Posted: 09 January 2004 Word Count: Summary: STRANGE GOINGS ON A BEDSIT AS ALCKIE THORN GOES THROUGH a CRISIS.
SHORTLISTED TO LAST ELEVEN OF FIVE HUNDRED FOR IPF FESTiVAL AT WAREHOUSE THEATRE LONDON. ALSO PP PLAY OF THE MONTH JAN 2003
WARNING. CONTAINS STRONG LANGUAGE
I was looking forward to reading something else of yours and when I saw you'd uploaded 'Thorn's Hammer', I thought, "would it be as good as 'Just One Of Those Nights'?". It's better! I don't know what to say because your work says it all. This is play writing, OK, everyone laugh as I'm saying the obvious.
But you write plays that are PLAYS, as in classic stuff. Stuff you see on the shelves in Waterstones. It reminded me of Billy Wilder's film 'The Lost Weekend' with Celt, Ray Milland's an ancoholic and hallucinating, frequent trips to the bar, buying bottles in shops. Also reminded me how good words can be when used right, like in Billy Wilder's 'Sunset Boulevard'. The bitterness of reality expressed in words. Absolutely perfect.
This would make one stunning powerful film and whipe out anything the Coen Brother's could come up with, better than Barton Fink. And this is the kind of material that could outshine Trainspotting in it's first five minutes.
Now what shined in the play for me? All the characters were distinct and different. The giant orange teady bear lowering in the room, the talking television, the ex-wife, the dead friend with the guns, the numerous references to films, Sean Connery, the Columbo line which had me on the floor in hysterics, Channel 5, the Scottish impression by Freddie, the corner shop sequences, pissing in the sink. And someohow you managed to get the griminess of the bed-sit across to the reader, a real experience and a welcome assault on the senses.
Am I impressed by your writing? That would be an understatement, any more praise from me and I'll be bordelining on hysteria here. Keep writing, if you don't, I'll bloody sue you for ruining the future of playwriting. Supreme.
More, more, more.
davide 
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