When life gives you lemons… write about it.
How it started.
What Noise Productions approached me to write for Quartet. Quartet is a series where four writers are commissioned to write a radio play inspired by a four-letter word, and then four amazing actors play all the parts. You can check out previous plays (based on fear, safe, hate) here.
The process.
I’m told the word for our plays is ‘mine’ and to come up with some ideas before the workshop. I meet the four actors, the three other writers and the producer in a workshop in London. We get an allocated time slot to discuss our ideas. The word has strong associations for me to becoming a father and my experiences.
I have a couple of ideas about being a father, one is a little whacky and the other a drama about a father proving he is the father of his child. At the workshop I use the time to interview the actors. Again it gets quite personal but it’s really useful to get a glimpse of their personalities, how they may fit roles, and the dynamics in the group.
At home, I listen back to the interview. I have doubts about the ideas. Though they are personal to me, there is something about it that’s not clicking for me. I email the producer. He likes the idea I like the least. What to do?
Mine brings up the experience of my partner’s miscarriage which affected us greatly. When we found out Fi was pregnant the foetus was the size of a lemon so we called “her” Lemon.
At the same time, I think about the film 20th Century Women (2016) a film I love immensely. While you’re reading check out Mike Mills film Beginners too., it’s another brilliant mixture of personal cinema wrapped in a compelling unique way. Anyway, the beginning and ending of 20th Century has this evocative voice over where the characters talk about what happened to each other.
I begin to write in Lemon’s voice as to what she would have become and as I do I cry. And that made me happy. Because I knew I was on to something.
The idea grew from there. I knew couples at university who were the oddest match and they continued to stay together and have a family. I wondered also how lifes can be different if friends of mine did have a child and what our lives would have been like if Lemon lived.
I interviewed my partner and with her permission some of what she says found its way into the play. Sometimes, some of the best dialogue is great because you just couldn’t have written it yourself.