Bleary eyed and bemused as I am in the morning, rocking up at the Soho theatre and having a brain drain first thing was a bit of a challenge and all felt a bit ‘jazz hands’ compared to my normal routine of coffee, email, write something random on ‘What’s hot’ this week for women’s mags.

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There was the quaint tale of a man concerned, understandably, about the consumption of his own kidneys. There was the dismemberment and consumption of a daddy-longlegs, so many have fallen in the name of friendship. There was a sexy griffin. Everything, i presumed, was going according to plan, and it was only twelve o’clock.

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“Brevity”, says Polonius, “is the soul of wit”. When I heard about the 100 Words playwriting initiative, my reaction, typically, was neither witty nor soulful. It was, however, brief.

“Christ on a bike!”, I said, spitting milk, bran, and teeth across the room. “These guys are loonies!”.

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The plays that were written/performed were:

The Way It Is by Lisa Lloyd
2056 by Oliver Emmanuel
I Feel Funny by Steven Hevey
Teen Law by Lucy Heywood
Happy Hour by Jennie Coles
Put Yer Left Leg In by Colin Goodwin
Futon by Megan Ford
Military Eloquent by Kat Joyce
Chorus Line by Aled Roberts (written on Monday)

And as special treat, Fanni and Jiabi was performed last night. Written by Wang Le in Beijing in April we did a rehearsed reading of it in Mandarin!

One of Monday’s workshop sessions.

The plays that were written/performed were:

9.17pm by John van der Put
A Problem Like Maria by Nimer Rashed
Piss On My Parade by Sam Holcroft
Oh Death Where Is Thy Sting? by Nick Gill
Get Closer by Helen Russell
Freshers’ Week by Jessica Hindes
Evacuate by James Pearson
Day One by Molly Davies
Outside Cool by Gbolahan Obisesan
Chorus Line by Aled Roberts

The plays that were written/performed were:

Big Red by Tim Street
Detention by Nancy Harris
April DeMarco by Philip Gawthorne
The Hood by Rafika Razaque
A Dark Room by Warren Laker
Frequency by Megan Walsh
Outside Cool by Gbolahan Obisesan
Chorus Line by Aled Roberts

[Philip was one of the writers on Monday's bill]

When I heard about the 100 words project, it immediately caught my attention. I thought that it would be a lot of fun and a massive challenge…and I was right on both counts.

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We’re looking forward to next week’s workshops with the National Youth Theatre at the Soho Theatre, and everything is in place. As well as the performers and behind-the-scenes team from the NYT we’re lucky enough to be working with some great writers. And here they are…

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I arrive at Soho theatre it’s a hive of activity – not content with performing 6 new plays, rehearsing 2 Shakespeare plays, and preparing for an ‘event’ in Trafalgar Square, the National Youth Theatre are doing a series of rehearsed readings during the day this week! I wonder if they’re going to have time to meet me, but Ryan our brilliant company manager manages to make it happen.

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