Wolfsong

The first time they ran the Manchester Student Playwright Competition, I was a notable second place with this play, Wolfsong. The play that won was the rather more grittily realistic Life's A Gatecrash, which did exceptionally well.

Still, Wolfsong is my favourite play I've ever written.

It was - loosely - based on Angela Carter's short stories The Company of Wolves and The Werewolf from The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories. The first adaptation of these stories I ever did was for my Theatre Studies exam, where I did a five minute piece based on them.

My examiner didn't give me full marks because he queried the fact that really the actress involved should've stripped naked. Me, I just wanted to have the entire college bow down to me because I'd got such a beautiful woman to strip to her underwear in my presence, just because I could string a bit of dialogue together - but at least my parents were relieved that a girl finally came to visit me in my room (for the rehearsals).

Wolfsong as a play was deeply indebted to the work of Complicité, whose The Three Lives of Lucie Cabrol I'd seen before I started the first draft. It's very nearly the closest thing to the plays I want to write, combining the strange with the meaningful in a physical way. One day, one day . . .

So now that you've found it, why not take a look at the play's synopsis, or even read a sample from it?