Tied Cottage - the screenplay

 Thanks to everyone who has written to me with their thoughts on the play and the opening extract. As I have said, the play was written many years ago and I had forgotten about it. The replies I received from different theatre companies commented on the compelling study of Tony Hancock in the precarious situation he found himself. There were no offers of a reading, but things have changed since then and I have a number of readings coming up towards the end of the year with different companies. My portrayal of Tony Hancock was sympathetic, yet he remained defiant until he could not continue. I mentioned in an earlier post that the full text will be published in paperback later in the year. I am hoping that there will a rehearsed reading of "Mrs Partington's Mop "after I speak to people who are interested in the play next week. In the meantime, the epublicaton is available on Kobo Books from today if anyone is interested. The lowest price which I could sell it for was £2.00

  Hancock, shoulders slumped, eyes filled with despair, yet a sparkle of interest is now seen, as he stares around the hotel room and looks stage right at the imaginary window. Hancock: (Mumbles, then speaks clearly). For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow. Not until of my choosing.  Told George once that the only spirits came in bottles. Brandy and Vodka. Ed and the crew have treated this neurotic fool admirably. The producers will have kittens when they realize the title of my last show will be suitably macabre. I have had my lost weekends, lost weekdays, but I see now with a clarity that I never saw before. I find that peculiar now that the pressure has lifted. I did suffer from heat exhaustion once and was not believed.  Everything’s gone full circle and I am back where I started. Typical. I was going to quote George Arliss, but that will come for another time. My professional beginnings do owe a lot to Educating Archie. (Laughs). I should do the bottle of water trick and

 I will shortly be posting the opening pages  of the stage play I wrote about the final interview Tony Hancock ( 1924-1968)  gave before his untimely death at the age of 44 years in Sydney during the making of his final television series: "Hancock Down Under." Famed in Britain for his television, radio, and stage appearances, Hancock was unsurpassed at the time and people understood his screen persona as they had never done before with a preformer. Hancock's insecurities increased as he became mercurial, abandoning all he achieved and he paid a dreadful price by forsaking his friends from the early days of his successes. Even today, all of his shows, films, are unrivalled. Due to his alcoholism, he was unemployable in Great Britain and made the fateful decision to leave for Australia. The play explores many facets of his neurotic character as he reminiscences about  the past and the present in his tortured mind. The play takes place during an imaginary break when Hancock

 I have recently had a one-act play I wrote "Gordon of Khartoum" published by Steve Cawte of impspired books. The play concentrates on the last days of the nearly year long seige in which General Gordon fought against the Mahdi and his forces at Khartoum. The play explores in depth the contradictions of Gordon's character and how he faced the eventuality of his death. The paperback edition of the stage play is available on Amazon Books.

 This scene from the play is influenced by what Robert. E Howard read in Jack London’s novel “Star Rover.” The theme of reincarnation occurs frequently in Howard’s stories. Howard:  There can be no going back now. The whole house feels abandoned. There is only the sound of the clock and I used to hate the damned ticking when I was here, alone, as a boy. It seemed to mock my aspirations when it struck the hour! (Laughs). What’s more, I did witness something that holds true to what I just spoke of. I slept out on the prairie one night, near an old Indian village at Paint Rock. Nothing remained except an air of desperation and death. The rock faces were grey, covered with moss, and I imagined I saw faces carved between the fissures as I settled down for the night before riding home. The ululation started beguilingly. The fire, just ashes, scattered with the breeze, as I awoke and heard the chanting and plangent voices in the distance. The images were indistinct, but I know what I saw as t

Here is another extract from the play and the heading refers to a postcard that Howard received from Lovecraft who was on holiday in Quebec in 1930. This is mentioned before the following extract. Howard:   My biggest regret is that I was born out of my time. I would have liked to have seen the frontier as it once was and survival is all people cared about. Man is complacent, by God, losing all perspective, when he becomes burdened by civilization. Mores change and the innocents forfeit their heritage and die broken, starving on reservations, and drinking themselves to death with hooch. I distrust all that I see around me and that is why I have become introverted. To have been breathing back then, I could have witnessed Chisum leaving Concho County with his cattle for New Mexico and little knowing of the Lincoln County War to come, the mysteries of the Old West would have been mine to witness. There is killing for the sake of it with Kid Curry, John Wesley Hardin, and those who have be