Interesting dissection here:

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,,1830301,00.html

of why novelists can't write good plays, and playwrights write such bad novels.

Emma

It always amazes me how often people assume that skill in one form of writing will automatically translate into ability in another. A couple of months ago I read David Lodge's Author, Author which deals with the opening night of Guy Domville mentioned in that Guardian article. Excruciating stuff. The description of the embarrassment, I mean. Obviously the novel itself is totally ninja.

Nonetheless, people seem to continue to make the same mistake: look at the number of unreadable books by stand up comedians (all of them I think?) assuming that the ability to hone a 60 minute monologue translates into the ability to write a novel (or a musical for that matter, yes Ben Elton, I'm looking at you). I wouldn't expect Kingsley Amis to be able to get on stage and entertain a stag do at Stockport Comedy Shack (especially not now, obviously), so why would it work the other way round.

Still! interestting article.

Some exceptions, though- Andrew Davies, whose TV writing I find a bit forumlaic, wrote a fairly amazing novel, B Monkey, ironically turned into a pointless and rubbish film. And Father Thing, the daft one in Father Ted, wrote a novel I remember being very surprised by (not so much that I've remember what it was called, clearly). Hasn't Rob Newman done really well with his novels? But yes, it seems like a real arrogance, doesn't it, to assume you can turn your hand to a bit of theatre/novel/screen writing just because.... Tell you what, tho, I'd like to see a novel by Paul 'Shameless' Abbott, or a play by Josephine Hart, or.... any other strange but interesting combos?

By all accounts Dickens is the greatest playwright we never had, and I'd love to read a Shakespeare novel.

But more seriously, he's not quite in the same league as Chekov in either form, but Noel Coward's short fiction's really rather good. And Henry Green has an amazing ear for dialogue, and a completely absent narrator - I'd love to see a play by him.

Emma