5 questions for ... Robert Farquhar
Posted by Literary on 13th Dec 2010 at 13:45 | Anthology, Dead Heavy Fantastic
In a regular new feature to our playwrights’ blog, we’ve asked members of our writers’ database to submit questions they’d like to pose to one of our playwrights.
First up we have questions for playwright Robert Farquhar (Big Wow Theatre, Dead Heavy Fantastic and Anthology; part of the Everyman Unbound season). Thank you to everyone that sent in a question or two and look out for Roberts question for you at the end…
How did you begin as a writer? Is training necessary? Would you recommend writers producing work themselves? Do you have tips on approaching theatres?
I was inspired to start writing by Monty Python. I was always a big fan as a kid. But when my cousin took me to see one of the Live at Drury Lane shows (yes I’m that old) I think it was pretty much after that I started writing my rather derivative schoolboy versions of Python sketches. I was about 13. And then I always wrote after that. It was just something I did. And always dialogue, drama of some sort. But it wasn’t until I moved to Liverpool in 1991 that I started taking the playwright thing seriously. The presence of the Unity was integral to that, and making friends with a number of local actors who were willing to be in them for very little, or quite often, no money (sorry).
I don’t think training is necessary. I think reading plays is necessary. I think getting feedback on your work is necessary. I think just doing it is necessary. I think trying to live an interesting life is necessary. If it (training) offers a focus and a motivation and a stimulus for your writing that’s obviously a good thing.
Yes, produce your own work if possible. I was really, really fortunate with a lot of the actors I met when I first came to Liverpool. And I used to just hire a space at the Unity and then put the plays on. I would book it way before the play was even written. I’m not sure I’d do that these days. Then I would find I’d written a play, and send it out into the world.
Approaching theatres? I used to just send my work in with a self addressed envelope, and hope for the best.
Is it desirable for theatre to reflect contemporary British life? Does current theatre culture successfully engage with modern society?
Yes absolutely, of course. But what is contemporary British life? Think of the plays coming to the Everyman this season. ‘Love, Love, Love’ is set in the sixties, eighties and now. And then ‘The Big Fellah’ is set in America in the eighties and nineties. And saying that, I think my next three writing projects are set in different eras. One of them in the eighteen forties. If you’re going to do that it’s got to be about the quality of the story and how it informs life as we presently live it. I hope that ‘Dead Heavy Fantastic’ is very much a play for this contemporary moment.
Theatre culture and modern society? Blimey. I’d have to really think about this. My impression would be that the world of new writing for the theatre is very tuned in to the idea and has a huge will to engage with a whole range of ideas and themes that are relevant and reflect modern society. Whether they achieve it or not is another matter. I think maybe these two questions could be a good springboard for some sort of discussion.
Who would come to your theatrical dinner party?
Er. Chekhov. Joe Orton. Caryl Churchill. Alan Bennett. (That’s really just a list of playwrights that I like) Gawd knows what sort of evening it would be.
Is writing always a solitary business?
Yes. Has to be. Even if you sit in cafes you’re still on your own aren’t you? Although saying that I do fantasise that if I had the money I’d employ actors on a regular basis to explore stuff that I was working on. One of the motivating forces for forming Big Wow was that when I gave up teaching was actually to give myself a reason to not sit at my desk all the time. And I wanted to be part of a theatre company that was devised but also highly scripted. But yes writing at the end of the day you’re on your own. But then I do like story lining something with some one else.
What was the development process behind Dead Heavy Fantastic?
Well, firstly, I wrote a play with the same name that was performed at the Playhouse Studio for four nights fifteen years ago. It retains the same central character (Frank), and the same inciting incident. And it is about a man caught up in a mad night out not of his own making. But apart that very little is the same. In fact I don’t even own a copy of it anymore. There is something on a floppy disk but I don’t have the technology to access it.
I’d been thinking about reviving Dead Heavy Fantastic for some time and even worked on a reworked version of the first couple of scenes ages ago. And then Suzanne B was putting pressure on me (in a good way) to hand something in, and so I dug it out, and found a way through. I thought it offered lots of opportunity to be a great piece for the Everyman stage.
It was all over the place. But that’s ok for a first draft. The beginning was good, but as the play progressed it drifted about all over the place. A reading was pencilled in for Everyword, and so obviously that concentrates the mind. That happened. You hear actors say the lines, they get up move about. They give you feedback. You discuss it. Rewrite bits. Add bits. Is it working? Goes in front of an audience. Does it work? It would appear so. Go away. Write another draft based on feedback from Suzanne and Gemma and others. Doesn’t look as though it’s going to happen. Everyman redevelopment scheme gets delayed. Hurray. Another slot becomes free in the Spring season. My play gets programmed. Write another draft based on more feedback and the fact that I have one less actor than initially envisaged. The rest is geography.
Dead Heavy Fantastic is at the Liverpool Everyman from 11 March to 2 April 2011.
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