‘These young people don’t know what lies ahead of them do they?’
I heard this comment relayed verbatim yesterday by one elderly lady to her neighbour. The tragedy in her tone was hardly comforting as I now imagine looking forward to miserliness, decrepitude and general sourness. I was feeling particularly positive as well and thought she was too since I had just served her a cup of tea in an effort to branch out to a community other than mass students. Actually I just got roped in by accident but my good deeds still count. Neatly side stepping this comment I am very aware of what lies ahead: a tremendously busy term outside the general curriculum of course. I have a mountain to scale. I want to write a play but as yet have absolutely no inspiration. Where do you get the inspiration in the first place? The playwright Simon Gray finds it over one and a half bottles of wine by his own admission. While I could take this as a useful starting point I do not hold out much hope. | "Where do you get inspiration in the first place? The playwright Simon Gray finds it over one and a half bottles of wine" | |
Melodrama from my own life comes in the bucket load naturally but would I not somehow be anymore profound than Roger Hargreaves ‘Little Miss Scatterbrain’. This was a recent and obviously suitable acquisition to my bookshelf. I was deeply disappointed with the events of the story however. All this round, red felt tip coloured lump in a green hat does is go shopping and come home again. Decidedly lame and too closely mirrors what happens when I trawl into York - Mr Tickle is so much better! Anyway while I have been distracted by children’s stories I am seriously motivated to write or adapt a play. How to balance out the choice of being drawn to tragic heroines and feats of greatness; and not to overlook subtle drama interweaving astuteness that takes you by continual surprise? And now I sound like the psuedo-jargon babble you find on the back of a play written by someone else. This will never do. Something has to be done! Any ideas anyone? Matthew Bourne has recently been hired to adapt The Little Mermaid by Disney. This cartoon seriously has it all. An evil witch of cunningly unrivalled evil, a dominating patriarchal father, teenage angst and happy endings for all, intertwined with sadness as Ariel obviously is unable to jump into the sea to see dad anymore. So that settled, any thesps who fancy wearing flippers and sea shells contact me. Rasheeda | 
