The Kissing Game

The Kissing Game was my first full length play, written before Hello? and produced because Tim Crook asked if I had anything else after Hello? did so well. It was performed at the Tristan Bates Theatre in London between 29th January and 24th February 1996.

I spent a wonderful week living with the set designer in London and attending the rehearsals, and pretending to be cosmopolitan. I'm not entirely sure if I added anything to the show by being there, but it was fun . . . and at the end of the run, I got to keep the fluffy yellow heart that was the main feature of the set.

It isn't my favourite play - it suffers from many, many problems, not least of which is that it was written by a sixteen year old without much experience of sex.

At the time, the only review I saw thought the play was a young boy patronising even younger people by telling them not to have sex. In truth, it was a document of the fears that a young boy had about sex, growing up in the 80s.

The play was dedicated to Ms FS Smith, my old English teacher, who made me promise to dedicate my first novel to her. How was I to know I'd actually have a first novel?