This was an exerise in my creative writing course where we had to write a free verse poem and here I wrote about a personal experience. I tried to add a rhythm to it and wanted it to be a piece that could be performed with the right level of humour to it and meaning.

This was a short play that I wrote in my third year at University. It was my final project of the year and a chance to highlight what I learnt in the three years at Univeristy. The whole play is set in a bar which is situated right next to an arts centre where the local pantomime society rehearse and the characters seen are those rehearsing for the pantomime and are very stereotypical and over the top to provide the humour for the play. The main plot of the first act is love story between Rachel and Rob. Rachel was seeing someone else and is through the observations of Mike the bartender that the characters get together.

At University, we looked at the idea of writing an ‘issue play’ which takes a moral stand point initially before looking at story and characters. This piece was inspired by my own struggle to get a job and my understanding that in some jobs the positions were filled by ‘attractive girls’ who were able to sell more on the till and I felt that this could work as a play. I then researched the idea of existentialism and how it could fit in with this issue of how life seems to work in a cycle and this idea led me to develop a piece where the main character, Michael, is constantly being invited to interviews, getting rejected from then and then being invited to the next issue. The play would end with him getting offered another interview and the audience believing that this play starts where it finishes every night in keeping with the styles of Beckett. Another inspiration to me was Steven Berkoff’s The Trial and the idea of having interchangeable stock characters as the employers developed from that and the non-naturalistic setting and performance.

This piece came from a free writing exercise in class. With the hype of reality talent shows very much alive; I was interested in the idea of a character seeing his life as if it were part of a reality TV show where the plot of the play would be showing ‘auditions’, ‘live finals’ and the eventual ‘victory’ but not all of it would go simply and with these elements link it to the idea of the character going to university and finding romance. This particular piece I wanted to make quite technical in order for the visual effects of The X Factor would be clearly conveyed and the language is in keeping with the style of the show as well however in this case the changing of ‘singing’ to ‘writing an essay’ came from the idea that when doing timed essays there’s not only the pressure of doing well for yourself but from your friends constant questioning afterwards.