Play time – but it's not as much fun as it sounds

ANOTHER Cullercoats Festival is coming next year (June 13) and your correspondent is invited to help create a small theatre piece for the edification of the local populace and who knows, even a few from as far distant as Seaton Sluice?

- Peter Mortimer

A spot of am-dram here from back in 1979. But what hell did the playwright have to go through before his work made it to the stage?

And not a single person thus far (especially me) has the remotest idea what this creation will involve, nor the piece's eventual plot, nor its style. Well, you might argue, this applies to most creative works, be they plays, poems, novels, symphonies, or whatever.

Except that when an individual artist sets to, he or she normally has at least some concept in mind.

Very few writers, for instance, set out on a murder mystery and finish up with a sonnet.

It's rare for a musician to begin work on a new symphony, only to discover he or she has come up with a sailors' hornpipe.

Stop being facetious Mortimer, you might say, so I'll do my best.