"Laugh Out Loud... a tremendous performance of an extraordinary play". Owen Dudley Edwards, Author, Journalist and Historian.
"One mountain, one man, many memories. The hills are alive with the sound of voices past". Fraser Grant, Artistic Director at Drayton Court Theatre, Ealing.
Conrad Turner in Laugh Out Loud. Conrad is also staring in Tramlines.
Synopsis
'C' takes us into the seedy world of the contract killer for whom murder isn't a mission or a spree, but a vocation. What begins as an interview for an apparently straight forward assignment turns into a ritual of paranoia and corruption. Who's out to kill whom? Lynne Harvey's writing combines the rare qualities of lyricism, originality and wit; moreover it displays a genuine love of the English language - she wields it as expertly as a swordsman wields a rapier and she takes no prisoners.
Fraser Grant, Artistic Director at
Something For The Grownups
A run down seaside town, Lancashire, off season. Ronnie and Manda fry the fish and bait the boys, only the hooks never come out.
.... imaginatively staged, concisely written shocker which plays on the audience's sensibilities to just the right extent.... but makes for an unrelenting gripping study in remorseless evil". Chris Bartlett, The Stage
Snack Attack
Directed by Fraser Grant, premiered by Forward! Theatre Company at The Joiners Arms, Hackney, London, 1997.
".....made me laugh a lot, especially the opening, lovely".
Neil Bartlett, Lyric Theatre Hammersmith.
"....some good opportunities for physical comedy as well as some sharp lines".
Alan Strachan, The Theatre of Comedy.
"....a very funny piece"
Thud Magazine
"Lynne Harvey's comedy 'Snack Attack', makes its world premiere as nature intended. Three actors who have never whipped it all off 'because the script demanded it' before, play a body builder, a soldier and a librarian who wake in a deserted park to find themselves stark naked with no idea how they got there. And if the soldier isn't gay, how come he's looking up that muscle Mary like a birdwatcher in the Hebrides?" Thud Magazine
Analysis
This is an extremely well crafted and moving play which holds the attention throughout. Even without the constant shelling and mortar attacks in the background and sometimes marking the end of a scene, there is a sense of danger in the interaction between the characters and in the situation. Inevitably this play covers some of the same ground as 'Journey's End', but we are not dealing here with public schoolboy officers. Spicer is in fact on the outer, not being in on the officer's circle. The two soldiers are privates and agricultural workers dominated by their Laird. The argument ranges around the rights and wrongs of war, the wisdom of the common soldier as opposed to the official version put out by the officers. Characterisation is excellent and consequently the dialogue is economical and tight.
"It is 1956. Estate Agent John Rudyard Pinfold, who lives on a farm with his mother and brother, has discovered a new fuel - Spazuel - which will power a rocket to the moon. Not only that, this fuel in a seam beneath one of his fields can be treated to produce a super-hard material from which to make the rocket ship itself. He phones Prime Minister Anthony Eden ( who is much more interested in the cows and how his mother is feeling ) and President Eisenhower, who is eventually interested and sends over a team to develop Spazuel. And that's where things start to go wrong. It becomes clear that John Rudyard Pinfold will not, as he had hoped, be the first man to land on the moon and that he has become a tiny cog in a huge machine, excluded from the development of his discovery. The play - a one man piece, in which Pinfold is played by Miles Carver - is what one might call a bitter -sweet comedy in which John Rudyard-Pinfold loses his naive innocence but finds love. Put so bluntly, it sounds somewhat sentimental, but writer Lynne Harvey avoids slipping into this trap and instead produces an amusing and enjoyable short piece which has something to say about dreams and reality".
Peter Lathan, British Theatre about.com
"The play examines the crisis of being an extraordinary, yet insignificant man in the 20th Century. The acting is excellent and the production boasts several poignant moments". John Hendry, The Scotsman
Below are descriptions of just a few of Lynnes plays that have been performed across the country. More to be added in due course (I am terrible at blowing my own trumpet).
