22nd January: Influence for Removed and Destroyed

My first full length play  Removed and Destroyed will go into rehearsals in April and is currently being cast. I started writing the play in 2012 it started in my head as a short play, no longer than 20 minutes and had a rather confusing sci-fi concept to do with people have memory and information download (nice thinking Phillip K Dick but I got lost in my own rules). The characters and the story developed and play evolved into what it is today. The play was developed whilst I was on the Liverpool Everyman Playhouse young writers programme, and I am forever indebted to the course and my fellows students for the play being in the state that it is today.

I knew over the coming months I'll be asked a lot about why I wrote the play, what am I trying to say  and I know that there is no simple answer to these questions.  The play was a collage of ideas, the contexts of which stuck to the back on my mind and scribbled in ink in various notebooks over a long period of time.  So in attempt to make things clearer for myself I thought I should write about some of the influences that helped shape the play. This is very self indulgence and may not be off any interest to anyone other than myself so apologies if you are reading this.

First off I should start with the obvious I love dystopian fiction, Orwell's 1984 is one my favourite books, V for Vendetta is a masterpiece (the comic book, the film was a hatchet job) and a big healthy dose Catch 22 and Kafka clearly have influenced the way I see the world.

Abu Qutada

When I began writing the debate surrounding the deportation of Abu Qatada was in full swing what angered me most about the debate was how caviler the mainstream media and politicians were when it came to idea of Qatada's human rights. The idea that because this man was dedicated to the destruction of civil liberties and human rights he was himself  not entitled to these basic rights. I found this interesting wasn't the idea that EVERYONE  was entitled regardless of what they said or did? A long with this came the arguments in the defense of torture, I remember one Sunday morning watching The Big Questions (I do not recommend this show to anyone who is easily irritated by morons) In which one man actually quoted George Orwell's Room 101 scene in an attempt to justify torture.

Theatrically speaking Dario Fo and his infamous play Accidental Death of an Anarchist were a massive influence on me, Fo's balance of black comedy, stage craft, satire and well research political observation is masterful. I first studied Fo when I was 17 and he's influenced a lot of my work both consciously and sub. You can read his noble prize speech here

Poster for a production of Fo's masterpiece

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1997/fo-lecture.html

Other playwrights who's work  influenced me whilst writing are Simon Stephens The Trial of Ubu Roi Martin McDonnagh, The Pillowman and Caryl Churchill Far Away

Cruel Britannia 

Ian Cobain's book Cruel Britannia was massively helpful resource for research and is an incredibly interesting read about the UK's use of torture over the last 60 years. As was Christopher Hitchens' essay on Water boarding.

The Poems If by Edward Bond and Vultures by Chinua Achebe have clearly struck accord with me, I first read them aged 18. During a rehearsed reading workshop one of the actors asked me why I had chosen to set my play in a Dystopian future Britain when there were plenty of countries around the world where this was an occurrence. I was reminded of the first line of Bond's poem

"If Auschwitz had been in Hampshire, there would have been Englishmen to guard it."


Samuel Beckett and Charlie Chaplin defiantly shaped the way I see tragedy and comedy, I think it's the mixing of the silly with the suffering that makes a truly fascinating and enjoyable night at the theatre.

“We must laugh in the face of our helplessness against the force of nature – or go insane” Charlie Chaplin 

Likewise Armando Iannucci work shows the madness and insanity behind modern politics, as does Kubrick's masterpiece Dr. Strangelove.

The War Room from Dr. Strangelove designed by Ken Adams

Somewhere between the second and third draft of the play the news about the NSA secret recording everything anyone did on the internet broke, whilst this wasn't a direct influence on the play it's a reminder of how important our human rights are when our governments now have the ability to spy on us, what protects us?

I was listening to a lot of folk music at the time of writing, Billy Bragg and Steve Earle in particular.