Polly Tisdall, the current recipient of the Kevin Elyot Award, is publishing an audio diary, ‘Kevin Elyot, Crop Circles & Me’ as part of her residency at the Theatre Collection as she explores the Kevin Elyot archive and her own writing practice. The annual award established in 2016, generously funded by an endowment from members of Kevin’s family, supports a writer-in-residence at the Theatre Collection to inspire a new dramatic work or other creative or academic outcome. It is given in memory of Kevin Elyot (1951-2014) – an alumnus of the University of Bristol Drama Department – and the influence he has had on writing and the Arts.
Episode 4 is available to listen to below along with a transcript. If you haven’t listened to earlier episodes, please head to the previous Kevin Elyot Award blog posts. Polly’s audio diary is also available to listen to via Polly’s website with new episodes being published throughout her residency.
So, back in the reading room today. I’m just finishing off, going through my My Night With Reg boxes, of which there were so many. And preparing for next month’s workshop as well, which I’m looking forward to running for local theatre makers, writers, practitioners, researchers, during which I think we’ll look at some materials from from My Night With Reg, because I think they really -There’s such a depth of material, here, about Kevin’s process for that play, particularly.
But before I finish my time with Reg, I wanted to share with you, I suppose, what I’ve gleaned of what might have been some of Kevin’s emotional journey with trying to get this play produced: with writing it, rewriting it, corresponding with potential directors and venues, because I found it particularly enlightening and, and also just emotional to read, for him, some of the correspondence that he had.
So. There’s one venue that he’s corresponding with with a lot, Hampstead, and he obviously has a contact there: Jenny Topper, the artistic director at the time. And and their correspondence reads that there’s definitely a friendship there, an old connection. And I haven’t found huge detail about that, but it’s certainly in the way that they they write to each other and and I get the sense from the correspondence that there’s been continued communication about My Night With Reg, that Jenny’s been really, really interested in the play and its development, and has been supporting it in many ways. And there’s a letter that Kevin writes to her in 1992. And he writes it, and then he rewrites the letter, so I can see him drafting that communication, as we all do, I think with important communications to to venues, to funders, really trying to get the wording right and the tone right. So he writes it and then rewrites it. And and what he ends up with is:
“Dear Jenny. Up to now, it isn’t coming together as I’d have wished.”
Oh sorry. First he writes, “Dear Jenny, Reg is being a bit of a bugger”, and he keeps that line from his original draft.
And then he writes: “Up to now it isn’t coming together as I’d have wished. This is a great disappointment, as the idea has been with me for so long. And I’ve always thought it had potential. I don’t want to abandon the project. I’m still convinced there’s a good play in there somewhere. I’d like to wrestle with it for another month or two to see if it emerges. I look forward to hearing from you. Love.”
So he writes that letter to Jenny in ’92. And presumably continues working with the piece and keeping in correspondence with her about it. And then, in the same box, I came across this letter in July 1993 from Jenny to Kevin.
The letter runs to 4 paragraphs. And so I imagine that she has also taken some time over the writing of it. She starts off by apologising for the wait that Kevin’s had before receiving a considered response on his new draught. And then very quickly comes to her point, which is that she doesn’t think that it works. She acknowledges that this news will be a blow to Kevin and says that she did really want to like the draught. But then explains that she just cannot get interested in this version of Guy’s story and goes on to say that she feels unmoved by him and the other characters, and that they lack an emotional centre. And then her third paragraph states that she doesn’t know where to go from here. She observes that a recent reading of the play that Kevin’s had must have given him a particular agenda, but that she thinks, possibly in attempting to please everyone after that reading, he has lost the tight, driven writing and the atmosphere of the piece. And ended up with something a lot less interesting. And then perhaps hardest of all to read is that she then finishes the letter with kindness. She welcomes Kevin to come and speak to her again when the dust settles and she signs off “with love and regret”.
So when I first read that. In the box that I found it in, I, oh, it’s like a gut punch, you know, it’s a punch to the stomach on Kevin’s behalf. And I could just imagine how much effort and time and relationship and connection and readings, by the sounds of it. And work and edits had gone into this process. And then after a long wait, by the sounds of it, as well, this is the response he gets from the venue that I assume up to that point had been the most interested.
So I just thought it was so enlightening about what all of us as creators and artists experience and and I don’t know which draft Jenny was talking about there. Which one she’d seen. Not that long after he does manage to get it on and – And I think that that’s really telling as well, that we just don’t know. It might just not be for that one person who’s reading it, you know, it might not be to their taste. And there’s something in her letter as well. I think about when a mentor or a venue or a contact has read several drafts of a play. If, actually, it becomes harder for them to fall in love with the final draft, or the next draft, because they’re aware of some of the process and they can see some of the lines being moved around and maybe they’ve got attached to how things were in previous drafts, I don’t know.
But it was really a a punch for Kevin. It must have been a really, really discouraging part of the process. And then, what I find heartening, but also surprising and kind of miraculous, is that obviously he goes on: he pushes on beyond that feedback. Gets it on and then has this huge success with it, not just in this country but also internationally and a few years later there are runs in Berlin in Sydney. It goes to the States and – And Berlin in particular, he has correspondence there with their artistic director. Who let’s him know how well the the run is going, how well it’s being received by audiences.
There’s this lovely postcard that I came across from Steph, the artistic director in Berlin:
“Dear Kevin, I’m very delighted to announce a revival of My Night With Reg, not in our studio, but in our [in capitals], Big House. Good news, aren’t these? Yours, Steph”.
So it really feels that with Reg, Kevin runs the whole gamut of huge disappointment – tonnes of work, getting the sense of getting nowhere, presumably – And then a complete turn around, a complete transformation, and it’s making me think about how emotional and vulnerable the process of playwriting and sharing work with people is. But it’s also made me think about the need to do that.
I think sometimes I’m afraid of sharing my work, particularly in drafts where I don’t feel it’s perfect. But then of course I never feel it’s perfect. So I’m afraid of sharing it and letting people read it and putting it out there because I’m afraid of that feedback potentially, or that negative feedback or things that people say aren’t working. But actually, it is all part of the process and and it might well be that, despite flaws, a venue or a programmer, a reader, is still invested in the play, or despite their feedback, it just might not be for them, and for someone else. So I think reading this process of Kevin’s in these correspondences clarifies that for me, you know. Not everybody will see potential in new writing, but you just need one person. One well-placed person who does fall in love with it. And then, I suppose, anything can happen.