Untitled Series
A project without a title? We must be coming to the end of the list! Quite right, dear reader, only two projects left to conclude the decade.
This script has actually been put on hold at present, but is one I can’t wait to return to. Currently intended to be a six-part light drama series, the scripts will chart the living arrangements of a grandfather and grown-up grandson after the death of the family matriarch. As the grandfather struggles with his own domestic ineptitude, he instead chooses to try and ‘liberate’ his fruity grandson from his own unmanly domestic prowess. It’s a war of old man vs young man. Masculinity held under a microscope.
It's also heavily inspired by my own grandad, who passed away earlier this year. At 89, weeks before he passed, he finally admitted he’s “getting old”. The man was an enigma. A staunch promoter of the patriarchal way of living, he was also a deeply emotional man. That dichotomy as a writer is fascinating, but perhaps a little raw to focus on as a grandson.
When the time comes, this currently unnamed series will be insane. Raw, funny, tough, unflinching, and real. Death is horrible, but when certain people get involved, it’s also bloody hilarious.
As a writer, I had begun falling back into old traps. A play I’d been writing simply wasn’t working. I’d beaten it and begged it to work for over a year, but nothing was sticking. Just as all hope seemed lost, along came ScriptClub, a writing group based in Cardiff that was looking for new members. So, from May until August, this series became my sole writing focus. It was an opportunity to liberate myself from the constraints of the play and gave me the space to grieve in a healthy way; something I hadn’t done after the deaths of previous grandparents. It also, crucially, gave me a space to discuss my writing.
But, didn’t you do that Masters?
I did! I met some wonderful friends and peers doing the Masters degree. After graduating, though, they all went off to have their twenties and to the ‘living’ that will be so important in their future careers. ScriptClub offered me a chance to get real-time feedback with writers who make their living in script departments, and others from all walks of life. This is a network of people that have made writing more than a hobby, and more than a job. Writing is who ScriptClub are. For that, I’m immensely grateful, and those monthly meetings are now the highlight of my calendar.
Enough glowing about all that, though. Here’s the opening scene of my currently unnamed series.
I Have Sinned
So, that play I couldn’t get to work?
I figured it out.
In August this year, I went to Edinburgh with my family for a few days and lost my Edinburgh Fringe virginity. What a week. The performances I saw were nothing short of exceptional. Chief among them, and the play I found most affecting on a fundamental level, was Good Boy.
Good Boy charts the completely true story of the writer and performer as he discovers his then boyfriend, his first boyfriend, is a paedophile. It’s a vital, important, impactful story from its subject matter alone. Subject matter isn’t what makes Good Boy so fucking brilliant, though. It’s one man, on a simple stage, performing and showcasing a very specific strand of his life. There’s no mention of his family life, of his school, of anything that doesn’t service this story. It’s a masterclass in storytelling, and it’s exactly what I was looking for.
I Have Sinned, the play I’d been writing for over a year, was too big. I knew it would be a one-person play, but good Lord there was a lot going on. There was a funeral, the protagonist was a therapist, there were flashbacks and flash forwards, it was a mess. The most powerful moments of Good Boy took place in a bed made of two chairs and a pouffe.
The absolute writing fever that took over me after leaving Good Boy ended on 21st September. In one month, I rebuilt the play from the ground up. Everything was stripped away, and the resulting play is, in my opinion, the best thing I’ve written to date.
I Have Sinned is a culmination of everything I’ve learned since coming to Cardiff ten years ago. There are elements in this play that echo almost every other project on this list. Like Court Room, this play puts me on trial. Like The Ward, it is a journey of self-discovery. Like Bonnie and Cam, there’s a core mystery to solve. Like parTy, it deals with the consequences of sexual deviancy. Like The Local, it explores a form of nihilism. Like How I Lived Before I Died, it includes the fallout of a life poorly lived. Like Madala’s Grace, it confronts a loss of faith, and like my unnamed series, it is a story with melancholy at its heart.
Finishing I Have Sinned has been liberating. This story that has been fighting to get out of me for a decade is finally on paper. Is it perfect? No. But it’s no longer just inside my head. Now I can give it to others or consider trying to perform it. Prior to my undergraduate, I loved being on stage.
This chapter of my life is over. Whatever the next chapter is, I am entering it with one goal: to live it to the full.
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