Hello, Swann here, had to watch at the neighbours because bad monopolist Sky has failed to fix my satellite. Want to hear what everyone thinks of everything but especially the following:
(1) It is clear that my spot -- crazy lady grappling with mental illness by writing play with messianic overtones -- went to ex-professor who may even have won. Jesus is a guy who needs to be talked about now! But you can't have bipolar AND schizo in a single longlist, can you?
(2) The girl who wrote Ramases who had orange eyeshadow was cute, cute, cute. I think Kenyon had a little crush on her. Certainly the cuddle upstairs was a little prolonged. I noticed that the less telegenic of the longlisters hardly appeared at all.
(3) I was so impressed with Kenyon and Friedman's passion and intensity. They love plays, they love theatre, they love what it can do and they really want to see something great come of this. I respect that immensely. What that loser actor was doing with them I have no idea - he didn't really add much except to pontificate in that tiresome English way about his own not-really-related experiences. They need a better third judge! And they need all the judges to be honest about what is really attractive to them.
(4) The most striking line of the evening was Mel saying that great playwrights are born, not made. This put great sadness in my heart. Worse, I do think the rest of the evening supported this thesis. I saw, in the initial 30 interviews, the three judges reacting viscerally to the material and then defending their visceral reaction by either criticising or supporting the longlister in the interview. Woe is me if playwrights cannot be made but have to be born. How do I know? Sonia either fell in love or she didn't. Has she ever been wrong? Has she ever changed her mind? I would like to hear her answer these questions.
(5) Apologies in advance for this but very few women (30%) faces of colour, voices of immigrants (which has done so much to invigorate English novels). I gotta say to the professional readers: the gene pool of white males on this island is getting a little shallow and stagnant. You need to branch out!!!
(6) I thought Adman II (Half of Twins who sang 10000 Miles), the Mancunian Shelfstacker and Startled Messianic Overtones were all very likeable. Adman II is sort of how I imagined our Adman. Funny. But is that what it comes down to? Being likeable to producers and directors?
(7) How crap was the production and the backstory? There was so much more they could have done - how about interviewing famous, successful playwrights about their first production? How about mentioning Alan Bennett just won the best play Tony in NY for History Boys? Hmm? Revival of British Theatre set to explode worldwide, anyone??? How about reviewing Mel and Sonia's previous work? Mel's agency represents Mark Ravenhill and Sonia's company produced S&F. How about reviewing their unspoken assumptions and cultural bias? Or at least asking them what they are looking for and how to find it. How about comparing a good synopsis to a bad synopsis?
(8) I wish we could have heard more of Kenyon's theory of the audience and what they are looking for. Engrossing and fascinating.
(9) Having said the production was crap, I did think that seeing the longlisters read excerpts of their submissions was very telling: some seemed uninterested in their own scripts!
(10) With all this talk of reviving the West End, everyone is pointedly ignoring a very big elephant in the room: the United States. U.S. audiences make up a huge portion of West End audiences. Comedys in the West End are very tricky because of the differences in humour in the two cultures. What is the deal here?
The West End makes money - Broadway on the otherhand just scrapes by and generates nowhere near the income of the WE.
Yes there are a lot of tourists, but do you really want to target them? And I think it would be wrong to do so.
When I'm on holiday to Italy, I don't want to eat Roast Beef, Roast Potatoes and two boiled veg. So why when I holiday to New York would I want to see a British based play?
Maybe that's why the revenues from US tourists in the WE are so high - they have the opportunity to see something they don't get at home.
Agree with point 5 - if I was a black/Asian/whatever playwright, I would definitely clock the absence of colour in the final list. Having said that, none of us had to put down our racial status in our applications, and if we had needed to - we'd just have assumed that they selected scripts on a demographic basis, also not fair, so the PT probably can't win on that one.
Also - it speicfiically says about finding a BRITISH playwright, so not so sure myself that it is the place to seek immigrant talent (if it is the place to seek talent at all). But I did notice at least one Irish accent in the VT readings - so do Irish playwrights count as British then?
Who counts as British indeed? My mother was born here, all my aunts and uncles live here, I was married here, my son was born here, I went to school here and I have lived here as an adult for five years. But to the people on this island my accent means I am NOT FROM HERE.
If you grow up in Dublin but move to London and start writing plays, are you an Irish playwright ten years in or a British playwright?
What is the benefit of having a British playwright anyway? The competition was clearly open to all residents of the island. Is there a difference (and should there be) for purposes of judging the voices in the play?
