Mark Wheeller's news page 2000

I have been contacted by the marketing department of Virgin Airlines... They have heard the final song (The Eyes Of A Child) in my (Evacuation) musical Blackout - One Evacuee In Thousands and are considering using it as the song for the soon to be charity Through the eyes of a child (TTEC) - www.childs-eye.org It will be (I am told) an umbrella charity - currently raising money for the NSPCC full stop campaign. I am pretty excited about this, realising that at the moment, this is only a possibility... but it is great that the song is considered good enough for such serious consideration. I hope some people will be encouraged to have another look at Blackout... a great Musical suitable for massive casts with great parts for adults and children.

A speech made up from what Duncan (the witness to the RTA in Too Much Punch For Judy) says is to be included in a new book tentatively entitled AUDITION MONOLOGS FOR YOUNG ACTORS—II. It is scheduled to be published by Meriwether Publishing in Colorado Springs (USA) in summer of 2001.

"I first saw this play performed in an extremely moving production at the National Theatre in 1989... it is a powerful piece of Theatre... a vitally important weapon in bringing greater awareness of the lethal nature of this illness (Anorexia). Purchase a copy of the script... I don't think you would regret it - I have very special memories of its performance."

It was listed as a Full length play... it is only 70 minutes long (with casting of 3f/2m upwards)... so I think it is more likely to be useful to Societies wanting to do a One Act Play... and as it says below you can e-mail me for a list of suggested cuts to bring it in line with the time constraints of a One Act Play Festival.

Hard To Swallow... the number one play in the new Wheellerplay chart has just been republished by dbda in a new revised edition. It is an adaptation of Maureen Dunbar's award winning book (and TV film) which charts her daughters uneven battle with anorexia and her families difficulties in coping with all that anorexia means. This dramatisation uses the words of those most closely involved and affected.

It has been re-written so that it can be performed by a cast of 3f 2m (with doubling) and cuts are available from me to enable it to fall in line with requirements for One Act Play Festivals. It is now available from dbda and no longer from Cambridge University Press. The new ISBN is: 1 902843 08 8. Other sites are still saying it is available from CUP... sorry for the confusion this has caused!

Since its successful performance at the Royal National Theatre, London, as part of the Lloyds Bank National Theatre Challenge in 1989, Hard To Swallow has gone on to be performed all over the world to much acclaim achieving considerable success in one Act Play Festivals. It's simple narrative style means that it is equally suitable for adult and older youth groups to perform.

Hard To Swallow has, over the years picked up some outstanding reviews... here are two I am particularly pleased with.

StopWatch Theatre Company with their acclaimed production of Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road? Because Some Stupid Turkey Egged Her On have made this play the most performed of my plays in this (academic) year with 240 performances. Bookings are looking very healthy for next year; their ninth in succession.

Too Much Punch For Judy enters its thirteenth year of continuous touring throughout England and Wales with all (bar the first year) being undertaken by the excellent Ape Theatre Company. We are confident that this must be the longest running (TIE or otherwise) tour ever!!! Does anyone know any different?

The Norwegian tour continues to attract support and continues later in 2000 by the Norwegian based TESTO Company. Earlier this year Too Much Punch For Judy was revised and re-published (picking up an amazing review in the Amateur Stage) and becomes my best selling script of the year. By the end of May (2000) five amateur groups had performed it. Hopefully more groups will add to it's performance tally which is fast approaching 3500.

Ape have also had record bookings from their outstanding production of their Legal Weapon tour in England and Wales and now enters its fifth year of consecutive touring. The Scottish tour has obviously been received with similar enthusiasm as it tours for the second successive season with the well-reviewed Baldy Bane Theatre Company (Glasgow).

Legal Weapon's inclusion on this web site has led to at least one performance by a student theatre group (Mill Hill School). Gill, the director sent me details of how she and her group staged this play clearly she took a very imaginative approach to it. Having this sort of feedback from directors is an unexpected bonus from being on the web.

Tim Wood the Drama Teacher at Marlborough House School, directed a production of my very first published musical, Blackout-One Evacuee In Thousands in March of this year. He kindly forwarded a letter he had received from one of the parents. I include it, (with permission from the author) as it captures the essence of a high quality school production and it was so beautifully written.

I would probably be writing to you after Saturdays play anyway to say how much I had enjoyed it, and to thank you for all your hard work. I have always been impressed by, and appreciated the plays you have done, but have gone along as a parent prepared to be delighted at seeing my youngster perform.

The parent scenario is one where we all appear, chatter about the children, their parts etc. and then settle down in the expectation of giving satisfaction by our presence as an audience, and our subsequent praise. There is an element of anxiety - will it be our child that pushes the others off the bench?; - of competition “ will ours be glimpsed between the heads in the back row in one overcrowded scene, or sing a solo? (will we even see him/her?)“ of affection knowing how much it probably means to them, their stage fright etc. But there is definitely an air of patronage. Let's face it; we wouldn't be going if it weren't to see our children, would we?

Blackout-One Evacuee In Thousands changed all that. Mark and I were profoundly moved. It wais a great play “ so many poignant tableaux: the lithping lad being teased; the impossible choices for parents and the lack of choice for the host families etc. The acting, singing, slickness of movement were so professional that the children's personalities just dissolved into the persona of their parts and we were immersed in the extraordinarily rich characterisations of the evacuees and their relationships and they all had such important parts too! Not even the most competitive parent could have grumbled.

How you ever dared to put it on amazes me “ you needed perfect children to do it, and you certainly didn't start out with that!

No Place for a Girl (or Sweet FA) was performed by two youth groups. Drama Workshop were so delighted by the production that they recommend it on their new and very lively web site.

It was also performed by Chamberlayne Park Schooland I was able to go and see it! Tazmin Izatt did a great job of directing the large cast who elicited lots of laughs from the audience all of them in the right places!

The Most Absurd Xmas Musical in the World Ever!!! was performed by two groups neither of them at Xmas time. The Havant Senior Youth Theatre & Young People's Theatre group chose to present it in mid July an utterly absurd piece of timing and worked brilliantly.

The Eastleigh Youth Theatre put it on in February and performed it in a very absurd manner with the audience on the stage and the cast presenting the play from the audience. The production was hugely imaginative somewhat reminiscent of the Ubu plays. The quality of this presentation led me to the decision that I should give the Premiere rights to them of GRAHAM “ WORLD'S FASTEST BLINDMAN, which I completed last week.

Details of this play are on my main web site and more details will follow in future News items but the premiere is on February 16th and will co-incide with the publication of the script. I hope that many groups choose to tell Graham's amazing story.

Wacky Soap became my fastest moving Musical of the year and delighted audiences when it was presented "traditionally" by Oaklands Youth Theatre and Hounsdown School.

An illustrated storybook is due to follow (watch this space for more news on this) and it is our hope that many of those who chose to purchase the script will look towards mounting a production, I would take a tip from Eastleigh Youth Theatre (applied from their production of The Most Absurd Musical In The World, Ever!!!). If you put it on, be radical, be different, be wacky when deciding on the costumes, the set & the style of presentation, the danger with this production is that it could play too young, a Monty Python audience should lap this one up, and at the same time kids should love it, it shouldn't just appeal to kids.

I will close this first news page by wishing all the companies who perform my scripts good luck & to than Amdram for hosting my pages Good luck & Thank you!