The Millennium Bible
This verse drama was originally written for radio. The first act was entered for the Alfred Bradley Bursary Awards run by BBC Radio North in 1996, and it was joint prize-winner of that award. The completed work was submitted to the BBC and the drama producers of that august body tried for 2 years to get permission to broadcast it, which was eventually denied. Many of the political references are now out of date but it is still good to read and will definitely be enjoyed by people who remember the Thatcher era and old stuff like that.
Peking Roulette
A stage play. Written for the Beijing Actors Workshop. It was performed in Beijing in 2009 and later at the Midtown Festival in New York
Short Plays
Some short plays that were written for the Beijing Actors Workshop and performed at the Peng Hao Theatre in 2009 / 2010. Girl in a Green Hat was done twice by two different groups.
Winter in the Shaolin Temple
An account of two months spent in the Shaolin Temple in the winter of 2001 – 2002
Food, Fang Shi Yu and how not to get a haircut
Some of my first impressions on arriving in China, including first impressions of Chinese TV drama.
The Derby Lodge Squatbook
In 1976 I moved to London and lived in the squats in Kings Cross for 5 years. This little monograph was written for my fellow squatters after the first few months of living in Derby Lodge, Britannia Street.
Comiso
A pamphlet written for END / CND about the campaign against the missile base in Comiso, Sicily. I also have another monograph on the Wilson Center website.
Chinese Poems
There are some translations of poems by three ancient Chinese poets. I did these translations because there was a thread on a forum I used to visit where people were posting translations and I was dissatisfied with the translations and decided to try my own hand.
My main beef with most translations of Chinese poems is that they are too keen to transfer every literal detail at the expense of the passion and the music of the original. That leads to an antiquated and orientalist view of the poems. To me it seems irrelevant that the maid opens a bamboo blind, what matters is that the garden comes into view. By concentrating on the bamboo blind (which was a commonplace when the poem was written but may be quite exotic to us now), we create a false emphasis on the exotic and the antique at the expense of the actual human feelings expressed in the poem.
I will probably add more poems from time to time. This is a work in progress.
The Basket
Youtube video of a play that was performed in Beijing.
Sealed Orders
Another unpublished radio play. Two astronauts leave Earth under sealed orders on a mystery mission. Where are they going? What is the plan? What wll they discover about themselves?