrom had been in it. The second half, which included a black comedy by Dave Simpson and a startling take on Brief Encounter by Peter Kerry, was excellent, and I'm not surprised that the whole enterprise has been nominated for a Manchester Evening News award. (There are also 12 24:7 nominations for this award, including several from three of the plays I put forward after initial reading because I loved them, and so I'm really chuffed).



Then on Thursday there was the first in this year's MMU series of readings, the launch of books from Carcanet by the innovative Matt Welton and Jeremy Over who was new to me. Adrian Slatcher offers his take on the evening over at The Art of Fiction. And last night John and I managed - just in time - to see Punk Rock by Simon Stephens at The Royal Exchange, which I expected much of but was rather disappointed in. About a group of students in a Stockport private-school library, it seemed to me a play which couldn't decide on its own focus and theme, and the Columbine-school-style ending struck me as lazy and gratuitous, inadequate as a pay-off for the various issues the play had raised. Plus, the loud music between scenes not only added nothing but was almost enough to make us throw ourselves off the top gallery where we were sitting.

Maybe I'll stay in a bit now...

Best of 24:7

First, a PS note: I should have mentioned that if you order Too Many Mapgies from the Salt website, there's 20% off (20% off all Salt titles, in fact!)

I had a day out in Bolton yesterday, at the final day of The Best of 24:7 at the Octagon, in which we saw the three chosen plays, 5.30, Lub You and As We Forgive Them, and took part in a discussion after each, chaired by Bolton University's Martin Thomasson, about the plays themselves, the process of being '24:7' 'd and where the writers and directors see their plays going on from there. It was a very gratifying day for me, as I had read all three plays at the initial adjudication stage, and had immediately felt there was something special about them and put them forward for a full read. I must say, it's an experience that I don't always have in general: I so often find that the things I'm sure are great meet with lukewarm reception elsewhere in our dumbed-down culture, and it was just lovely to see these innovative, intelligent and serious yet witty scripts getting their just reward - and very nice to have had the power to help make it happen (which I must say was one of the great things about editing the short-story magazine metropolitan). And very gratifying to know that the 24:7 audience had voted for these three plays too.

Interesting, too, to see how they had developed over the two runs. 5.30 is the story of a young man alone in a train carriage when a menacing yob gets on and sits next to him. There is amazing tension and suppressed violence in the early part of script, but I didn't feel at the 24:7 preview that the production quite captured it, whereas yesterday the tone was perfect. Eve Steele had actually worked on the script of her amazing play Lub You, about a baby/child's point of view, and there were subtle developments in Joe Sims' fantastic performance of the murderer-convict in Richard Vergette's As We Forgive Them.

David Slack, 24:7's founder, started off the day with a brief account of 24:7's history which began with a meeting above a pub in Jan 2003, a meeting I attended - in one way or another, I've been involved all along: with three plays produced for the festival, one year on front of house, and the last two as a reader.

I was chuffed too to read that Exit Salford, another great 24:7 play which I read at the initial stage and put forward (and which was written by Lub You's director ED Jones) has been chosen for the Library Theatre's REPLAY festival in January. Nice the way things turn out sometimes...

John and I arrived quite early for the day - there was hardly any traffic on the motorway - and had time to find cheap parking a walk away from the theatre. It was really interesting to wander through Bolton and see the changes - John worked for many years in Bolton and I've taught at the university. So many buildings down, and new ones in their place. There was a time when my children were small and sometimes we'd go there with John in the car in the morning and have a wander round and a drink in the Octagon and then come back to Manc on the train. And suddenly yesterday morning - instead of seeming like only the other week as most of my past does, even my childhood - that seemed like a very long time ago, even the olden days... which made me feel so old!

A brilliant fifth 24:7 Festival

I'm having a great time this week at the 24:7 Theatre Festival (though I'm getting a bit tired!). I've seen thirteen shows so far (out of 21) and expect to see at least another one. Such a pity not to see them all, but it's practically impossible. A theme which is quite dominant this year has been the somewhat classic one of two or three men confined together in a small space. I've seen three of these plays, 5.30 and As We Forgive Them (both of which I read as scripts and wrote a bit about earlier) and Out of Dead Air, about three long-time prisoners of war faced with the possibility of freedom and the risk involved in seizing it, well-written too, beautifully acted and very smartly and sensitively directed by Mike Heath.

