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 6 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.
It’s brilliantly sunny outside.
I think we’re entering this April heat wave.
And it’s funny, sometimes I find the sunshine not very cheerful, which is unexpected. For some reason. I suppose it’s when I don’t feel particularly sunny and the world is sunny. It feels a little bit incongruous, and maybe I notice it more than I do in the winter when everything is grey. I suppose today I’m just. I’m not at the archive today. I’m reflecting back on my last few visits and I’m sitting in one of those moments of the creative process of writing, where I’ve just done a big chunk of work.
I’ve submitted the next draft of a play I’ve been working on for a long time to the Women’s Prize for Playwriting last week, so I’m very pleased to have submitted it. So there was this kind of big adrenaline rush and build up to the submission and getting everything to where I wanted it to be to the best it could be for that award submission. And then there’s kind of a drop. And a coming back to other projects and I’m refocusing on Crop Circle, which has been bubbling along in the background and which can now take centre stage for the next 6 months or so at least, which is exciting. And I’ve booked a research trip next weekend to go and spend some time in the very area where the Crop Circle Cafe was when I was growing up, near Cherhill White Horse in Wiltshire. So all of that is really positive. And I’m still feeling very inspired by reading Kevin’s work and Kevin’s drafts at the archives. Just on Friday I was reading through The Day I Stood Still, one of his slightly later plays that was staged at The National in 1998. And really enjoying reading, again, his notes, his process, the reflections from critics, the conversations with directors that he was having in advance of the production. It’s fascinating. And it is so inspiring and exciting. But I also had a conversation with a friend yesterday, who’s also a theatre maker in Bristol. Um, which was a really good connecting conversation. But we also shared our frustrations with the realities of getting work produced and getting work made.
And so, I think there’s something for me today. Questioning. Is it going to happen? You know, is any of this work that I write and I put down and I painstakingly edit and change and shift – Is it ever going to appear in front of an audience? And that is, you know, the question of every playwright, and we all know it’s such a competitive and lottery type of industry, really, when it comes to getting your work made and put on and produced. And it’s such an expensive process. And so not everything that everybody writes is going to go the whole distance. But it’s hard sometimes, I think, to sit in this moment of questioning. Because, I think I felt on this award and this residency with Bristol Theatre Collection, a real closeness to Kevin through reading his work, a closeness to: ohh it can happen, you know, it really can happen! You send things off and you make relationships and you keep at it. And those plays go the distance eventually, and then, you know, he gets these really incredible productions on, which is testament to his writing as well as his persistence, I think. And he’s quoted in an article I was reading on Friday, saying he always knew recognition would come, and he was willing to wait for it. And I think that’s how I felt in my 20s. I kind of felt like if I just keep grafting, the recognition will come. So I recognise that and it’s lovely to hear him sort of trusting that. And and it did pay off. But there are moments of real doubts, I think and and the reality of.
I suppose the present moment, maybe as opposed to when Kevin was writing – I haven’t done an in-depth analysis of the difference between the two and the theatre landscape and funding and appetite than you work and all of those things – but I think…
Today I’m feeling a bit low and a bit unsure and most of that is probably it’s like an after a show feeling. I’m also an actor, and I know – and a director, and I know – that kind of come down after a show and I think it feels a bit like that having finished this draft of one of my plays and sent it off, there’s a bit of a. And now what? And and it’s bringing up lots of questions and a. Bit of a kind of –
So that is honestly where I am. Still feeling inspired by Kevin’s process and journey but questioning my own and questioning what the next steps are for writers. You make something, you write something you’re proud of. And then it feels like there’s only so many avenues to go down for production, and perhaps I’m wrong about that. I’m trying to think creatively at the moment. You know. If we want to get our work staged, if we want to just put it on and test it out and try it out, with an audience. And what are the ways we can do that and what are the ways we can take agency in making that happen and in making those next steps? Not waiting and feeling powerless about it, waiting for someone else to pick it up and say this is great. So those are the questions I’m asking today.