... from The Grauniad 6th June.

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,,1791983,00.html

"Younghusband is the first to admit that, in seeking to produce a play by a writer with no previous theatrical experience, the ambition of the series is a bit mad."

The thot plickens.

Swann - a professional production under your belt and how many plays with how many performances?

Jay - how many plays, how many performances and how many awards?

Gravedigger - (I know he's not been in, but you can guess his probable answer) - how many plays, how many performances, and how long have you been running stageplay writing classes?

Anyone else want to line up as an entrant "with no previous theatrical experience"?

Explains why one of the 30 had never seen a West End Play; why one knew nothing about second drafts; and why another had never had his play read!

Uh-oh.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/20...006/05/29/ixtop.html

"Viewers of the four-week series, which begins on June 12, may be forgiven for thinking that the judges, rather than the fledgling writers, are the stars of the show.

"Although there are choice moments on film when the judges meet the last 30 contestants - including one who says she wrote her play the afternoon before - it's the Kenyon-Pearson dynamic that will get viewers hooked."

One of the 30 "wrote her play the afternoon before?"

I can't wait to see this!

Interesting article. Friedman seems to wish that she lived in 1599 where great art was also popular commercial theatre. She does not like seeing the choice of venues for new artists limited to subsidized theatres.

It looks to be like she and Mel Kenyon wanted to be blown away with some energetic, angry young writing - raw talent - and shape that talent into a hit. And as Adman points out they didn't seem to get what they wanted.

I think the marriage of famous actors and unknown scripts on the West End is the way forward, not that I am qualified to speak about it.

Everything I have read confirms my suspicion that if I write a really good play, it will find an audience. That's what I need to work on . . .

Maybe the production team saw some spark, some fire in those 30. Maybe the other ones weren't that good. That is also a possible conclusion here.

Hmmmm

Thanks for the links - both made very interesting reading. Reading between the lines that is.

The more I read... The more I realise that our intial idea with DS was right...

Maybe we should start that up again, so that SF and the others will realise that those of us that have written plays, rather than can convince a TV exec that we 'might' be able to, are a real force to deal with!

Hmmmm... Time to play me thinks!

I sort-of agree with Jay that DS is still a viable concept; but I think we made two mistakes in the possible formation of DS.

I think we were too public and invited too many people to be involved, which meant it became a committee. Ultimately, that's the main reason I didn't push to take it further after The Night Of The Long Knives.

Something I've noticed from other writers sites I've dropped in on - there seems to be a large, floating body of 'I'm a writer' people who appear, get very excited and voluble, then disappear again.

I suspect the 'serious' players (and I don't count myself in that, yet) don't do that - they're actually too busy!

Off-forum dialogue to simmer slowly, I suspect...

Very true AdMan...

I guess it might be an idea to revist the idea - plus LML did mention to me that she has a site that she developed for her degree...

Methinks it could be worth a gander.