Mark Brailsford, he of Treason Show and Rialto Theatre fame, had another good idea.
Why not invite new playwrights to enter a scratch theatre competition?
Three evenings of four 15-minute excerpts from four new plays and the audience would pick the winner and talent scout the cast.
This session featured Little Did I Know by Doc Anderson-Bloomfield, My Other Half by Ian Skelton, Alis Shad And The Bony Horseman by Hannah Doyle and The Merchant of New York by Nathan Ariss.
Anderson-Bloomfield dramatized a painful contemporary tale of a girl fleeing to freedom in England only to be abused by the lorry driver she paid to take her to safety.
Ian Skelton’s comic and slightly surreal characters bickered as they tried to write jokes: in ingenious and imaginative play on words, they themselves were the best jokes of all.
Hannah Doyle cleverly wove doggerel into Tom’s bar room rants, rapper meets Alf Garnett before Tom was unmasked as an internet dating hypocrite.
The winner, in a very close contest, was Nathan Ariss’ update on Shakespeare. Shylock, Portia, Bassano and Antonia, battled it out, New York style. Brave and brilliant, all.
Four stars
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