Creative activities

It is almost time for my class, and so I am rushing to write to you.

I have had such a busy day.

Mark wasn’t working today, but fortunately we set the alarm anyway. This wasn’t nice, and we were yawning and grumpy when it went off, but we got up anyway. This turned out to be just as well because we were just milling about downstairs considering the day’s events when the phone rang, and it was Ted needing Mark to go to work after all.

It was a good job we were up and dressed, and not loafing about in the camper van on some beach somewhere. I don’t mind telling you that we had seriously considered that as an occupation for our days off, but didn’t because of being responsible grown ups with a lot of things that needed doing at home.

In the event it rained this afternoon anyway, so we didn’t miss anything, and as luck would have it I just got my washing in in time, what great good fortune.

The responsible things that needed doing were the new central heating system for Mark and my class homework for me. I have been supposed to be doing this for days and days. I wanted to write a powerful piece debating the existence or otherwise of God, but I have thought and thought about it on several long walks now, in between yelling at the dogs, and I just don’t have that sort of writing ability.

Instead I came home from this morning’s walk having regretfully surrendered the idea, and wrote a monologue instead, which you can read below. The brief was to write five hundred words for performance, which could easily have been the beginning of a play, but I hate writing beginnings of things that I know perfectly well I will be far too idle ever to finish, and so have been wracking my brains for ideas for a complete short.

How I ever thought I could get the existence of God wrapped up in five hundred words I am not sure, sometimes my optimism surprises even me.

In the end I wrote something amusing, because I am sorry to say really that is mostly what I can do. The existence of God will have to wait, perhaps until I have finished the Master’s’s degree.

As it turned out, Mark didn’t need to do very much at work in the end. He fixed the problem in a mere couple of hours, and in no time at all he was home.  He occupied the rest of the day building his new mystical water heating arrangement, whilst I wrote a Dramatic Monologue. I have attached both the monologue and a picture of Mark’s efforts below.

I had better go. My course is about to start.

Sound of a typewriter. A woman is writing a letter.

WOMAN:   Dear…Mr…Macin…no. Dear Cameron.

I hope you won’t mind me using your first name. I know it’s rather…intimate…at this stage, but I do hope we are going to become friends. I can’t help but feel that this might well be the very first moment in one of those great theatrical partnerships. You know. Rogers and Hammerstein. Gilbert and Sullivan. Cameron Macintosh and Cecily Ridley.

It even has a bit of a ring to it, doesn’t it? Maybe somebody will even write a play about us, someday, how very exciting.

Anyway, I am sending you my play. I have been writing it for three weeks now, during the quiet moments at work. Well, it isn’t exactly work. I volunteer for Age Concern. It’s very worthwhile, and I would like to continue with it even if we get very busy producing the play, so I hope you don’t mind, but we’ll have to factor that in to rehearsal commitments. I do three days a week, usually Tuesday, Friday and Saturday, but I could probably change Tuesdays if you preferred.

Anyway, I do hope you enjoy it. It was inspired by a musical written by a lady called Lynne Miranda. Have you heard of it? It‘s a story about the days when black people ruled America. She called it Hamilton, after the Scottish town. Have you been there? It’s a bit dreary, but the car parking is very cheap, and I found the lavatories were beautifully clean.

I don’t think many people are interested in America. I thought my play would attract far more attention if it was about England. It is about Oliver Cromwell and the Civil War.

The exciting thing about it is that it isn’t just about Oliver Cromwell. It is far more modern than that. I have added a real plot twist, because I have been inspired by true events here in our very own village.

We have two takeaway shops, and they are at absolute daggers drawn. If you go into one, they say the most shockingly rude things about the other. Really there is no need because they are both perfectly good, although I think one of them – I forget which – got a poor hygiene rating a little while ago, which was a bit troubling. I must ask them if they sorted it out.

Anyway, the plot twist to my play is that I wanted the Cavaliers to be acted by Indian people, and the Roundheads to be acted by Chinese people. It would be absolutely topical, because these things are really happening, here, in Sutton St. Mary’s, and it would add genuine layers of depth to the plot.

Also it means that you wouldn’t need to worry about getting horses on the stage, because I don’t think Chinese people ride horses. Certainly they don’t here in our village, and we have a perfectly good riding stables, with Pony Club membership included, so they could if they liked. Mostly it’s teenage girls, though, so they might feel a bit uncomfortable. You have to be so careful these days, don’t you?

You might also be pleased to hear that being so very relevant would bring in an audience straight away. I know how important it is to get bums on seats, to use a theatrical term, and I can absolutely guarantee that everybody on our road would come to see it, because we all know all about the two takeaways and their dreadful squabble. How excited they would all be.

Anyway, I shan’t tell you any more, because I don’t want to spoil any of the plot for you, that wouldn’t be fair, and I’m sure you will be excited to read it.

It isn’t quite finished yet, because I wasn’t exactly sure how you might do a beheading on stage. Just let me know what you want to do and I can work round it. Perhaps we could do it in the wings and just have a sort ker-thunk noise that sounds like a head hitting a plank. I have thought about this, obviously, and I think you could probably do it by dropping a melon, although you might be better to record the noise and just play it back every night, because it makes a terrible mess, and in any case, melons are quite expensive these days. We would have to get them in Tesco, and have a real one on standby in case the sound effect went wrong.

I am absolutely dying to get together and talk about it, and I have got so many ideas for creative things we could do. We could even do it in the round, That’s so fashionable these days, although it does mean that somebody has always got their back to the audience. We would have to tell them to speak up and not mutter, in case anybody was hard of hearing.

I am free to go into production any time you like, do give me a buzz. It is all very exciting, and I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Shall we look to starting in the next week or two?

Yours sincerely,

Cecily Ridley. (Mrs).

There. That should do it.

Also, on a differently creative note, attached is a photograph of Mark’s newly invented Thing.

I do not have the first idea what it will do. Watch this space.