As last year, the houses have been packed. From its small beginnings the festival has become a phenomenal success. Yesterday, in fact, was 24:7's fifth birthday, and its founders, Amanda Hennessey and Dave Slack (above) had every reason to celebrate.

This year's festival isn't over yet though. There are shows at 3.30 this afternoon and this evening, and at 12.30 and 3pm tomorrow afternoon.

24:7: Lub You and Exit Salford

Last night I went down to 24:7 again and saw the truly fabulous Lub You at Pure (Blue). This to me was a riveting piece of physical theatre, yet also linguistically spot-on: funny yet moving. We follow the viewpoint of a child, Charlie, as he develops from babyhood, only partially able to understand the sounds his parents make - in a brilliant stroke we the audience share his experience of this - through the birth of his younger brother and the cracks that appear in his parents' marriage as a result of the strains of parenthood. Finally, we move to share the consciousness of his developing brother in the complex family setup which ensues.

Eve Steele (well-known as Curly Watts' stalker in Coronation Street) wrote the play and brilliantly performed the role of Charlie - her acute observation is stunning, allowing us to recognize a child's behaviour anew while taking you right inside his world. As I said to Eve in the bar afterwards, I loved the script when I read it, and the production has fulfilled my expectations. New Arden graduate Amy Spencer was wonderful as Charlie's baby brother Bo-Bo, as were Ted Holden and new MMU graduate Tanya Hug as their parents.

You know, so far I have been sitting there stunned at the acting talent in this city...

The acting was excellent too in Exit Salford, another play I read (I'm trying to see first all the plays I read) (also on at the Blue Room in Pure). This is the tale, based on a true incident, of an ex-writer who befriends the youths who hang around his Salford home only to have them turn on him when he rents his rooms to foreigners. Alan French takes the role of the ex-writer and Rebecca Elliot, Emily Spowage, Ant Singleton and Tim Fallows play the youths and a host of other characters with fast switches.

Manchester Book Fair and 24:7 Theatre Festival

Well, it rained. Every so often a great deluge started hitting the tent roofs and drowning out the readers, most of whom really, honestly, weren't standing close enough to the mic, and St Ann's Square cleared. I have to say I got quite cold. I sold one book, to a friend, Hazel Roy, who was manning the bookstall, mainly I am pretty sure because I bought hers. All the books on the stall were going for £8.00, but Hazel's was £10.00 because there was an extra donation to charity, and she got mine for £7.50 because there was an offer of £15.00 for two and she bought Ailsa Cox's book as well. So I actually lost £2.50. But as we were leaving a kind lady gave Ailsa and me a pound each for our readings because she couldn't afford to buy our books. (So I lost £2.50 and made a pound.)

Readings, eh? This was much better however than the time I was invited to read to students at Sheffield Hallam and told to bring lots of books because the class was big and keen, and then when I got there with my heavy bag found 3 students in the lecture theatre, because when the lecturer had booked me he'd overlooked the fact that it would be reading week.

And my lovely friend Adele Geras came down to support me.

And afterwards a group of us went for coffee, and coming out of the coffee shop we met a friend who told us that there were returns going for the Manchester Feast in Albert Square, and so that's where we went, wrist-banded and herded in on a bell, just like school dinners, but worth it for a free meal, though I missed the pudding because I was rushing off to the Printworks to see previews of two of the 24:7 Festival plays I read as an adjudicator.

Brilliant: both of them two-handers seething with tension and menace: 5.30, in which a young man is trapped on a train with a scary yob, and As We forgive Them, in which a US congressman is shut in a prison cell with his daughter's young murderer. Brilliantly written, directed and acted, and I thoroughly recommend them. If I hadn't been at the Book Market yesterday I'd have been to the previews of other plays I read, and I'll try to see them this week: Lub You, a physical piece in which we follow the viewpoint and experience of a baby/small child (I absolutely loved this when I read it), Dancing to the Sound of Crunching Snails, Working Title, The Coffee Hour and Exit Salford. Of course, I'll get to see as many shows as pssible. Last year there were practically full houses and there were some shows I didn't get to see as a result, so I recommend booking early.

