Blog: Dinosaur Planet In An Actual Theatre!

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I'm really VERY excited today as I've finally managed to achieve one of the ambitions harboured by Young Me: To have a play performed in a THEATRE!

When I was in my teens and early twenties I was convinced that a life in THE THEATRE awaited me, and I actually got a little way towards it. As well as being PRESIDENT of The Leicester Polytechnic Poor Theatre (yes, BE impressed) and taking a whole batch of PRODUCTIONS to the Fringe (see: "The horrible time I had at the 1991 Edinburgh Fringe" for more details, playing on request in pubs NOW and forever) I used to write loads of plays and sketches. I managed to SELL a couple of sketches to Radio 4, had a Rehearsed Reading of one of my plays scheduled (and CANCELLED due to CUTS!) at The Royal Court, and got accepted onto an MSc Course to do PLAYWRITING.

Unfortunately for me (and THE THEATRE, obviously) I couldn't take my place on the course - due to a mix up with addresses I only found out I HAD the place a fortnight before it started so didn't have time to apply for grants and couldn't afford to fund myself. I was DEVASTATED and after that it all sort of drifted away from me, helped somewhat by the LURE of ROCK. It turns out that being in a BAND is a whole HECKLOAD more fun than sitting in a Lonely Bedroom, typing PLAYS that are unlikely to ever be seen, so I pretty much gave up on the whole thing.

I've always felt a bit bad about it - poor old Young Me REALLY wanted to do this and I always feel like he'd look on DISAPPROVINGLY if he knew I was going to spend SO much time larking about in PUBS rather than sipping cocktails at West End Openings. Only a BIT bad, mind you - Young Me was a bit of an arsey sod, after all, and not that much fun to be around, so I'm sure I took the right route, but it's nice at LAST to be able to do SOMETHING he'd've liked.

For LO! As stated above, we're going to be doing Dinosaur Planet in a THEATRE! OK, I know Dinosaur Planet isn't exactly a "play", we're only doing it for one night, and the theatre in question does look suspiciously like A Room Above A Pub, but I still think it counts!

The theatre in question is Theatre 503 near Clapham Junction and, as I say, it IS a room above a pub but ALSO a Proper Theatre with LOTS of Proper Stuff on in it. We're playing a one-off preview there on Wednesday July 21st at 9.15pm, so if you're in the area and fancing a bit of the ARTS do pop along won't you? If you can't find it, just follow the sounds of a forty year old man SQEAKING with GLEE, it'll be broadcasting from the area for at least two hours beforehand!

posted 14/7/2010 by MJ Hibbett

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