The Go-Between R&D receives ACE funding
Exciting News: The Go-Between Project Receives Arts Council England Funding
I’m thrilled to announce that my adaptation of L.P. Hartley’s The Go-Between has been awarded funding for an R&D by Arts Council England. The Go-Between is one of the great novels of the Norfolk, and – in collaboration with the brilliant Eastern Angles, Norwich Theatre Royal, St George’s Great Yarmouth, and Karen Goddard, this will be an exciting project for the Eastern Region and we’re really looking forward to working with communities across the region.
The novel is also timeless and exquisite exploration of memory, and in particular we want to work with older people across Norfolk to create a fresh, contemporary adaptation of this beloved story. The process has already been a rewarding journey of discovery – and we have a number of engagement events still to come – including creative writing and drama workshops (details tbc) – and this event in the village of Bradenham (which inspired the novel) on the 5th October.
We will be sharing a work-in-progress showing of the adaptation at Norwich Theatre Royal on the 23rd of October, from 3-5pm (booking details tbc). This will be an exciting opportunity to see the early stages of this project and to witness how The Go-Between is being reimagined for the stage.
I’m really grateful to Arts Council England for their support in making this project a reality.
INDIGO GIANT – UK PRODUCTION
INDIGO GIANT UK TOUR
We’re delighted that a UK Production and tour of Indigo Giant, produced by Komola Collective will begin in spring ’24. Please find full details on the Komola website.
We’re also thrillled that the play will be published by Salamander Street Press as a programme playtext alongside the production. Get your copy here.
Indigo Giant in Bangladesh
From INDIGO GIANT, Dhaka Production Photo: Sheikh Mehedi Morshed
Indigo Giant was performed at Dhaka’s Mohila Samity in September 2022 in a really stunning production.
Please see the Indigo Giant website for more information, and there are links to some reviews below.
We hope to produce the play in the UK in Autumn 2023.
Reviews
Forget being shackled by social conventions; these women fly through the boundaries of time to bend, provoke, and rescue history. They render a future for the past. – Sarah Anjum Bari, Daily Star.
Theatre is that magic carpet which can make anyone travel between past and present… undoubtedly an excellent production. – Proggna Paromita Majumder, Dhaka Tribune
Indigo Giant: A poetic tale of oppression and rebellion – Dowel Biswas, Daily Star
INDIGO GIANT in Bangladesh, 2022
My play Indigo Giant will be performed in Dhaka, Bangladesh in September 2022:
https://www.komola.co.uk/indigogiant
Vital Signs on BBC R4
New radio Vital Signs was broadcast on the 6th January.
Here’s the link:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00132v5
The Indigo Giant
Alongside Komola Collective and Jatinder Verma Productions, we were hoping to finally perform my new play The Indigo Giant in Bangladesh in 2021. Unfortunately, Covid made this impossible. We’re still hoping for 2022, but in the meantime, we’ve made a really terrific film of an extract from the play.
Have a look at this:
Do also have a look at the new website for details of the broader context for this project.
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Scriptwriting at UEA
Lots has happened since I last posted – I’ll try and update this one day soon, but you may be interested to know that (since 2018), I’ve been a Lecturer in Scriptwriting at the university, where I teach on the excellent MA in Scriptwriting, and also undergraduate courses in scriptwriting:
https://www.uea.ac.uk/course/postgraduate/ma-creative-writing-scriptwriting
In search of Indigo
In search of the Indigo plant (a legume), which - because of the taboo surrounding its tainted history, was not grown in Bengal for over a century. But the plant continued to grow as a weed on the sides of roads.
What ghosts remain in the eerie ruins of a Nil Kuthi, an Indigo plantation house?
Terrible secrets, forgotten but not forgotten, in the ruined tanks by the mango trees.
But in Rangpur farmers are reclaiming this strange plant with a tainted history...
...And making something beautiful (at LIVING BLUE)
NEW COMMISSION FOR TARA ARTS
I’m very excited to say I’ve been commissioned by world-class theatre pioneers TARA ARTS to write a new play about the Indigo Revolt in 1859/60. The revolt, also known as the ‘Blue Mutiny’, erupted in Bengal in response to terrible exploitation by British Indigo planters, and also inspired the writing of one of the most devastating and effective pieces of political theatre in history. NEEL DARPAN, by Dinabondhu Mitra. The play will be a response to and conversation with that play, and explore the legacy of Indigo cultivation in Bengal today…
I grew up in Bangladesh and India, and this project feels like a return to my ‘second home’. And on that note, I’m also very proud to say that the Royal Society of Literature have awarded me a Brookleaze Grant to travel to Bangladesh and India to research the play.
2015
2015 was one of my best years yet.
It began with POLITRIX, with the amazing The Big House, a company of care leavers. In the run up to the May election, Politrix was a sort-of verbatim play about the political life of care-leavers inspired by real stories from the cast, and a surreal visit to the Houses of Parliament.
“These people who we want to listen, I don’t think we ever get to see them… these people hide.”
From POLITRIX, The Big House. Photo: Catherine Ashmore.
Directed by genius Maggie Norris, Politrix was an extraordinary experience for me. Read my reflections on the process here:
Then came ACROSS THE DARK WATER, a ‘contemporary’ historical play about the Southampton Plot to kill Henry V. It was produced by The Berry and The Point in Eastleigh, directed by the uncannily brilliant Owen Calvert-Lyons, and was performed in amazing and atmospheric locations all over Hampshire, including Portchester Castle and St Julien’s Chapel, Southampton.
I loved doing this play, with a fantastic cast and creative team. It’s really got me excited about history, and writing about history. Here’s a trailer for the play:
If you missed the live performances, the play was also filmed rather brilliantly. Here’s the first episode:
Finally, the end of the year saw the premiere of my play CRUSHED SHELLS AND MUD. Perhaps of all my plays, this is the one I love the most, and I was delighted with a fabulous, rich, brilliantly-performed and realised production, directed with visionary aplomb by Russell Bolam.
From CRUSHED SHELLS AND MUD. Photo: Jack Sain, 2015
@ Jack Sain, 2015
@ Jack Sain, 2015
@ Jack Sain, 2015
@ Jack Sain, 2015
And I’m proud to say that Nick Hern Books also published the playtext.
Here’s the Crushed Shells trailer:
If you were able to make it to something this year, thank you for coming, and hope you enjoyed yourself. There’s more in the pipeline for 2016 – watch this space!
And many many thanks to all those gifted and generous people I’ve worked with this year. Too many to mention (but do please explore the other pages on the site for more about the plays and the teams behind them).
Happy new year!
