A couple of probably failed TV scripts from some dark corner of my hard drive
Winners and Losers- TV Script – 2017
A couple of television scripts Work in Progress
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Tag Archives: theatre
Blog abstract number 3
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Half-eaten fruit and an angle on urinals in an arts’ centre
The day before yesterday was half-eaten fruit day
Half an Apple wrapped in clingfilm, on a wall in Library Street near the arts’ centre
It’s bananas – it really is
Half a banana over a wall in the gardens at Chapter Arts Centre
It wasn’t me guv – honest
A row of urinals in the toilet at Chapter
Definitely not!
Close up of a single urinal at Chapter
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No style, no substance
What do I mean? I mean this is a short story with no style and no substance.
Why?
Why not? Style is taste, substance is an illusion.
Fair enough, but I don’t understand.
You don’t need to.
I mean I don’t understand the point of it.
Of what?
Your short story. This.
Nor me. In fact I’d go so far as to say that there is no point to it.
But what’s the point of that? Why should I read it?
I don’t know. Do you need a reason?
Well, yes, otherwise I’d be wasting my time, my breath, my life.
Look at me shrugging. Read what you like, or not. Who cares?
Well, you should, it’s your short story. Don’t you want people to read it?
Yes of course, but I still don’t care if they do or not.
That’s weird.
If you say so.
So what’s it about?
Nothing. It’s got no substance.
What’s the point . . . oh, never mind.
Good, you’re learning.
No I’m not.
Yes you are. You’ve learned that there’s no point.
No point to what?
No point trying to find a point in something that has no point.
Clever sod!
OK. If you say so.
I was being sarcastic.
Why?
Because you’re winding me up.
Why?
Because of your stupid story that has no style and no substance.
And no point.
Exactly.
So what’s the problem then?
You’re doing my head in.
Why?
With all this story nonsense.
Well you don’t have to read it.
You’re right.
Fuck off then . . . .
***********
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UNDERNEATH
A snippet from some work-in-progress on my autobiographical-novel This is it
***
‘It. Is. Art.’
‘No. It’s. Not.’
‘Hah!’ Samantha stood up. ‘Gotta go,’ she said, leaning down and puckering her heavily-lipsticked lips.
Benedict tilted his head upwards and reciprocated with the puckered lips.
Their puckered lips met.
‘Mwah,’ they said in unison. Continue reading
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The Zen. The Zen. The Zen.
I recently wrote a little piece about an event I was due to perform in. You can read it here: The Suchlike Zen.
Here is what happened next.
Disclaimer: The following piece was written by a different version of me from a parallel universe therefore the views expressed are not necessarily mine. It’s also a bit long, and a bit of a head-fuck, even for me.
‘Hello! I’m Derec – sort of. The thing is, I’m not from round here, and to tell the truth I’m a bit lost, and when I say lost, I mean properly lost, lost in space and time.
You see – I’ve got this theory that, hmm . . . hang on, let’s try to keep it simple. OK, let’s just say that – and remember, it’s only a theory – well, not even a theory really, in the scientific sense, it’s just an idea really, a smidgeon of a thought about the nature of reality – you know, what it’s all about, I mean, I’m not going to pretend I know the answers, any answers to anything, but, and I think you have to show me some respect as a fellow living, breathing creature of this universe, or any other universe come to that.
And that’s the point – Any. Other. Universe. That’s what I mean, there are, according to many respected scientific thinkers, many universes, in fact, according to some, there are an infinite number of parallel universes.
Feeble attempt to represent a large number of particles (or stars)
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The Suchlike Zen
The Suchlike Zen
On Sunday February 9th, 2016, I will be appearing on stage in the theatre at the Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff. This is a very weird and unusual thing for me to do; it’s so unusual that apart from a couple of best-forgotten skirmishes I’ve never really done it before. One of the reasons it’s weird is because, as of now (January 29th), I have no idea what I’m going to do on that stage – well, I do have some sketchy ideas, but I don’t know if what I end up doing will have any resemblance to what I’m thinking of doing now.
