Well, after last night’s Season Launch at Nottingham Playhouse, the not very well kept secret is out; this coming autumn sees the redoubtable Charlie Resnick step on stage for the first time in what the Playhouse like to call – well, it’s true – the World Premiere of my dramatisation of the 12th and final Resnick novel, Darkness, Darkness.
This is something I’ve been working on for some eighteen months now [writing for the stage, as I’m discovering, is a long and arduous – if, one hopes, ultimately rewarding –process] during most of which time I’ve been greatly assisted, prodded, cajoled – I’m tempted to say, occasionally goaded – by the play’s director, Jack McNamara, Artistic Director of New Perspectives. And despite the occasional less than polite thing I’ve said about him under my breath during this process, I know full well that without Jack’s input the script would be but a pale shadow of what it is now. Which is, I’m emboldened to say, pretty damn good. And still with room to get better.
At the Playhouse it sits at the centre of three-part Sweet Vengeance season, beginning with Anthony Shaffer’s Sleuth and finishing with Thomas Middleton’s The Revenger’s Tragedy.
To say I’m excited and not a little terrified would be an understatement.
Fantastic!! Will the manuscript be published?
Good question. No immediate plans – may depend if at a later date it goes on tour. And I suspect Random House, not unreasonably, would be happier selling copies of the novel.
Fantastic news, John. Looks like a trip to Nottingham is a must later this year.
Excellent news!
Who’s playing Resnick?
Ah, would I knew! Casting discussions are, I believe, in progress; I am being consulted as the process develops but, so far, no clear news. As and when I know, I’ll post the details on the blog. Thanks for your interest.