Last week, I was fortunate enough to travel to Bristol and attend the final night of Dragons at the Bierkeller Theatre.  It was a rather strange experience, to go for a night out at the theatre to watch a play I’d written myself.  I handed in my final draft of Dragons around Christmastime, and I’ve been very busy since then, what with Share a Story and the upcoming baby, so I haven’t thought much about the text itself.  Therefore, although I obviously knew how it was going to end, I almost felt like a regular punter, enjoying it for the first time.

And enjoy it I did. Kirsty Hemming, director and old college buddy, did a fine job of keeping me in the loop, but still so much – from the casting to the staging to the costumes – came as a surprise.  I was delighted.  The cast were excellent, and wrung some genuinely large emotions from my humble words.  It really did feel powerful.  I don’t really have much experience with watching my own work (other than 30-second promos for Horrid Henry), so to see some genuine drama emerge from my own writing was a great thrill.

However, naturally, I nit-picked.  The first act goes on a bit, and there are a couple of scenes that just drag – chief among them being Vigilante being brought before Dragon for the first time.  And there’s too much waffly exposition at the beginning, too.  And maybe the second of Mr Wrath’s long speeches could have been cut, or turned into dialogue instead of a rant.

I discovered that actually watching a performance of your script is really the best way to see what works and what doesn’t.  I guess this is the benefit of film; you write the long, rambling, over-the-top version, and use the edit to cut it down to size.  Of course, I’d actually like to write another version, with more scenes and a whole “Knight-in-disguise-becomes-a-vigilante” subplot, but that’s a performance for another day.

So, here’s to Stratford, assuming the baby gives me the day off!

Dragons is getting more local press in Bristol!  This is very exciting.  I’m especially chuffed about constantly being referred to as a “television writer”, which, whilst technically accurate, does make me seem very important!  It’s me, Steven Moffat, and Joss Whedon, kicking it in the green room.

Anyway, check out the article, then go buy tickets.  And congrats again to Kirsty and everyone at St. Paul’s.

http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/Play-picked-performance-national-festival/story-16021027-detail/story.html

Quite a lot of Dragons news recently, and I’m not sure I’ve blogged about it.

First of all, the dates; it’s on at the Bierkeller Theatre in Bristol from 22nd-24th May.

Then, in a move I can only describe as “pretty bloody exciting”, it can be seen at The Dell in Stratford-Upon-Avon on 24th June.

Finally, several scenes will be performed at the Sherman Theatre Cymru in Cardiff on 6th July.

Whilst all of those are brilliant in and of themselves, it’s a testament to the quality of the production that it’s been selected to be performed in Shakespeare’s backyard.  Well, I’m sure the script was half-decent too, but anyway…

Finally, and fittingly considering the heading of this blog, local press has picked up on Dragons, and given me what I believe is my first “official” mention as a writer.  In fact, I will now be signing all my letters as “television writer David Heslop”.  So if you want to read all about it, point your browser this-a-way: http://www.bedminsterpeople.co.uk/St-Paul-s-Players-takes-Dragons-RSC-Stratford/story-15955966-detail/story.html

All in all, I’m over the moon with how much publicity Kirsty Hemming’s production is getting.  I’m especially excited as I haven’t seen it yet!  But clearly the extent of its support bodes well.  Personally, I’m chuffed to bits, very proud of all those in St Paul’s Players Bristol, and very much looking forward to catching it myself at the end of the month.

Right, that’s it.  It’s over… finished.  Although, obviously, it never ends.

At the weekend I sent Kirsty the final (allegedly) draft of Dragons.  Officially at least, the script is complete, and it has been passed into the hands of the folks what are going to put it on and that.

I could pontificate at length once again about how scripts are never finished only abandoned, and it’s likely I’ll give this one another look over.  A final triple-check.  And of course there’s the possibility that, as the rehearsal and production period goes forward, I’ll be asked to make alterations here and there, which is perfectly fine.  It’s not mine any more.  Oh, how quickly they grow.

