He’s Behind You
The play that sounds like a pantomime
In January 2012 my wife Sandra took me to see Blithe Spirit at the excellent Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough. It was a brilliantly funny story and so well directed. When later that summer I did the Playwright course we were required to produce a ten-minute sketch for a showcase with professional actors at Hull Truck.
At the time in my work context, I was exposed to rather eccentric ways of the UK Civil Service and heading for privatisation. I was also writing a pantomime for performance that winter.
So what if God decided to privatise his support services? …And Beelzebub got the contract working for a fictional outsourcing company? And what if they inadvertently brought someone up early so to speak? And what if the deceased in question was a retired civil servant and control freak who wrote the village pantomime and never gave his wife any thought or attention? And what if his wife came to realise that without him she had some freedom at last?
The resulting sketch, savagely edited and professionally directed by Hull Truck’s Natalie Griffiths, got really good reviews in the showcase.
I developed it into a fuller version which was performed at Fruit Theatre in June 2014, courtesy of Dave Windass. After further rewrites in January 2016, it was performed as a full-length play for the first time in Walkington, and the reviews were excellent.
Now published by Silver Birchington Plays. If you are interested in a heartwarming comedy with a social message, which has an older cast of three males and three females, please use the link below.