was the arresting opening of a letter from playwright Douglas Maxwell, which he wrote to us three years after participating in the Lab…
“That sounds a suitably dramatic thing for a playwright to say but I think, once I explain the details, you will see that this is no exaggeration.
PAL was for me a “night and day” scenario, a “before and after” which was immediate and concrete. Even on my train journey back to Scotland, as drunk and sad as I was to be leaving, I thought to myself, “This is it starting now. I’m a writer with a career. This is Day One”.
And it was. At that moment I was working part-time in a computer games shop, with no plays on and no hope. Today I have a play in London, an agent, a publishing deal, an 18-week tour, the main show at The Assembly Rooms during the Edinburgh Festival, three commissions, a Fringe First and a stage award - and all because of PAL.
In 1998 I’d been writing for about three years, with little or no success. I was churning out play after play, each one worse than the last and my confidence and faith in my chosen “career” was on the wane. I’d had readings but I’d never been paid and had few connections. Not only that, the work in a computer games shop was edging me daily towards a killing spree and/or insanity. Then it got worse. I wrote a play, which I thought was quite good. No one else did. They hated it. In fact one of the rejection letters used the phrase “please stop writing plays”.
So I did. I gave up. It was horrible. I couldn’t really do anything else and I felt I’d wasted everyone’s time and my parents’ money. Just as I was thinking about buying a gun or taking up papier maché making, the phone went and it was PAL.
I had been nominated on the back of a play called Decky Does a Bronco, which I’d written years before on a whim and heard nothing back. I’d forgotten about it. PAL at that point sounded terrible. Ten days with writers, directors and actors all successful and happy and here’s me - a miserable failure ready to give up. I went because it was free and there was food!
I turned up at PAL three hours late, drunk and with a chip on my shoulder. I didn’t want to play. I wanted everyone to know this wasn’t my line any more; it seemed easier than admitting I wasn’t any good. That changed immediately. I described my idea for the play I wanted to write and in front of everyone John Retallack said it was a great idea and based on Decky, which he also said he “loved”, I was the man to write it. Loved?? No-one had said that before.
One of the most important factors about PAL is that it is away in the country, away from ego and gossip, away from reputations and contacts. Just writers writing and talking about writing. Each writer feels alone and independent whilst at the same time part of a close knit team, helping each other and discussing the positives/negatives of their ideas. It really is quite remarkable. The tutorials are still in my mind when I write today. “What would they say about this?” I think. And then I go ahead and do it anyway.
Before we could get going on our new plays, the actors read out each of the plays we had entered. The reading changed everything. It was the first time I had seen an audience react to my work. They laughed and at the end they cried. On the spot I decided to write more plays like Decky and with Bryony (Lavery), John and the actors’ help, I wrote the first draft of Helmet in seven days. With no distractions, never-ending encouragement and the structure to see the work acted out, it was easy. And that was just me. There were ten of us. Everyone got something from it. Not everyone completed a play. They didn’t need to. Some used it as a sketchpad or a sounding board, others as a retreat to re-draft, but I knew I needed something concrete to take home to Scotland to prove and maintain my new found confidence.
PAL changed how I felt about writing and therefore, myself. I wasn’t alone, I was normal and the tutors and directors helped me find what was good and bad in my work. I’ve never looked back.
When the time came to leave I was gutted. Where was the drunk guy with the chip now? I left with friends, contacts, confidence, a clear idea of where my work was going, an agent, two plays which were possible productions and a large wine bill for which there was no explanation.”
Douglas Maxwell