Will I catch up?

Spring already, and the period I set aside for my series of short stories is rapidly running away. Not much time for it lately, or for blogging. I did finish a story the week before last, but I haven't had time to give it a final look over, so it's still languishing on my desk. I spent last week writing a chapter which I was thrilled that Vanessa Gebbie invited for an exciting book she is editing for Salt on writing short stories, based on one of the answers I gave when she hosted my virtual book tour. At the same time of course there was the usual distracting task of keeping up with the latest leg of the tour (and the pretty head-stretching questions Charles Lambert asked me about my writing). The weekend was taken up in answering the questions for this week's upcoming leg (Wednesday) on Debi Alper's blog (more probing questions which I've had to think about really hard - mainly about the difference between writing prose and drama, and about adaptation) and reading scripts for the 24:7 Theatre Festival. I've read quite a lot of scripts for the festival this year, and I've come across some I'm sure are absolute winners, but of course I'll have to wait to see if other readers feel the same...

I feel as though it's all work and no play, but I did get out for a walk along the river on Sunday afternoon and into Fletcher Moss Gardens to photograph the crocuses (above). And I did go out twice in the week, once to hear Jackie Kay and Joe Pemberton read at Manchester University, and the second time to MMU to hear David Edgar talk most interestingly about translating Brecht. A really interesting thing about that last event was that it was attended not only by theatre folks but also by people I normally only see at poetry readings - usually, I find, these are separate constituencies. And afterwards a group of us went out for an extremely enjoyable meal and catch-up on all fronts - so really, what am I complaining about?

There's more excitement this week - and travel, that real thrill for the desk-bound writer! I'm off to Liverpool on Friday to take part in the workshop of a play by Ian Moore - something I love doing, and which is such a great break from the desk work. And on Sunday I'm off to Huddersfield to take part in a reading at the literature festival with fellow Salt authors short-story writer Carys Davies and poet Mike Barlow. (Details here.) Then next week it's the final stop of the virtual book tour (18th March) on Tania Hershman's blog, which is bound to be interesting, since she is the editor of The Short Review.

And then maybe I'll get a chance to put the writing cap back on...

Reading for 24:7

This is what I was doing on Sunday afternoon: reading scripts in the Midland Hotel for the 24:7 Theatre Festival. My reading partner was Cherylee Houston, and in the foreground on the left is actress Sue Twist, who directed me in my monologue Drinks With Natalie for 24:7 2005. Cherylee and I gave full marks to two plays we read!

For the second year running I haven't put a play in myself: I decided that with my virtual book tour for the stories, the forthcoming novel Too Many Magpies to promote, and the new collection of stories to work on, it just wasn't possible to give up 4 months of the summer to producing a play - which is more or less what it takes if, like me, you don't have a ready-formed company and have to look for a director and cast from scratch.

Festival co-founder Amanda Hennessy took the photo.

Going out once more

I had to laugh last week when I read an article by Linda Grant about the shoddiness of some so-called designer clothes - laugh at myself, that is.

She begins the article by saying that she'd had to bin two Zara little black dresses which hadn't lasted two years, too shabby now even for a charity shop. I thought: Two LBDs from Zara?!!! When would a writer like me buy even one LBD from Zara, let alone two? When would a writer like me ever wear an LBD? Once in a blue moon maybe for a prizegiving - and other people's rather than my own, because at my own I'd rather be taken seriously as a writer, not a fashion victim (but there I am, see, obsessed with image anyway) - so when it comes to LBDs (along with most kinds of clothes, I have to admit) it's charity-shop jobs for me. (Which is why, perhaps, when I went as a guest of winner Carl Tighe to the Authors' Club first book award, an amazingly beautiful ice queen in an absolutely up-to-the-minute LBD didn't half give me the snooty once-over in the loo.)

But maybe my reaction to Grant's article was coloured by the fact that I've spent January more or less in my pyjamas, lost in the new series of short stories I've just embarked on and hardly going out - though I seem to be making up for this last at the moment.