As to the final quality of the piece, I really couldn’t say.  I think most of my initial aims have been realised.  It was written at a rather breakneck pace, in pretty much all the available time I had; as such, I’d have loved another six months to totally re-draft it from scratch!  There are a couple of themes in the original text that I’ve not been able to flesh out to my satisfaction in this adaptation, the most significant of which is the idea of disguise.  There’s a certain superhero-y vibe to the characters adopting sobriquets and masks to go out essentially fighting crime, but this wasn’t an idea I had the time to run with; nor was I really able to create a parallel to Shakespeare’s Edgar disguising himself as Tom O’Bedlam.  If I ever have the opportunity to re-write it, I’ll probably put more of that in.  

But I digress.  ’Tis out there.  I hope those of you who choose to come see it next April enjoy the living heck out of it.

So.  I’ve finished another draft of Dragons.  This is physically starting to hurt.

I thought I might jot down a few points regarding my writing process, at least as far as redrafting work goes.  I’ve found that, sadly, the redrafting process appears to be the most important thing you can do as a writer, and yet also the most difficult.  I say this as if I’m some great authority, but really, it should be the first thing a writer learns, along with subtly lifting lines from books you hope people haven’t read, and naming characters after people you fancy.

My first draft is essentially a statement of intent, rather than a working script.  I’m one of those writers who needs to organise a script well in advance, making documents with lists of character names, occupations, interests, etc, as well as bullet points of ideas, plot synopses, and a run-down of how the entire story will play out.  Despite this, the first draft ends up a sort of stream of consciousness; I’ll know the way the story will go, but not every twist and turn, or how the characters speak.  I’m finding my feet, and allowing the story to write itself.  This draft is very important in building the world and birthing the protagonists; by the end of it, elements both subtle and large will have changed, and characters will be different, and the climax will reflect more of what I intend to write than the opening.  This draft will also be, at least by my own hyper-critical internal standards, rubbish.  It’ll be on the nose, confused, muddled, all over the place, with no clear through-line, dodgy dialogue, and above all else, it’ll be long.  Over-long.  All my first drafts - including the several scripts I wrote at uni that never progressed beyond first draft stage - are very long.  Dragons is actually something of an exception, in that I wrote the first draft in a rush, and subsequent drafts have increased the length.

Then I do what I call a pencil draft, going through the printed script, crossing out large swathes of text, re-writing as I go, making copious notes in the margins, and generally making a mess of a bundle of stapled sheets of A4.  The gist of this stage will be that I now know, at last, what it is I’m actually writing.

Then I usually do a total page-one, blank sheet of paper re-write.  By “usually”, incidentally, I mean “once”.  romdotcom, the script I wrote before Dragons, followed this template and it is my preferred method.  Well, “preferred” is a bit of an exaggeration; it’s hard and harsh.  But it does produce good results.  Prior to romdotcom, I never had the willpower.  But it works!  It’s good practice!  Dragons was written on a very tight time frame, and I knew I wouldn’t have the luxury of multiple drafts.  So I skipped this step, and concentrated on doing a very thorough edit of the first draft; I’d say 50% of the original script has been jettisoned or altered in some way.

I suppose you could repeat these last two stages as often as you wanted.

Now, here is where Dragons (again) differs from the ideal.  Because it’s a Shakespearean adaptation, and I’m trying to hide my ignorance of all kinds of culture beyond Grant Morrison’s Batman work and the Halo franchise, I am currently going through the script with the play by my side, attempting to shoehorn in make subtle and intelligent references to the original text wherever possible.  I’m calling this the Shakespearean Edit.  And once this is completed, the script will be essentially done.

I say “essentially” as one more edit always remains: the final edit.  This is just checking over the finished script and seeing if there are any things I can add or, more importantly, take away.  This is the point, also, when I rely on a small band of close friends, relatives, and people who won’t be cruel, to tell me how far I’ve overshot the Zeitgeist and hit the area where only Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory knows what I’m on about (full disclosure time: I’m not quite that hilariously clueless).  And this is the final draft, and produces the finished script.  Well, “finished” is relative; for, to paraphrase both Paul Valery and George Lucas, scripts are never really finished, only abandoned.

In following this pattern, I can strive for the goal all writers should set themselves: to one day produce something of which Toby Ziegler would approve.  And for those in Bristol sat waiting, the final draft of Dragons should be with you quite soon.

The Dragons website is live!  Check it out for updates & to buy tickets!