Lynne Harvey's life as a writer started off with writing short stories. She pursued other careers, lived in London for a few years and actually got out into the world and met people. She has worked in and managed shoe shops, video shops and hi-fi shops all across London including; Oxford Street, Regent Street, Edgware Road, Piccadily and Holborn.
"Lynne doesnt just meet people she takes them on, listens to their stories and is genuinely interested in what people have to say, their life, their history, their stories - always on a human one to one level and never as a basis for future work which is where a lot of writers make big mistakes. Most relationships are transactional, Lynne's aren't. She hates the word 'contacts', refuses to use people and sees all people as possible friends.
Her writing was always in the background until she joined the Chester Gateway writers group - "This is where I changed from writing prose to dialogue and it felt like coming home". Run by Benedict Ayrton with writer in residence Lavinia Murray - "It was a very special writers group and I have seen nothing as dynamic or pivotal since leaving that group". She went on to write 'The Jingo Drill' which told the tale of the mutiny of 1917 and a captain going slowly mad with two Scottish soldiers struggling to do the right thing. An interest in the first world war being with her since she was a teenager.
Lynne is a strong defender of TV drama from the past where creativity and new writing was nurtured and not put through a sausage machine. "Cop and doc series (detective and medical) have taken over TV drama. The formulaic, the stereotypical, the two dimensional is winning the battle. Creative new writing is at the very bottom of the pile. If you want to do something different you have to do it for yourself. Play For Today, Play of The Week, Play of The Month, Armchair Theatre, Tales of Unease and others in this genre are remembered fondly and with good reason, sharp writing, good ideas and true creativity ruled. Yes there were some questionable productions in this pack but a good ninety percent were but superb and well crafted on every level".
She has written numerous plays, monologues and shorts for theatre, her main collaborator being Theatre and Opera Director Fraser Grant - "Fraser and I understood each other from the off, we have very similar interests both personally and professionally but we are different enough to make not only our relationship but our creativity work". Fraser has directed 'Strangers In The Night' , in post production 2010. A film concerning the immediate events after a car crash.
She has also written many theatre and TV columns, including the much missed and ever informative Theatre About.com and the fantastic rogues and vagabonds. She recently had a letter published in the Radio Times about the state of TV drama. Her narrative on stage directions has been taken up by Harper Collins for their 'Go Create Theatre' packs which go into schools and can be bought independently.
The Jingo Drill
These are some of the comments about The Jingo Drill.
Synopsis
Two highlanders, McKinlay and Dulwinnie, are up to deserting and take shelter from snipers in a trench which curiously is well supplied with whiskey. Disillusioned with the war, McKinley is leading the 19 year old Dulwinnie who just wants to go home and marry his Morag. They discover they are in a trench occupied by Captain Spicer - feared and famous for shooting deserters. Spicer returns and confronts the two men, throws duty and patriotism at them, but he is clearly off his head with battle fatigue and the best he can do is shoot McKinlay in the foot. Stretcher bearers are summonsed, but only one makes it through alive, Roberts, a pacifist milkman from Gravesend via Clapham. It transpires that Spicer has been missing for four days presumed dead. Roberts leaves with McKinlay, but Spicer and Dulwinnie become trapped by falling debris. As time goes by, their units are retreating leaving them stranded and wounded. Dulwinnie remembers his unread letter from Morag and asks Spicer to read it to him, pleading dust in his eyes. Spicer reads part of it but refuses to finish it until he realises that Dulwinnie can't read. Morag has married the Laird and the Germans have reached the trench.
FELTHAM WE HAVE A PROBLEM
Directed by Fraser Grant, premiered at the Sunbury & Shepperton Arts Festival. Also performed at Edinburgh Festival.
1956. A Feltham estate agent leaves his office for the night, goes back to the family farm and rings Prime Minister Eden and President Eisenhower about funding for his rocket to the moon. He's rung before.......eventually they listen.