Local writer and actor Lindsay Bennett-Thompson (Coronation Street, Vera, Truelove) is the winner of Blackpool theatre The Old Electric's first playwriting Ccmpetition.
Lindsay's play Bluebells and Dirty Nappies will be showcased at the theatre on July 27 as the climax to the Power Plays Festival, which supported new stage writing that would show the resort in new ways.
Bluebells and Dirty Nappies is set on Blackpool beach, between the resort's north and south piers. Two volunteer litter-pickers spark an unusual friendship. One of them is desperate to hold on to life and the other is running away from it, and the two women are an unlikely pair as they navigate very different paths across the sands…
Audiences will also hear selected scenes from the three runner-up plays, along with Old Electric’s writer-in-residence Martha Pailing’s thoughts from her time at the venue.
On the preceding night, July 26, the three runner-up plays - The Seagull Has Landed by Michael Davies, The Dreamer by Jake Wolf and The Queen of the Sun by Leah Philbin - will be performed by four actors and a director in a script-in-hand read through.
Scriptwriters Rachael Thomasen, Sarah Green, Adam Martin-Brooks and Beth Mullen will also be offered the opportunity of one-to-one mentoring by acclaimed playwrights Simon Stephens and Nick Wood ; renowned literary manager, critic and dramaturg Frank Peschier, and Factory International's artist development manager, Punam Ramchurn, as a result of the competition, which invited original scripts intended to help switch the established image of Blackpool and play a part in a local creative revolution.
The Old Electric's artistic director, Melanie Whitehead, said: “It was such a privilege to read the plays that were submitted. This is our first year and I was blown away by the quality and diversity of the writing. We had submissions from across the UK, but over half came from local postcodes and the majority were from the North West.
"A huge range of themes was considered, and they were a great insight into the way people are wanting to frame Blackpool, which is exactly what we’d hoped for.”
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