| 2
January |
| My
girlfriend, Emma, announces, unexpectedly, that
she is pregnant. Our baby is due on 19 August. |
| 4
March |
|
Emma and I reach a compromise. I sign up for
a weekend directing course in London. I also
get a vague idea for a short film about a gangster's
moll. On the course I meet Sarah McGuinness,
a former musician and theatre director who now
wants to move into acting. I see her perform
and decide she would be perfect for the part.
I sit down to write but nothing comes. I give
on on the moll and write a script based on a
real-life road-rage incident. |
| 18
April |
|
I finish Rage! Sarah loves it but points
out that the only parts are for Rastafarians.
She asks about the moll piece. I tell her it's
going well, then stare at a blank screen for
a few hours. |
| 27
April |
|
I wake to find Sarah has left two messages
on my voice mail and two more on my mobile
phone. She sounds slightly panicky. I call
her back.
|
| 'Tony,
Hi. You know that piece you're writing' |
| I
bite my tongue. 'Yeah' |
| 'Well
rather than ten minutes, do you think you could
make it a monologue and stretch it to fifty
minutes? If you could, we could take it to Edinburgh.
The Gilded Balloon has one slot left. I need
to know soon.' |
| 'How
soon.' |
| 'Well,
actually I needed to know yesterday. In fact,
I've already said yes. We have until this afternoon
to come up with a title and a blurb for the
festival programme.' |
| After
three hours of word association we come up with
Whacked!, partly in tribute to my hero
Neil LaBute, whose play Bash! I had seen
a few weeks earlier. Our tag line is: 'A play
about the thin line between loving someone and
wanting to smash their face in with a baseball
bat'. I still have no idea what it will actually
be about. |
| 10
May |
|
I go through old interviews with gangsters and
their girlfriends. What is they way their lifestyle
mixes glamour and the mundane. I jot down a
few ideas - cleaning cocaine off the kitchen
table in order to serve dinner, being annoyed
about someone being stabbed in your living room
because you can't get the bloodstain out of
the carpet. |
| 16
May |
|
Sarah starts calling in favours and working
hard to get people excited about the project.
She calls to tell me that Gari Jones might be
willing to direct. I look up his cuttings. He
is a long-time collaborator of Harold Pinter's
- he directed him in The Caretaker. He's
only 29! Sarah explains that she has sent him
the Rage script and asks how Whacked!
is coming. I change the subject. |
|
|
| 18
May |
| Gari
calls me. He loves Rage! He can't wait
to read Whacked! Neither can I. |
| 27
May |
| I
don't know if it's any good. I send a few pages
to some friends. The response is incredibly
positive. I press on. |
| 2
June |
|
I feel I'm halfway there. I read it through
and reach the end in 15 minutes. I start to
panic. |
| 4
June |
| Sarah
calls to gently remind me that she needs at
least six weeks to rehearse. And the script.
I spend all day on it and write one new paragraph. |
| 7
June |
| I
come up with a sick twist. A really sick twist.
I worry that it might be over the top. Then
I meet Gari for the first time. He looks like
a chain-smoking extra from Interview With
a Vampire. He loves the twist. He starts
asking detailed questions about the background
of the character, Annie. It's an inspiration.
I finish that same night. |
| 8
June |
| There's
a section in Whacked! where Annie describes
in great detail a man being beaten to a pulp
by her boyfriend. She does this in a matter-of-fact
way as if she is talking about baking a cake.
I wanted her doing something mundane so I had
her going behind a screen and changing her clothes.
Gari moves the scene to another part of the
play where it has greater significance. He also
points out that, as the character is alone,
the screen is unnecessary. Sarah shrieks: 'You
bastards' then joins a gym and goes on a sushi
and mineral water diet. |
| 10
June |
| Sarah
calls to tell me that Sandy Powell, one of the
world's most sought after costume designers,
has agreed to work on Whacked! She won
the Oscar for Shakespeare in Love and
also worked on Velvet Goldmine and Orlando.
Good thing I didn't go to New York. |
| 18
June |
|
Sandy comes up with Annie's look. 'She's a bit
like Victoria Beckham. Tacky but expensive.'
Two days after delivering a brilliant costume,
Sandy leaves to work on the new Scorsese film. |
| 4
July |
| Rehearsals
start. Gari takes Sarah through the text line
by line. 'I want to make sure we have the right
voice. I want Annie to be a real person.' Hearing
the lines read out for the first time leads
to a few rewrites and changes. |
| 26
July |
| Disaster.
The Gilded Balloon's programme puts Whacked!
in its comedy section. On hearing the news,
Gari speaks for all of us: 'But it's not fucking
funny.' |
| Whacked!
is at The Gilded Balloon II, 4-28 August |
|
|
| The
Obserber Review 30 July 2000 |
|
