I have spent the whole of this competition in isolation :-( When I found out about it I tried to join the forum and "it" said I'd have to wait for a response before I could join – and that response never came.
So here we are, not only past the deadline but also also past notification - and I only just got into the forum! I suspect those of you who've had the fun/privilege of being the 'chosen few' may have been lulled into a false sense of comfort that there aren't (potentially) hundreds/thousands of wannabe playwrights!
Just thought you'd like to know. BTW I've heard zilch too. I hate it when websites don't get updated either!
Welcome, Bex!! I bet there were a couple thousand entries. What do you think? And just because we're chatting away on the forum, it doesn't make us the chosen few. It just makes us the few, I guess, which is far less comforting.
Humphh - I'm more frustrated that I didn't get to fully join in because of the whole nightmare thing of not 'being approved' in time. And of course when I say 'chosen few' I only meant those 'chosen' by the controlling cyberGod.
I'm not sure if there were a couple of thousand entries, I think a lot of people would be put off 'cos it's not as easy to write a play as it is to say...have three unruly rude children in need of taming, ...be publicly disatisfied with your life-partner and want to swap them for a laugh, ... or in deed have the nation watching you defluff your tummy button and pick you nose. ;-)
I've entered a play writing comp before and there were only 170 odd entries. The same each year they say.
How many do you think are involved with the forum? Wild guess?
Oh - I forgot to add... (for any other guests still in the same boat I was in, until I was hit with inspired vsion...)
I went to join/login, and instead of hitting join I decided to say I'd lost my password. So I put in my email and it emailed me my details.
The question is why, when I tried to join did it not just say "thanks, you may now enter..." rather than "You'll be notified when you've been approved..."
I like to think there were thousands and thousands of entries. It makes me feel better about not getting shortlisted
Strange that - I prefer the idea that there were only a handfull of entries and only three people that were contacted... That way, the producers only considered three plays superior to mine!
I rather like that, the "handfull of entires and only 3 made it". My thoughts exactly. In fact, until their website has been UPDATED I guess we will have no facts to really base or debunk our hope at all ;-)
I prefer the idea that, no matter HOW many entries there were, all the entries e-mailled were lost electronically - that way, I wasn't actually beaten by anyone!
Or we could run the risk of having this thread deleted by dashing down rabbit holes, fuelling a theory that they haven’t decided on the shortlist as yet and we’re still in with a chance!
I don't think they've decided. I think they're probably overwhelmed. SF is an EXTREMELY busy woman and has a lot of other serious West End business to take care of, far bigger names than our own and bigger issues to contend with.
If I were her, I'd take care of priorities first, then farm out scripts to be read, then make decisions based on what the readers say. I can't imagine they'll read more than the first 3 pages or so. Okay, maybe 5. I do like Stoppard. Always have a joke in the first minute. I can't think of one that doesn't
Well there seems to be a massive difference in opinion on how many entires you guys think there've been. I can't remember EVER seeing an advert for TPTT, any blurb in the BBC Writersroom or anything. Just a writing pal tipped me off, when she'd heard from someone else. So I still think it's a lot less.
My guess is 86.
Consider places like the NT, The Court, Royal Exchange etc. they say that they get somewhere in the order of 800-1200 unsolicited scripts a year if you read their small print on their websites. Yes, okay I’ve done that. Let's face it there will be a lot of internationals in that lot too. Even if we estimate high and say 1200, then for arguments sake we could say 1000 them are from Brits. Suppose again, it's the same plays that get sent to the NT, RC, REx etc. so that in fact it's really a ball park of 1000 Brit Writers with their plays. Then, there may be the incessant writers who send in two – shall we say 100 of them have sent in two – one at the top of the reading pile and one at the bottom. Okay so now we’re looking at 800 plays in circulation in a year. That’s 66 a month - roughly. With, what, 8 weeks notice to submit? Presumably that would be 132 that would get try to get it in. But Sod’s law dictates that at least 15% of us are procrastinators, so that reduces the total number of entries to 112. There’s something like 8% of the population that are not computer literate and wouldn’t be able to email, take my 85 year old Granny for instance, so we’re at 103. Of course, there’s always those who are NOT serious about the competition and drunkenly sent in rubbish ‘for a laugh’. There must be at least be 15% of them – so we’re down to 88. Three could have died, if you look at everyone coming from a wide age group. So we’re down to a mere 85. Then there’s me. Bingo!
Remind me not to let Bex anywhere near my bank balance. I started at several thousand and she whittled it down to 86!
But still, it's fascinating. So give us more math! WIth only 86 entries, how do you explain the delay in changing the site and the information black out?
