Doctor Who’s first female writer and one of the men behind children’s hit TV show Tracy Beaker will take up Dirty Protest Theatre’s challenge this month.
Writers Helen Raynor and Othniel Smith have four weeks to write a new three to 10 minute play to be performed for the MySpace generation, in a yurt.
They will be joined by playwright Tracy Harris and musician and journalist Eifion Rees, who will be our debut playwright in Cardiff on Thursday January 24.
The third installment from the much talked about theatre company will see Arthur Darvill (currently starring alongside Christian Slater in the West End’s Swimming With Sharks) and Phoebe Whyte perform Joel Horwood’s 20-minute play 'Is Everyone OK?'
After being named one of the National Court and BBC's Top 50 Writers and Cameron Mackintosh Award winner for 'Mikey The Pikey', Horwood’s latest play was seen by a packed audience at the 2007 Latitude Festival.
The London-based playwright spoke out about the UK theatre scene as he announced his plans to make his Wales debut at Dirty Protest.
Horwood said, “Theatre in England used to be sexy, now it's embarrassingly attempting to skew its audience demographic with heavy-handed and patronising initiatives.
“Dirty Protest focuses on trusting its writers to entertain. In so doing it's attracting exactly the kind of new audiences that theatre needs in order to survive the onslaught of funding cuts and become a self-sufficient art form. I'd be an idiot not to grab onto its coat tails.”
While regional theatre and culture for the young seems to be floundering across the UK, Dirty Protest has tapped into a need for sexy, vibrant, new drama. The previous events have seen sell-out audiences brave all weathers to watch new work, and even more turned away because there was no more room at the Yurt.
This month’s plays at the free event will be performed by Aled Pugh (The Life of Ryan and Ronnie, Y Pris), Sara Gregory (Belonging, Y Pris) and Gareth Milton (A Toy Epic).
Previous Dirty Protests have featured new work from multi-award winning playwrights Ed Thomas and Gary Owen. First-time writer Rhiannon Boyle won her first full play commission after her debut and writer Kit Lambet will see his play turned into a short film to be screened as part of this year’s Cardiff Film Festival.
Previous actors who have graced the Dirty Protest stage have included Siwan Morris (Skins), Alys Thomas (Mistresses, Caerdydd), Mark Flanagan (Pobol Y Cwm, Belonging).
*Dirty Protest’s Dirty Dwynwen is on Thursday January 24th - 2 rehearsed readings 7.30pm and 9.00pm with plenty of drinking and music in between @ Milgi, 213 City Road, Cardiff.
PLEASE ARRIVE EARLY TO AVOID DISAPPOINTMENT
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Biographies
Helen Raynor - First female writer for Doctor Who, Helen began as a script editor on the series and Torchwood. Her own writing work includes two episodes of Doctor Who, as well as Cake, a fifteen-minute television short for BBC One’s Brief Encounters strand shown in May 2006, and a sixty-minute play Running Away with the Hairdresser for Radio 4, broadcast in June 2005. For the theatre she has written Waterloo Exit Two, a short play presented as part of Paines Plough’s Wild Lunch season at the Young Vic in 2003. Her initial career was in theatre here she worked for eight years as a director and assistant director for the Bush Theatre, the RSC, Clwyd Theatr Cymru, Royal Opera House and Opera North. Her RSC Fringe production of Soho by Rebecca Lenkiewicz won a Fringe First at the 2000 Edinburgh Festival.
Tracy Harris - Studied experimental drama at Lancaster University, wrote first play (past away) which toured nationally with Script Cymru in 2002, then wrote new plays for Ruth is Stranger Than Richard and Menagerie Theatre. Recently was one of the writers for the Exquisite Corpse project at the Millennium Centre and currently under commission with Sherman Cymru.
Othniel Smith - The author of the play “Giant Steps” (produced in London and Cardiff in 1998, and published in “New Welsh Drama II” (Parthian Books, 2001); a
number of short stories and plays for BBC Radio (including “Thank-You for Talking To Me Africa” (1994), and “Man Talk” (2001)); and eight episodes of the popular children’s television series “The Story Of Tracy Beaker”. He also has a doctorate in film from the University of Glamorgan.