You've got to work on your publicity, right? And on Friday I went into town through the wind and snow - my god, it's cold out there in the big wide world! - to Manchester Digital Development Agency, where Art of Fiction blogger Adrian Slatcher was putting into practice an idea he found in that bottle of red wine we had at our post-Christmas drink, and which included filming a 'Meet the Author' type clip of me. I'll put it up on this blog if I turn out not to be too absolutely dreadful - see, there I am again, on about image; or maybe I'm just being sensible: a dreadful image is not going sell any books, or so they say. (How do you know, for instance, that there aren't fangs and carbuncles Photoshopped out of my profile photo?)

And then yesterday I spent the whole day in town at the initial sifting of scripts for the 24:7 Theatre Festival (snow on the ground!). I couldn't imagine how Amanda (Hennessey) and David (Slack) were going to organize it, but it worked like a dream and involved us reading aloud a substantial portion of each play, which, since most of the readers were actors as well as writers and/or directors, ensured that the readings justified the plays as far as possible (you know actors, they have an inbuilt instinct to try and realize characters as well as possible). What a marathon, though! We were so hoarse by the end of it! But it was so enjoyable, and I have to say I was stunned by the general high standard and inventiveness of some of the plays I saw - which means it's going to be a cracking festival come July.

And tomorrow I'm off to London for the day, and in the evening I'll be going to the Salt poetry reading at the Troubadour Cafe, 265 Old Brompton Road, 8.00pm - 10pm. Ten Salt poets reading: I'm really looking forward to it - those Salt poets are fantastic, and the Salt readings are great.

Reading plays

I've produced my own plays for three of the first four years of the 24:7 Theatre Festival (and performed one one year), but this year, the fifth, I'm staying in the background (I'm not even writing a play this year, as I'm too busy with prose). Instead, I've agreed to be a reader. I'm very much looking forward to reading and discussing the entries, which must be in by Thursday (31st).

Reading scripts, as I've said before, is a highly skilled job. It's a great mistake to read them in the way you'd read a novel, simply following the verbal logic and the narrative; you have to be able to pick up the other concrete and visual elements and be able to make the leap to imagine the piece working in the physical space of a stage. I hope I'm up to it.

If you have a one-act play (45-60 mins) and you live in the North West, there's still time to get it in the post. Details on the website.

(And no, I don't take kickbacks!)

Sometimes I like reviewers

Now that's nice and enough to pull you out of your post-production anticlimax - a nice review of The Processing Room on Manchester Confidential:

Playing creatively with the idea of the different stages of life and death, the play raised some interesting ideas and also employed a clever use of movement to emphasise and enliven what could have been a very static waiting-room scenario.

All over bar the bar bills

So it's all over - the rehearsals, the publicity, the week of the play spent in town from morning till night and living on peanuts and wine, and the frantic get-ins - the fifteen mad minutes between the last show getting out and our audience moving in, in which the furniture for the set must be whisked from behind a screen and placed on stage, the stage marked out with tape, the video and camera for the media element of our show set up, gaffer tape slapped down on the leads in case the actors or the audience went and broke their necks, and the programmes laid out, all before Front of House called down and demanded clearance and the audience filed in... And falling asleep on the bus and then waking at five in the morning with the thought of all I had to do - emails, phone calls and printing - before I had to jump back on the bus into town and the whole thing started again... and of course, a whole week of grabbing as many as I could of the other amazingly diverse shows.

Two and and half months of solid hard work to realise a play I wrote in days! Can't say it exactly compares with radio where it's all done for you, where the publicity machine is huge, and the audience, without any trouble to the writer, thousands. And our slightly sniffy review from Natalie Anglesey in the Manchester Evening News was a bit disheartening, and it was hard not to see this as contributing to the fact that our houses, which began comparatively large, dropped thereafter.

But there are other ways of course that theatre and radio don't compare: with theatre there's that live adrenalin buzz, and above all, for me, the special ability of theatrical magic to tackle my particular thematic interest: the nature of identity. And on the last night UK Theatre Network dropped in and the next day gave us a really nice review, which, if too late to boost our audiences again, was lovely.

