YOU CAN’T TEACH ANYONE TO WRITE BUT ….

Monday 9th February brings us our third talk of the term, with veteran comedy writers and collaborators PETER VINCENT and IAN DAVIDSON sharing their tricks of the trade.  Peter Vincent, is of course,  one of our longstanding members, and has a TV track record that goes back many years as a writer and editor.  He wrote or co-wrote 69 episodes of comedy for the BBC including seven series of Sorry with Ian Davidson, and episodes of All at No. 20 and the Brittas Empire.  He wrote for twelve series of The Two Ronnies and also edited some of the scripts.  He was Dave Allen’s script editor for around twenty years, and also edited the Russ Abbot show with Barry Cryer.  He has worked with Frankie Howerd, Tommy Cooper, Bob Monkhouse, Bruce Forsyth, Harry Secombe, David Frost, Cliff Richard, Les Dawson, Michael Parkinson and many others.  He has also written plays with David Nobbs, John Chapman and Barry Cryer.

Aside from their collaborations, Ian Davidson has performed and written with Michael Palin and Terry Jones at Oxford University - his first BBC writing credit was for That Was The Week That Was in 1963 - he became an actor at The Second City in Chicago. Returning to the UK, he worked for Ned Sherrin (as a film director) and David Frost, and then began a lifelong association with Barry Humphries as a writer and director. He appears, briefly, in many of the Monty Python's Flying Circus episodes - notably as a Dead Indian On a Pile of Dung, and as a news reporter who interrupts a sketch to say that it's his first time appearing on television.

Work In Progress

Monday 22nd February brings us a P-P first. Let Mary Conway explain:

"This is an event for everyone. Whether you are a writer, actor, theatre professional or happy onlooker, you are invited to come along and have fun in this, our first ever, ‘Work In Progress’ session.

The purpose of the evening is to explore the art of playwriting through collaboration with other writers and actors. We would like as many members as possible to join us and give us your views on how we might use similar sessions in the future. We will be sharing with you a few extracts from scripts produced by the PP collaborative group. We will then work in small and larger groups to develop ideas, scripts, characters, scenarios which can be turned into plays or used to stimulate individual creativity. Actors will be most valuable, both to read scripts but also to suggest ideas and possibly to improvise.

We very much look forward to seeing you there and kicking up our heels together".

7.30 at the North London Tavern.

Fakebook

Monday 15 February brings us a 65 minute stageplay entitled Fakebook, by P-P debutant, Glenda Cooper. She may be new to us, but Glenda is a seasoned writer and journalist currently completing a PhD on the influence of social media.  She was part of the Theatre 503 community playwrights scheme in 2015;  recent work infludes TODAY (Royal Court Theatre ‘Grit’ scratch night), KING ATHELSTAN AND CHUMS (co-writer, Rose Theatre Studio, Kingston) and OH YES, SHE DID (RWR, Theatre 5030.  She won the 2014 Poetic Republic and Writers’ Bureau short story prizes.  She tweets at @glendacooper and keeps her Facebook settings on maximum privacy.

 "How much do we rely on social media to form our memories, or define our identities?  Amy Lang thinks she is going mad and her husband Dan sorrowfully agrees; her memory is failing, and if she turns to her email, Facebook and Twitter pages, the information does not add up.  Then a stranger turns up at Amy’s door with a quite different set of memories".

7.30 at the North London Tavern.

Andrew Loudon

February 8th brings us a guest speaker, actor, writer and director, Andrew Loudon. He's got more credits than I've had hot dinners, and no fewer than three of his productions have transferred to the West End. As Tony Diggle explains:

TAKING A SCRIPT FROM THE BOTTOM

DRAWER TO THE WEST END

Andrew Loudon made his directorial debut in 1999, an adaptation by Emma Reeves of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women at the Pleasance, Edinburgh. The success of the show led to a further production at Sadler’s Wells in 2002 and its eventual arrival at the Duchess Theatre in 2004.

He has since directed other shows in the West End, most recently Cool Hand Luke at the Apollo Theatre in 2011 with Marc Warren in the lead. He has also had a long career as an actor appearing on stage and television. 

His regional theatre credits include Charles Ryder in the stage premiere production of Brideshead Revisited, and he has just appeared for a year as the father in the Railway Children at the Kings’ Cross Theatre. His television credits include Peak Practice, Absolutely Fabulous, Doctors and The Bill. He also writes, and has found time to appear in two of his own plays including Dangerous Play at the Arts Theatre. So there will be plenty to talk about during Q & A which might be sub-titled “How to survive in the theatre”!

Find out how he does it, at 7.30 at the North London Tavern.