Salford Arts Theatre continues to celebrate the legacy of iconic Salfordian playwright, Shelagh Delaney, with An Evening Of New Writing on Saturday 23rd November.
Artistic Director Roni Ellis explains the thinking behind an evening of new writing... "The idea this year was to give our experienced award winning 'young performers company' an opportunity to work with professional actors" she says "It also gave us an opportunity to work with other working class writers who we haven't worked with before, along with Libby Hall our writer in residence. The idea is that some of the short plays will be developed along with the writers and performed in 2020."
Seminal works including Taste of Honey and Charlie Bubbles have been used as inspiration for an evening of shorts from the next generation of creatives. Salford Star Award winner Libby Hall has two pieces to debut, A Penny for Dreams Gone By and the wonderfully titled Your Playground Voice is Gone.
Libby is writer in residence at Salford Arts Theatre and has made a huge impact in local theatre. Her first play The Things We Tell the Hours after Midnight won best newcomer at the Greater Manchester Fringe Festival and that Salford Star Best Drama Award. Libby followed this up with her second play, the brilliantly off-beat The Melting of a Single Snowflake.
Others writers showcasing their work include Salford University graduate Megan Challinor, with her first foray into writing, Two Boys. Megan takes a look at relationships, friendships and the toxic masculinity that can affect young minds in Salford.
Alex Clarke's Sisters of the Midnight Berries will also be performed on the night. Alex writes for stage, screen, and radio and has used her experience of disability and homelessness to inspire this tragicomedy. In 2019 Alex won the BBC's Alfred Bradley Bursary Award and in 2017 she won the Northumbria University/Channel 4 TV Drama Writing Award.
Stuart Crowther's Wellthisistheplace will get its first outing, too. Stuart teaches playwriting and theatre-making to all three years of BA acting students at LIPA. He recently wrote and performed the first tour of Wake Up, Maggie which received 5* reviews and was nominated at the Liverpool and Manchester Fringe festival awards.
Phil Pearson gives us the intriguing I Want to Marry Johnny Marr. It's a nice allusion to Delaney's connection to The Smiths. Morrissey regularly cited the Salfordian playwright as a massive influence, and The Smiths used a quote from A Taste of Honey in Reel Around the Fountain, while Shelagh featured on the cover of their album Louder Than Bombs...
I asked Phil what gave him the idea for the piece..."She was a working class writer, writing about the world she lived in. I'm from Barrow-in-Furness and grew up on a council estate, so that no-holds barred realism really inspires me and my writing. I also love the story about why she wrote A Taste of Honey; how she saw another play and thought 'I can do better than that' - and then did, in a fortnight."
Are you a fan of Shelagh and Johnny Marr?
"I am a fan of what Delaney did with A Taste of Honey. It was groundbreaking and she's rightly recognised for trying to kick down the middle class doors of the theatre world in the late 1950s. I'm a big fan of The Smiths and saw them when I was 16 in 1984 in Lancaster on a trip organised by the local record shop. I also saw them in Manchester at the GMEX and on the final tour in Carlisle.
"I used to be in bands in my late teens and don't mind admitting I wanted to be Johnny Marr" he adds "He looked brilliant, played a Rickenbacker like my big hero Paul Weller and wrote some of the best guitar lines of the last century. Genius!"
Do you intend to extend the piece into a full length play?
"I'd love to. I know how I would do it, but it depends if there's any call for it."
How would you describe I Want to Marry Johnny Marr?
"It's hopefully an inspiring, funny story of how you can do anything you want to, regardless of age, class or anything else other people might use to try and restrict you. Just like a teenage Delaney did. You can be the change you want to see."
A Penny for Dreams Gone By and Your Playground Voice is Gone by Libby Hall
Two Boys by Megan Challinor
Sisters of the Midnight Berries by Alex Clarke
Wellthisistheplace by Stuart Crowther
I Want to Marry Johnny Marr by Phil Pearson
An Evening Of New Writing
Saturday 23rd November 7pm
Salford Arts Theatre
Tickets £8 – to book click here
Other Shelagh Delaney happenings will take place on Sunday 24th November with a special screening of Charlie Bubbles (£4) and Monday 25th November will feature short story readings in the lovely Fourth Wall Bar (Free)
Words by Ian Lesley
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