Meet the writer...ALAN SPENCE.

                A question asked by...Lucy V Hay. Script Editor | Bestselling Author | Story Coach | Structure, Genre & Character Specialist | Trusted by Oscar-Winning Creatives on Linkedin. I start with a belief that there are too many playwrights and not enough opportunities. But that is the least of our worries. More importantly, I was keen  to share my experience Two local opportunities: one - a call out for plays to work with local writers, where I got a Dear John. It wasn’t even that, just Dear…, no reasons why or even how the play could be developed. The fact that I was in discussions with them, for me to self-produce, puts that in doubt. Will there even be time on the calender?   A local competition that would have hundreds and hundreds of entries, even from Australia and the US!!! But they were a small group of voluntary readers and couldn’t possibly read them all. 🤐🤫🤐🤫 The third example was for a well-k...

In 2009, playwright Alan Spence read an article 'Indecent Exposure' by Vicki Sheil in the Times Education Supplement. He knew then he had to start an education project: My Name Is Tom. With one simple objective, to get young people and adults to talk to each other. Vicki Sheil's reported on a disturbing twist in the communications evolution, resulting in children becoming major consumers of pornography and with mobile phones, had the opportunity to create  content, often using their peers as “performers”. Gemma* appears to a frenzied drum and bass soundtrack and begins to strip. She took the video herself, adding the title and music later.. It was for her boyfriend and when they broke up he sent it to some friends. “She was a pupil at another school, but it came to our school and yes, we’ve all seen it.” *Not her real name. After reading the article, I told my colleagues... “Teenage relationships had stepped over a very dark and dangerous line”.  I had to write a play. My N...

Congress Theatre. Eastbourne 3rd December 2025.    Since moving to Eastbourne, I have enjoyed a number of visits to the Congress Theatre, to see Manfred Mann, Squeeze, Diversity, Jools Holland and even James Martin. I know, a long story.  Only recently have we ventured to see theatre there and the Harper Lee classic was as good as any starting point. Not least because it was a West End Production by Jonathan Church Theatre productions, opening at the Leeds Playhouse in September and arriving in Eastbourne in early December. Set in 1934 Alabama,  To Kill a Mockingbird  was inspired by novelist  Harper Lee ’s own childhood and has sold more than 45 million copies worldwide. It won the  Pulitzer Prize  for Literature and was long at the top of the banned book lists. Successful lawyer, Atticus Finch, encourages kindness and empathy in his children, but is pushed to the limits of these qualities himself when he resolves to uncover the truth in a town t...