Temp/Casual
When: 2009, 2011
Where: 24:7 Theatre Festival, Contact Manchester
Collaborating with writer Steve Timms, as new company Spent Ambition, Temp/Casual began life at Manchester’s 24:7 Theatre Festival in 2009.
Set in modern-day Manchester, the play examines the fragile dreams and faltering friendships of four young media graduates, hungry for fame and recognition. Not long after leaving university, their collective ambition begins to falter and the group, who were once good friends, find themselves adrift in a world of debt, drugs and dead-end employment. Even Martin, who believes he’s found the answer to his troubles, after winning a prestigious poetry competition, soon discovers that success isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
After a critically acclaimed run as director and co-producer, bringing in record audiences for the 24:7 festival, I lead a succesful bid for Arts Council funding to stage the piece at Contact Manchester, as a developed and extended full-length play. Again we played to packed houses and very positive reviews; also running a poetry competition in conjunction with the event, judged by award-winning Manchester poet, Adam O’Riordan.
‘We are Godzilla. They are Japan. They’ll never win. Not as long as we have the mind to daydream, and the breath to tell them – ‘Shove it!’’