Guild members' blogs

Recent postings on Guild members' blogs include:

• Steve Turnbull on plot versus character
• Piers Beckley's TAPS experience
• Paul Campbell preparing to write for Holby
• Tony Ramsay considering 'letting the mermaid live'
• Stuart Perry reflecting on the meaning of innovation
• Paul Parkes on writing for Noddy
• David Bishop giving it some attitude
• David Lemon reflecting on life as a writer
• Sue Guiney on workshopping a new play:

I have been lucky enough to have convinced the director, John Wright, to spend the week with me and 4 actors, diving into the the text, playing with it in all sorts of imaginative ways, and seeing whether it is working or not.

John has his own unique way of approaching a text. He picks a scene in random, definitely out of the sequence of the play as written. He has the actors read it through a few times, then they record the reading. A set is "built" using whatever tables, props, chairs there are to hand, and then the recording is played back. But the actors don't "act" the words. If anything, they "play" against the words, using it as a framework, but loosely.

What arises is an "unlocking" of the text to see what is there, what isn't, what can be opened up between the characters and what new, unthought of ways the play can be moved forward.