For example, I have written 7 or 8 sides in an A4 notebook that may or may not be the first draft of the story I will tell on that stage. Thing is, It’s not really a story, it’s more of a ramble about parallel universes and quantum mechanics, the main idea being that I am not me but I have somehow got my consciousness mixed up with, another, almost identical, version of me who exists in an almost identical parallel universe.
Now, I think that the opportunity for me to appear on that stage and have complete freedom to do or say whatever I like for 10 minutes is rare enough to warrant me developing something, an act if you like, that is worthy of such an opportunity. Trouble is I don’t think my quantum ramble is good enough and I can’t think of anything else clever enough so I’ll probably end up reading poems or passages from my books.
Unless . . .
Watch this space.
EDIT: The follow up to this post can be found here: The Zen. The Zen. The Zen.
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and in the end it doesn’t matter
I wrote a play a long time ago called ‘Tossers’. Looking for a tag to describe what sort of play it was, I dubbed it ‘a surreal pointless play’. There’s no point me trying to describe it because it actually is a surreal pointless play. It was performed as part of the On the Edge series at Chapter Arts Centre around ten years ago and it went down well. You can read it by clicking here.
So, why doesn’t it matter in the end, or indeed at any other time? Well, the truth is that it doesn’t matter because whatever it is, it is so tiny and insignificant that it has no effect, so doesn’t matter. On the always present other hand, it, whatever it is, is all that matters. Trouble is it’s quite impossible for me to convey the meaning of what I’m trying to say by describing it in this way, so like many who are trying to describe the indescribable I turn to some form of art – in this case words, put together in the form of a stage play.
I wrote another play with a similar idea behind it called ‘it doesn’t matter’. That play has yet to be produced but you can read it by clicking here.
The point is that there is no point, but, that doesn’t matter either. And there’s no point me going on trying to explain it – what I’m saying might be, and probably is, a load of bollocks anyway.
Another way of thinking about it is that . . . . oh who am I kidding, I can’t describe it, so let’s just sit back, breathe deeply and enjoy the view.
An enjoyable view?
And it carries on anyway, whether you’re in the game or not, whether it even is a game or not.
Do you think the universe is dissolving into a kind of smear? Maybe smear is too dirty a word – perhaps kaleidoscope is better? Except the word kaleidoscope implies patterns and all I can see is a randomness. something like the image below.
Portion of sky photographed by the Hubble Telescope
That’s one way of looking at it I suppose.
And with that, a week of writing a blog post every day comes to an end. It was an experiment. I don’t know if it will carry on.
Oh! Except here is a picture of a lovely door/gate – there’s something behind it!!!!
Door to somewhere
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It Doesn’t Matter – a Play for the Stage
Read the whole play below, or download is a Word doc It Doesn-t Matter
IT DOESN’T MATTER
A ONE ACT PLAY
CHARACTERS:
ADAM: A MAN
BEN: A MAN
CARRIE: A WOMAN
THE THREE CHARACTERS ARE OF WORKING AGE AND ARE IN THE SAME AGE RANGE.
SCENE: TYPICAL OPEN PLAN LOUNGE/KITCHEN 2015
ADAM IS HOVERING NEAR THE KITCHEN AREA. BEN IS AT THE KITCHEN COUNTER.
ADAM: What are you doing?
BEN: What do you mean what am I doing?
ADAM: I mean what are you doing?
BEN: Talking to you – obviously.
ADAM: Before that what were you doing?
BEN: What do you mean what was I doing?
ADAM: I mean what were you doing before I asked you what are you doing?
BEN: Ah then. Nothing. I wasn’t doing anything.
ADAM: Yes you were. I saw you doing something. Continue reading
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Life is Shit!
Well – not really, life is a wondrous inexplicable miracle, but this is an audio recording of a song I wrote with Marc Roberts about 5 years ago for The Flight of the Wren, the Rock Opera that never rocked – performed by Marc
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All about Alex
A script for a short TV drama, written as a sample script to demonstrate all the elements, it’s “All about Alex” a frustrated young DJ
Click here to read/download the script as a Word document
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Tossers
Tossers is a surreal pointless play first presented by Michael Kelligan as part of the On the Edge series of script held performances at Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff. The play includes three poems one of which is included in the extract below. Continue reading
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A Beautiful Place
Marc practising a song from The Flight of the Wren