I am having the best creative time of my entire life as David and I spend a couple of full days at the Octagon bouncing around ideas for the workshop draft of the script.
He floats a wild idea that I take up and run with. It looks like it will be feasible for the same actor to play Mr TV and Isambard Kingdom Brunel after all because we have discovered artistic connections between them. But if we are to forge stronger links in Fred's mind about these two characters, there is some restructuring of the play to be done.
During these development sessions David frequently refers to other plays and playwrights and obviously wants me to aim for the highest possible standards.
It's thrilling to hear him talk of his work with Arthur Miller, particularly about developing Millers' play 'Broken Glass'. I'm not sure that me having the same initials cuts it really!
We have a couple of prolonged discussions about stage directions and the slash(/) used to indicate overlapping dialogue but we never come close to anything that can be described as a disagreement and seem to be very much on the same wavelength.
I come away with masses of notes in my script, a head buzzing with ideas, a heart full of gratitude and optimism.
David says we are 'cooking on gas'.
