THREE WISHES
2001
Flip
and George meet, fall in love and hold a
party to celebrate their engagement. The
next day the Earth enters a weird cloud
in space which gives everyone three
wishes. And while everywhere they look
they see flying pensioners and visions
of glamour where previously walked the
dowdy, what do they wish for? Things for
themselves or for each other? And do the
things they wish for bring them closer
together or push them apart?
Well I wrote this in
January 2000 with the intention of
bringing it to the Edinburgh Festival in
August of that year. But what happened was
that I got offered a part in a proper play
called A
Busy Day which was to be done in
Bristol and could have transferred to the
West End afterwards. This it did and,
thanks to great work by my agent Jane
Brand, I got my name in lights on
Shaftesbury Avenue (which made my parents
very proud) and we ran for the whole of
the Summer. Obviously this meant no
Edinburgh for me that year. But I missed
it so much and couldn't wait to do it
again. So I thought, why not double the
workload? Karushi agreed to back a morning
show of 'A Supercollider For The Family'
as well as taking up an actual play of
mine. One with more than one character!
Although I had written
another show in the meantime, the giant
robot romantic triangle 'The Lengths
He Went To,' 'Three Wishes'
was further up the queue and it was
Erica's preferred choice. I had written
the part of Flip for the fantastic comedy
actress Janice Phayre and she agreed to do
the show, which was such a weight off my
mind. She was absolutely brilliant too. So
many men came up to me afterwards and told
me how they had fallen in love with her -
I had to tell them that she had a
boyfriend back in London and they skulked
off. Janice was so funny, so light and
just a joy to be on stage with. The shows
just flew by.
Erica Whyman did another brilliant job of directing me (and Janice too this time; I had to unlearn my technique of pointing to an empty chair for times when another character was with me - she was right in front of me!) and more than a few people commented on how tenderly it was directed. Naomi Dawson designed the set and costumes and was just fabulous. She made globe lights out of coloured paper and marshmallow stools out of duvets and weak wood from Habitat. Marvellous. Malcolm Rippeth excelled even his own high standards with a lighting design that was atmospheric and moving. Simon Oakes and Adam Wolters wrote a fabulous score for the show which added so much to the mood. And Emma Barrow was the perfect stage manager - calm and completely in control at all times. Brilliant.
The
show ran for two nights in early October
as part of the Pleasance London Edinburgh
Festival and it got a great reception. Big
audiences and happy faces. Radio 4
broadcast it as an afternoon play in May
2002, and there was a production in
Ashland, Oregon about a year later.
If
you're interested in reading the play, or
maybe putting on a production (1F 1M - 60
minutes) send me an email.
In 2014 the theatre companies Bottega Rosenguild and Offrome translated the play and toured a production around Italy. I was lucky enough to see the brilliant cast perform it at the Collinarea Festival in July 2014 and at the Teatro Orologio in April 2015 in Rome.
Pages and photos of the Italian show are available HERE and HERE.
"OH,
THIS ISN'T A STORY OF MAGIC AND WONDER AND ALL
THAT"Read a script extract from Three Wishes
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