"Why, what's the matter that you have such a February face?"

I've always felt there was something of a guff around February,  it's cold and dour with Valentines day flung in the middle like an aging aunt with lipstick on her teeth desperately waggling a balloon in your face trying to force you to cheer up and it's hard to spell. Well little did I know, all along there was an expression for just this feeling "February face", marvellous and now what with it being the first day of March meaning spring should be spronging about imminently I hereby intend to cast off my February face and embrace all things vernal (whilst retaining the right to wear a jumper for the next 3 months) Isn't that a cracking word, 'vernal'? Maybe if I had a dog I could call it vernal, "Come here Vernal! No, Vernal, dirty Vernal, back in your bed!" Hmm.

Anyway, just as tidgy little daffodil shoots are having a peep through the topsoil to see if it's warm enough yet so there are projects budding...in the greenhouse of...my work? My study? You get the picture and you can have a peek when they're not quite so green and sprouty looking. However, I will tell you now that down there in the damp dark loam lurks some Nightjars, a proud revival and a blood soaked village hall. Odd. Oop, afraid I have to go now, Vernal's just run off and is worrying the sheep.

P.S. Those of a Bristol persuasion should do their utmost to get down to the Bristol Old Vic and catch the incredible production of Faith Healer showing until April, I even gave it a standing ovation and I don't ovate easily. Although, as my friend Nick was quick to point out, the power of a standing ovation is generally undermined when already seated on a high stool...

P.P.S. Yes that is me in the picture, I think you'll find the word you're looking for is 'cherubic'.

2011, let's get cracking

I'm not sure at what point saying "Happy New year" becomes a redundant phrase, merely serving to irritate everyone who ground wearily back to work on about the 3rd January, reminding them of glorious holidays in which one is actively encouraged to lounge about eating and drinking and demanding to be entertained like Louis 16th crossed with a slug, but anyway, Happy New Year, cheer up.

My new year is starting with a whiteboard of writing deadlines (some of which I have done in RED pen) but in blythe delusional January tradition, I am regarding them not with fear but as a little armada of exciting projects bobbing about on the horizon. And I should know something about defeating armadas, I am from Plymouth after all.

So for starters, I am most pleased to be kicking off 2011 with the second year of my residency at the lovely Canal Cafe Theatre in London with a spring monologue project, details to follow.

And after much staring at things and oceans of tea, I now have a working title for my latest full length piece, And Then Come The Nightjars. With the subline 'Nobody likes a tourist', the play will be a satire about what happens to one family coming to the countryside in pursuit of the good life set against a time of crisis based on the devastating Foot and Mouth epidemic of 2001.  

I read recently that the theme of a play should be invisible from the outside but running through the core like the words written in a stick of rock and just before Christmas I was lucky enough to catch a play which exemplified this, the fantastic Bea at the Soho Theatre.

No I didn't go because it was called 'Bea', I went because I had free tickets but what an astounding piece; funny, poignant, dark, honest, gripping with an extremely strong and committed cast. Company On Theatre produce work devised from a theme, in this case 'empathy' and I'm not sure I've ever seen a theme so cannily and intricately woven into every aspect of each scene, had my brain chewing on that one for weeks later, what more can you ask for?

And coming up I am all anticipation and that for John Donnelly's The Knowledge at the Bush, Bristol Old Vic's Ferment and the Bristol Storytelling festival, my mate Anna in Half a Sixpence. Oh and Frankenstein at the National, if I can ever get a bloody ticket.

Right well back to the whiteboard armada, for England and for the Queen! Or stirring words to that effect.

So I got myself a blog

Welcome to my shiny new website, the praise for which must go to the wonderful Maddie York .

Here is some news:

After a successful Edinburgh run in which I got my first ever 5 star review (woop), I'm excited to be developing Marion Allen's Number One Hobby with the good people from the Canal Cafe Theatre, as well as starting a new full length piece which I'm going to be cagey about because it's very new at the moment and I don't want to break it.

I'll also be running a Writers' workshop on the 22nd for Bristol Uni peeps, although the main advice I think I can give them will largely be about how you'll never write anything if you spend too long procrastinating on the internet. Right, I better be off.

P.S. if anyone has the chance, try and catch Men Should Weep at the National Theatre. Bloody properly brilliant.