Joel Horwood - His first play MIKEY THE PIKEY (the musical) won the Cameron Mackintosh Award and sold-out its national tour. His second play CATTLEPROD SHAKEDOWN (The Stephen Joseph Theatre) earned Joel a place on the Royal Court and BBC ‘The 50’ and FOOD won him a Fringe First. Joel's last play, STOOPUD FUCKEN ANIMALS, ran at The Traverse Theatre in 2007 and is currently being adapted for the screen. Joel’s adaptation of Radiohead's OK COMPUTER aired on Radio 4 in 2007 and he is currently under commission from the West Yorkshire Playhouse, the Eastern Angles and Tiger Aspect.
Eifion Rees - “I'm a 31-year-old journalist, musician (thedodofightback.com), writer of the occasional short story and January teetotaler. I currently live in London, where I'm slowly but inexorably losing my health, my Welsh and any faith I might once have had in the future of the human race.”
FAQS
Who is behind it?
Tim Price, playwright and scriptwriter. Credentials include current S4C series Y Pris, ITV drama Sold and Royal Court Theatre’s writer to watch. Claire Hill, arts journalist who has five years experience interviewing and spotting the new cultural stars, across Wales and the UK. Catrin Rees, Dirty Protest’s director was once an actress. Having met Johnny Depp while working on Finding Neverland she felt her life was complete. After retiring from acting Catrin now spends her time in the dark arts of production. She is currently producing for Fiction Factory Films and story editing the popular drama series 'Caerdydd'.
What is it?
Take a number of writers in a yurt. One novice. One topic. Four weeks to write it. Welcome to Dirty Protest, a night of new writing in the heart of Cardiff.
Who loves it?
The first two events saw two packed out performances with more than 120 cramming themselves into the yurt to see the plays. We even had to turn people away. Who says people, especially the young, don’t come to the theatre?
Results?
Kit Lambet’s Dirty Protest play is now being turned into a short film. So it must have been good. First timer Rhiannon Boyle has been commissioned for her first play.
Who has been involved?
Previous Dirty Protests have featured new work from Ed Thomas, Kit Lambert, Gareth Potter, Branwen Davies, Alan Harris and Rhiannon Boyle, Gary Owen, Mared Swain, Stuart Allen, Tom Cullen, Matthew David Scott and Dr Ian Lewis
What’s the Pop Your Cherry Slot?
We want Dirty Protest to inspire brand new writers, as well as the great and good. So this is a unique opportunity for budding playwrights from any walk of life to write a play, watch it performed by professional actors and share equal billing with the established writers. If you would like to be considered for future Pop Your Cherry Slots - please get in touch. The only criterion for the slot is that you have never had anything performed before.
What they say
Kit Lambert - “Tim phoned me out of the blue to ask if I'd like to write a short play for the first Dirty Protest night. A chance to be involved in something new, a chance to have a new play performed within a couple of weeks by a great cast? Of course I said yes! It was a fantastic night with a really interesting range of work from the different writers. Milgi was packed and everyone seemed to be so excited that something like this was happening in a yurt in Cardiff. I didn't even know there WAS a yurt in Cardiff! Then, a couple of weeks later, Fiction Factory contacted me to ask if I'd be interested in my play being made into a short film. Thank you, Dirty Protest! I recommend to anyone that they should come and see it and, if possible, get involved. Long may it continue!"
Dr Ian Lewis - “When Tim asked me if I'd be interested in popping my proverbial cherry at Dirty Protest I was very excited, but also pretty terrified. The only thing I'd ever published before was my PhD thesis, and no one was fighting over the film rights for "Protein Kinase C isoform expression in endocrine therapy resistance". So to go from writing pretty dry scientific prose to a script intended to entertain about 120 people (some of whom I knew) was pretty daunting.
“However the support that I got from the Dirty Protest team, the actors and the other writers was amazing and made the whole project an incredibly liberating experience for me.
“Before writing for Dirty Protest I would never have gone out of my way to even see a play let alone write one. Now I'm in the process of planning what I'm going to write next and hope to actually see more theatre, and I think those are the two biggest compliments I can pay the Dirty Protest team.”
Alan Harris - “As a writer Dirty Protest allowed me to try out a short piece I had been working on. And what better place to try out a new work than in a yurt on City Road? There was a good feel to the night, a "buzz" I suppose you'd call it. I don't know what we were protesting about and it wasn't particularly dirty but long may it continue. |
