24-hour play people

The task is to write a 10-minute play and stage it 24 hours later.

But, asks one of the playwrights who has agreed to the Old Vic's annual challenge, is it possible to produce something worthwhile in so short a time?

OH shit! What have I signed up for? The weekend after next, I'll be sitting in a hotel room staring at a blank page, only too aware that I've got seven hours to fill it with something halfway performable.

It's my own fault. I went to see the performance of last year's 24 Hour Plays, written and rehearsed in one night and day and staged that same evening. Not only did the six 10-minute plays make for an exciting, vital night of theatre, with fantastic actors on stage (Jim Broadbent, Sophie Okonedo and Alex Jennings among them), but the Old Vic was packed to the rafters with an appreciative audience. Everyone seemed up for it.

They all appeared to be having a great time, and I wanted to join in.

So when I was asked to do it this year, I jumped at the chance. What was I thinking?

Like most writers, I'm sure, I have a fixed work routine. To begin with, I've always got a stock of ideas that just might, some day, make a play. A few of them have been with me for years and they can come from anywhere: newspaper headlines, a paragraph in a magazine, TV documentaries, people telling me stories, things I hear on the bus (the best source). Most of these ideas fall by the wayside, but the ones that stay with me are the ones that stir an emotion, the most basic: laughter, anger, fear.

For the 24 Hour Plays, we're not encouraged to bring our ready- towrite stories along, though we are advised to "have an idea in reserve". But in my book, that would be cheating (not something that, here and now, I'm declaring myself to be above). Ideally, when we all get together for the first time, at 10pm on Saturday 18 June, the writers will take inspiration from the props and costume that each of the 24 actors and six directors have been asked to provide.

Generally, by the time I start to write the first scene of a play, it's already part-written in my head. I can sit with the idea for a few weeks, letting the story and its themes expand, getting to know my characters, and only then finding a play world for them to live in.

Until I have done this, until I feel I've been sufficiently inspired, I can't write a word.

Four years ago, I knew I wanted to write a big play that addressed the issues of British nationalism and identity, but I couldn't find a home for it. It wasn't until I found myself sitting in a pub in Birmingham, watching an England game with the roughest bunch of footie fans that side of Watford, that I knew this pub would be the world of my play. A few months later, Sing Yer Heart Out for the Lads was born.

But born doesn't mean finished.

The process can be painfully slow, definitely painful. Once a director reads a new play, he suggests a few changes; I then go away to write another draft; then another. I may make more changes during rehearsals; this can continue until opening night, sometimes beyond.

There is a saying in theatre: "A new play isn't finished until the last night."

Those are the rules, and they work for me. But on 18 June, I will be forced to learn a new set of rules. There will be no last night, only the first night. And I am going to have to rely for inspiration on the others taking part - the directors and the actors.

I just have to pray for the juices to flow and that someone - or someone's prop - triggers the Idea. We're all in it together, after all. I've heard from some who took part last year that the cameraderie - group terror, call it what you will - is unique.

Something else that will be new to me is writing for particular actors. I have no idea yet who, or how many, will be in my cast.

When we arrive at the theatre on Saturday evening, the playwrights will sit down together with a pile of Polaroids of the actors and we will go through them and put in our bids for our cast. I gather a bit of horse-trading goes on The type of actors I end up with will undoubtedly have a huge influence on what I write. Not that I'm complaining: the thespians the Old Vic has on call are of the highest calibre. Any one of them could win an Evening Standard Award for reading out the Yellow Pages. I know they will do their job. But can I do mine?

In a recent review, I was chuffed to be described as a "dramatic balladeer of black urban youth".

It was the "balladeer" bit I especially liked, it sounds heroic. But when it comes to the "black urban youth" tag, chances are my available cast will not be as young or as black as they were in Little Sweet Thing or Fallout.

From the bill announced so far, I can see Kwame Kwei-Armah or Nick Moran coming on strong for me on stage. But I can't really expect Michael Sheen, Juliet Stevenson or Brooke Shields to be speaking the language of yout, now can I? Although the thought of Miriam Margolyes saying, "You know wat I mean, blood?"

does make me laugh.

SHE might be okay with the swearing, too. I'll always remember the elderly West Indian lady who came to see The Gift, at the Tricycle.

Every time one of the young characters was called upon to say "f**k this" or "f**k that", she yelled out, "Language!" Afterwards she told the front-of-house manager that she wanted to talk to the author - boy, did she tear me off a strip.

But I won't be writing that stuff for ever. The 24 Hour Play project comes at a good time for me. I have reached a point where I'm ready to move on. To find stories beyond the world of black urban youth.

Not that I will be walking away from that kind of work completely, I just want to find other tales to write. This will be an excellent opportunity for me to explore different ways of creating character, finding stories. I shall be dipping my toe into a brand new ocean.

I know that at least two of last year's writers are developing their 10 minutes into something substantial. For me, it's more about process. Even if what I end up with never goes beyond that night, I will have had the chance to consider, maybe reconsider, the way I work. And would a change of my routine mean a change in my work? It had better, at least on this occasion, produce the goods.

In any case, the more I think of it, seven hours to write a 10- minute piece is quite a lot of time.

To be honest, I am more worried about keeping myself awake. We sit down to write at 11pm and go through to 6am, which is usually the time I start work, never mind finish. I don't drink coffee, but I'm seriously thinking that now might be a good time to try it. I just hope there isn't a minibar in my hotel room or I'm really screwed.

. Tickets for the 24 Hour Plays at the Old Vic on 19 June cost Pounds 50-150; all proceeds go to the Old Vic's New Voices new writing scheme. To book: 020 7620 0558 or [email protected]

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