NEWSLETTER FOR AUGUST 2015

I’ve been a bit lax in keeping up to date with these letters. Blame the garden and a glut of French beans, runner beans, courgettes etc etc – to say nothing of the weeds!

I have also been busy working, though not doing much writing at the moment. Until I find a publisher for IRONHAND there isn’t much incentive to write more. However, at the beginning of the month I was in London, teaching another two day course on writing historical fiction at the City Literary Institute. It all went well and as a result I have been asked to repeat the course in October for a group in Brick Lane, who are working on a project about the history of the East India Company. We managed to squeeze in a couple of theatre visits while we were there, but I have to admit I was a little disappointed in both. ‘Hay Fever’ is one of favourite plays and I was looking forward to seeing Felicity Kendall as Judith, but it was the last night and I had the impression that she was very tired and couldn’t wait to get the performance over! Next night we saw ‘Constellations’, a two hander with an interesting premise – that in parallel universes the same actions can have very different results. Unfortunately, this led to a great deal of repetition as the same scenarios were played out with different endings.

Later in the month we had a few days away, first on Derwentwater and then in Pitlochry. Both are lovely places and we were lucky with the weather, so it made a nice break. Pitlochry has a beautiful modern theatre, which stages an ambitious summer season. We saw a new play, ‘Pyrenees’, extremely well written and acted and better than anything we saw in London.

So here we are in September and the summer (what summer, I ask myself) is almost over. Next week I’m off to Whiteley Bay to record ‘Twice Royal Lady.’