A big day for a little writer

What an amazing day I had on Friday. First I met my lovely publisher Jen from Salt. Well, of course I think Jen can do magic because she's publishing my book, but she also arrived from Cambridge miraculously fast through the flooding country and arrived for lunch at Croma bang on time. (It was a different story, though, according to her blog, when she went back later in the evening.) We had a great lunch and Jen had brought me a lovely present - a proof copy of Carys Davies's forthcoming collection of short stories, which is due out at the same time as mine. I met Carys over the internet through our both being published by Salt, and it turned out that we had each spent a part of our childhood in the same tiny corner of South Wales which features in both our books. Magic, or what?

Here's Jen and me in Croma:



Then Jen and I parted for the afternoon - she to meet Forward Prize nominated Salt poet Eleanor Rees, and I to do a spot of leafleting before the tech rehearsal for The Processing Room. I had dressed up for the evening in a frock and heels but then I found myself lugging chairs around and sticking down duct tape so I can't say I ended up looking very glamorous. I can't say either that the tech went without a hitch - for one thing, I'd been so busy with publicity and thus absent from the last couple of rehearsals that I had failed to remind everyone that I had arranged for Tom Wright, the 24:7 photographer to cover the show at the tech, and the costumes hadn't been brought! (But it'll all be all right on the night - honest!)

Then it was off out into the liquid day day again, leaving everyone else to pack up, and down rainswept Cross Street to the Royal Exchange where the award ceremony for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize had already begun. Jen was there, with Eleanor Rees whom I met for the first time. The prize, for a collection by a single author and judged in this its inaugural year by AL Kennedy, was instigated by Ailsa Cox with whom I founded and edited metropolitan short story magazine. Short-listed authors were Neil Gaiman, Jackie Kay, Colm Toibin and two authors we published in metropolitan, Nicholas Royle and Tamar Yellin. Winner was Colm Toibin for Mothers and Sons (Picador). In his heartening winning speech he said that short stories were a much more difficult form than novels and that the notion of them as minor and 'practice' for the 'real' form of novels was seriously mistaken.

After this I had a couple of hours to kill before going to be interviewed on BBC Radio Manchester, so I went up to Cornerhouse to let the effects of two glasses of wine wear off and gather my thoughts for the interview - and who should I meet but Mark who the evening before had interviewed me and Stephanie on Let's Go Global TV.

Then it was quarter to ten and time to turn up at the BBC. What a strange place the BBC is at night - so hushed, not a soul around as I made my way down the winding corridors to Radio Manchester. Through the glass you could see the BBC car park gleaming and black with rain, but the little waiting area was cosy with bright light and a soft sofa and the sound of the current broadcast coming softly through the speakers - like a little oasis in the streaming night. And that's exactly how Phil Woods' programme seems too, an oasis in the night, with his urbane voice and his calm relaxed style, and in no time at all I had forgotten I was on the radio, which of course is how it should be. I was 'Mrs Manchester' for the night, choosing my favourite records (while of course plugging my play), and we ended up with Fats Waller's 'Your Feet's Too Big' which John once bought me because I have such big feet for someone of my not too considerable height.

And then out of the BBC on my big feet and straight onto a 42 bus, and I was stepping through the door by midnight.

Not bad, eh, for a writer - ie one whose typical day is spent in jamas and moving only between the desk and the kettle?

No end to it

Oh dear, the ending of my play! After Mary-Ann expressed doubts about it, I spent half a morning thinking about how to reword it. Last night I took the new version along to rehearsal. I showed it to Tracy. She perused it silently. She looked up. 'You know what? I liked it better the way it was before.'

But Mary-Ann still had real problems with the way it was before. What did it mean? What message would the audience go away with? Wouldn't they go away confused when they need a resolution? Tracy said, 'But I like the ambiguity, that's the whole point for me, and the way it's written now, so explicit, weakens it, there's no impact,' and Stephanie (pictured above at an earlier rehearsal) agreed. Everyone pondered. Mary-Ann tore at her hair. I felt confused and said nothing, and then got all pedantic about the meaning of the play, which didn't help for a moment, and then I got all confused again.

In the end Tracy said to me, 'Well, you're the playwright, I'm just directing it. You have to make the decision.'

Can I make the decision? Can I heck. Help.

