Pt 2 Richard Bean on playwriting, success, editing & casting

Post 35 of Dream, create and make money in the arts 

This is Part Two of the highlights of a Q&A I went to with the very successful creative, award winning playwright Richard Bean whose plays include Toast, England People Very Nice and  One Man Two Guvnors.  Part One

He is now working on the book of ‘Made In Dagenham the Musical‘ and was in conversation with Chris Campbell, literary manager of the Royal Court and questions by us fellow actors at the Actors Centre

Richard Bean is always involved in casting decisions, of course in the Royal Court contract it is written in that writers have to approve the cast.  He no longer goes to many rehearsals and never talks to the actors but he gives the director his notes.  He has got pushed into giving direct notes before and he didn’t like it, his advice ‘Don’t let writers loose on actors’

Self criticism – he says he has written an awful lot of rubbish & one of the skills is learning to spot it.
Richard Bean writes an act, puts it up on the walls and goes for a walk around the room, reading it standing up. When he gets bored he gets his marker pen out as then he knows it needs work.
“Also visually doing this you can see when a scene is twice as long as another yet is not earning twice as many laughs.
Live with the play – printing it out on black & white takes it into a different physical experience. All successful writers cut an enormous amount, he is happy to overwrite by 40% in the first draft. If a play is 100 pages then first draft 140 pages and then you get the knives out and cut.”

His advice; Ask what the play is about? If it is a comedy, does it make you (the writer laugh? Does it make you cry to read it? With ‘Harvest’ he write Scene 7 and cried all the way through writing it.

On ‘One Man Two Guvnors’  RICHARD BEAN can divide his life into before & after this play. He has also been offered to do Moliere in the same vein, such as Tartuffe (French farce).  But he has his own farce he wants to do but this is two or three years ahead.
‘’Being such a massive success with ‘One man’ it should make you happier & more money but the Film/TV people have only seen ‘One Man’ & then you say ‘have you seen ‘Big Fellas’?”  It’s annoying as he wants to continue to write slightly controversial stuff & once you enter the world of product it changes.
“Once you are there in the world of product it’s made by producers and its like painting a wall, so you are not in control but serving the product – of course some great product is art such as ‘One flew over the cuckoos nest’, the ‘Godfather’ films.” He would rather do his own stuff.

Richard Bean  finds as with Dennis Kelly who wrote Matilda,  now different people are calling him.

Richard Bean was a stand up comic for 6 years and lived in a squat. He never really enjoyed standup but at least he was completely on charge of what he was doing every day. When he was writing standup he “was a workaholic – working day started at 8am til 6pm, then 20 mins stand up gig at 9pm”.
“When you write a decent joke a day, that is a fabulous day”.  (more about why he became a stand up here)

Now he doesn’t labour as hard, more like 9-1 writing each day.
He did a comedy Yorkshire shepherd routine dressed in old tweed jacket act, it’d been a good act if he’d had a sheepdog.
He had a groupie who would follow him around & was very upset when he stopped his shepherd act.
Then he wrote for radio and a sketch show so weaving narrative & jokes together.
He says he has only written one comedy ‘One Man, Two Guvnors’, the others are different genres and they all have jokes in.
“Comedy is the toughest thing and farce is out of fashion largely because it is so difficult. Everyone has to come in with clear purposes despite the speed of the banging doors as they come in & off stage.”
His ‘In The Club’ was a European sex farce and he spent a long time on it as he couldn’t get it to work, character X would go offstage but then how to get them back on with a purpose, it is the logistics that causes such problems.
‘The difference between a farce and a comedy is not to make them laugh but to make the audience hysterical and helpless, they should be wetting their pants, such as in Noises Off’

He stressed “Get on with it! “

Question: What drives him to write?
Answer: He likes to take a counter intuitive view & to expose it, he loves irony.
Sometimes he finds a play such as Big Fella based on the Irish NY/Boston where they have sort of supported the Irish nationalism for 30 yrs & then 911 happens & many of the firemen were of Irish heritage, so they had lazily endorsed Irish Nationalism  by giving money.  More on The Big Fellah

Pinter discussed a play as looking through a room via the crack in the door.
Richard Bean likes irony

The play he’d like to write is essentially about nothing for example ‘Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf’, a compelling tragic fury yet just about how we live together & share a past. The human condition and the struggle to get up everyday & be decent to everyone.

I decided to pop this up as part of my series as the more I listen to working creatives, the clearer it becomes that they too are drawn to their subjects, still have to re-assess where they are at and that need to create, and in Richard Bean, to investigate and then comment.

Both Richard Bean and also Richard Thomas (writer of Jerry Springer The Opera, Anna Nicole The Opera and also working on Made In Dagenham the Musical) both spent years being stand up comics. In my podcast interview with Richard Thomas he laughs about being a failed comic, however all that first hand knowledge of what works on stage, from small pub rooms to big theatres has obviously paid off for both writers. I am suddenly very glad of my years doing stand up – hopefully that too makes me a better performer, although I certainly dont have the work ethic of either of the two Richards 😉

Why not start as I did and go on a ‘learn to do stand up comedy course” it will change you and possibly even your ability to write 😉

I am very happy to hear any comments on what people have learnt from doing stand up, or even those who don’t feel it taught them anything 😉

If you enjoyed this you may well enjoy my notes on the Q&A with Dennis Kelly, writer of Matilda and Utopia

About this series – Becoming a Successful Creative – The Business of Creativity covering all the angles and issues of putting on a show, exhibition or event to showcase your art
This is a series of daily blogs for you on how to dream up, build, market and sell a creative event, gig, festival, book launch, cabaret night, exhibition of rude plastic cupcakes or whatever creatively inspires you. It is time to create and put on that play about your family, a series of drawings about hedgehogs, the album you have talked about making or the short film you always wanted to write and make. You can read the series in order  Part One or just pick and choose a topic that interests you.