I feel I should probably have included some information about who I am, and my general career history, on the off chance somebody wanders over here expecting something useful.

I am currently working as a Creative (that is, promotions producer) at Citv in Manchester, working out of Granada Studios.  I’ve been working here six years, since joining in 2005 as a researcher.  In that time I have produced dozens if not hundreds of proms, interstitials, featurettes, short animations, fact files, behind-the-scenes videos, web games, and probably more.  I’ve worked in animation and live-action, directing shoots with professional actors and first-time child performers.  I’ve shot footage myself, used a full crew, and directed studio performances from the gallery.  There’s a great deal of variety involved and it is a rewarding and enjoyable job.

Prior to this, I’ve worked at the BBC and for a number of independent production companies as a runner and researcher.

I graduated from the University of Warwick in 2003, where I studied English Literature, focusing heavily on Shakespeare in my final year.  Whilst there, I wrote and directed a number of original plays and a film, worked for the nascent Warwick TV station, and wrote a film adaptation of Macbeth.  I was also treasurer of Freshblood Theatre from 2001-2002, which during that time was the only society producing original student-written plays.

In my spare time I write extensively.  I have two completed scripts (a teleplay and a screenplay) and am currently seeking representation, or at least someone professional to read them.  I’m writing a comic for future publication, and, of course, am currently still hard at work on the latest draft of Dragons.

The reason I created a tumblr page was to allow myself more room to philosophise pretentiously about what I choose to call my “work”.  Therefore I feel I can discuss Dragons, which I am choosing to refer to as “my current project”.

My friend Kirsty Hemming, a producer at the BBC in Bristol as well as an amateur dramatist, came to me with the suggestion that I write for her group - the St. Paul’s Players - an adaptation of a Shakespearean work, that they may enter it into the RSC Open Stages competition/scheme/thingamabob.  More specifically, she asked if I already had anything that she could use; I did not, having spent the better part of the last decade (seriously) writing what I hope to one day call “the first feature script I ever sold”.  However, the idea of adapting Shakespeare intrigued me, and as I’d never received a writing commission in the past (paid or whatever), I threw some ideas her way and she picked her favourite.

In her infinite wisdom, she picked the most awkward, difficult, and ambitious idea of the lot.

Therefore I set about deconstructing King Lear, isolating what I felt were its key attributes - pride, love, betrayal, arrogance, etc - and giving them a coat of paint that best resembled my chosen theme.  I may talk at length in the future about how I came to this wacky idea, and how I attempted to give the play a sturdy literary backbone, but I don’t want to sound pretentious or self-aggrandising, especially without an audience (I assume the people who read this blog will number in the single digits); regardless, I did some research, and began to bend the Bard to fit my own addled thoughts.

If I had to sum up this whole process in one word it would be “hubris”.  I am assuming I am skilled enough to attempt a Shakespearean adaptation, and interesting enough to take that adaptation into areas that could potentially attract ridicule, scorn, or (worse!) boredom.  So I’m counting on being good, frankly.

At the moment I am very happy with my progress - and right now it’s still a work in, far (in my eyes at least) from finished.  But I know I’m not at the end of the tunnel anyway, and there’s plenty of time left to sand off the rough edges and give it all a coat of varnish.  I promise the metaphors in the script are better than the ones on this blog, too.

The least of my ambitions at this stage is to produce a work that is not embarrassing to myself, or Kirsty, who’s really championed me through this project; to produce, in fact, a work that is worthy of the men and women who will have to stand on a stage in front of a paying crowd and speak my words with their mouths and not look like a gaggle of idiots.  That is a truly great undertaking, and if that was all I achieved, I could take some comfort.  However, it’s my intention to be far better than that; it’s my intention for this script to be genuinely great, and for the performances it helps generate (for let’s not forget, the script is not the same thing as the play) to be likewise great; and ultimately for this play to be performed in Stratford as well as Bristol.  And hopefully other places too.

It’s not hubris, really.  Because I know it’s bloody hard work.  But it’s also bloody good fun.

This is the poster for “Dragons”, a play I am writing for the St Paul’s Players in Bristol.  It is an adaptation of “King Lear”, and will run as part of the RSC Open Stages initiative.