Radio refuge

Andrew Edwards of the Manchester radio station ALLFM (96.9) is recording interviews with the theatre companies involved in 24:7, to be put on the 24:7 website, and on Sunday night Rachael (above at rehearsal) and I made our way separately over to Levenshulme to do ours. What a night! So cold! It would be cold for April, leave alone July! And wet, of course. I got a lift over, and after I was dropped, wrapped up in my leather jacket I went up onto Levenshulme station to wait for Rachael who was coming by train. Not a soul in sight, no sign of the train down the line, just wetness and wind and swaying trees, and everything grey - a world forsaken not just by summer. And how I wished I had gloves! But then the signals changed to red and the train came into view, worming its way towards me, and then there was Rachael stepping off the train in her woolly duffel coat and wellies!

ALLFM is situated in a converted three-storey corner terrace house just across the road from the station. Such a contrast inside! Another 24:7-er answered the door to us - I think it was Anthony Trevelyan who wrote Harlequin - since Andrew was in the studio recording someone. Julia Hogan, the author of Each To their Own, was also waiting her turn in the cosily bright back room which still had the air of a living room with a sofa and easy chairs. Not long afterwards, others joined us, including Luke Walker, writer of Mind The Gap. There was an immediate sense of refuge and cameraderie induced by the evening outside, adrenalin for the impending recordings and the fact that our shows opened in precisely one week's time! Julia echoed my feelings by saying that she was exhausted - she was amazed at how much work producing a show was. At the start she had considered directing hers, but was now entirely thankful that she hadn't!

Andrew was lovely, popping out in his bright tee-shirt between recordings to tell us to help ourselves to the water and biscuits and nectarines, and putting everyone at their ease. Then it was mine and Rachael's turn to go into the converted front room which was the studio and talk about The Processing Room. I had prepared a little dialogue, and we took turns at the only mic to read our bits, which Andrew would splice together afterwards. Rachael was brilliant, as I knew she would be: she is the daughter of actors and has been doing radio for all of her life. I haven't been in front of a mic that often, but as I said to Andrew when he said he thought I had, I've been around radio studios for a very long time. Let's just hope it sounds like it!

The publicity is really kicking off: on Thursday I'll appear on Let's Go Global TV's weekly evening programme, and on Friday night I'm on BBC Radio Manchester's Mr and Mrs Manchester (95.1FM/104.6FM)!

Too much to do

Uh-oh. On Thursday night at rehearsal for The Processing Room, we are rehearsing the ending when Mary-Ann (pictured at rehearsal) says, 'Er... sorry to throw a spanner in the works, but...' The ending doesn't make sense for her, and now I have to think about re-working it to make my meaning clearer. And that's on top of working on publicity and rushing off to Widnes today to rehearse for a short film (and learning my lines for it) - not to mention clearing a room in the house for builders! And The Processing Room opens a week on Monday... Help!

Thing is, we writers moan when we're not busy, don't we?

Publicity

Rehearsals for The Processing Room continue apace (that's Rachael on the left, who plays the very strange and wry nurse who drops a bombshell for the three women lost in a hospital). I've been getting on with publicity, and an article about Stephanie (who plays one of the three women) will appear in the Lancashire Evening Post on 20th. Meanwhile, Channel M have put the details about our show up on their website and on Thursday 19th we'll appear on Let's Go Global's weekly TV show (7-9 pm).

We now have a stage manager, Becky Saville, and she came to her first rehearsal on Tuesday evening. It had been warmer in the day and she wore her shorts, and, like me, no socks, and as the temperature plummeted we got pretty frozen sitting watching the others as they kept warm with all their complicated and very funny moves.

Another one tonight - and I'm going to wrap up warm!

Leafleting

I am totally exhausted, my feet are aching and they have blisters: I have just walked several miles around Manchester leafleting for The Processing Room. Well, at least I'm making up for all that time I've spent at the computer and the desk...

Rehearsals

Rehearsals are properly under way now for The Processing Room. Last night we all made it through the sheeting rain and ridiculously dark early evening to the third, and Mary-Ann wore her wellies. I am delighted with the way it's going: Tracy is picking up on the surreal elements of the play with lots of stylised movement which enhances the comedy. It's very complicated, and I don't know how the actors are picking it all up so quickly but they are. Here are some pictures:

And here they are collapsing in giggles when it all went pear-shaped: