Diary

There's always this amazing moment when the play, that has really only had a kind of imaginary existence until this moment, starts to take on flesh and blood.

I love it. It makes me so excited: because I can never "see" characters in my imagination.

I can only hear them. And hear them speaking in very definite tones of voice, to be sure: but I never want these tones of voice to be duplicated by the actors.

Because the mainly wonderful part of theatre making is that I create a script, using all my sensibility and skill, and give it to the actors, and the director, and the lighting designer, the set designer, the costume designer, the sound designer, the stage manager - all these amazing gifted people. And they apply all their sensibilities and all their skills and if we manage to work well together they just enrich the script immeasurably.

And always in ways I never anticipated.

And then the audience come along and do the same...

The actors are:

Gerry Mulgrew, as Hume, who is so alive and full of life's joys in his presence and who I wanted to work with for years and years.

Joanna Tope, as Eve, who was in one of my radio plays, and I can't remember which, or who she played, or anything about it except she was wonderful. When she came for the audition what she did was so beautiful she made me cry. The part is incredibly difficult and makes great demands. She was equal to all of them.

Neil McKinven, as Adam Smith, is someone I have worked with before, in Celestina I think. That was certainly, for all kinds of reasons, one of the unhappiest rehearsal processes I have ever been involved in. Mainly, it has to be said, because my wonderful partner Susie had suffered a stroke just before it started; and then was diagnosed with a brain tumour just before the show opened. In the midst of all this, it was lovely to work with Neil.

I know they are three incredibly gifted artists. I can't wait to work with them.