Skins

I watched Skins on E4 last night, and as much as I was looking forward to watching it, I was also concerned that there was a TV drama that seemed (from the promotional material) to be my entire 'Hoodies' play! Well, I can breathe a sigh of relief, cos although it's a bit similar, it's not really the same at all. Skins is about a group of 16/17 middle class kids who go to a tech college and live in Brighton and smoke spliff, party and have sex a lot. In last night's episode, the group tried to help one kid lose his virginity and they ended up driving their stolen car into the canal. I enjoyed the programme, but it was also good because it made me focus on how my play is not like this show; it helped me to define what I actually wanted to write about. 'Shilton Rec', or whatever I'm calling it at the moment, is about a group of 14 year olds who are lost and forgotten about, who drink and shag and smoke because there's nothing else to do. Society is afraid of them, so they are outcasts, sitting outside a shop, in a park, anywhere brightly lit and safe, killing time until it's bedtime and they can go home. It's about teens in the countryside, and how they're affected by social decay and the economic deterioration of their villages that saw their parents and grandparents having to look elsewhere for work. Yes, they swear and shag and get themselves into trouble, but the undercurrent of their situation is a lot different from some posh seventeen year olds from Brighton. So thank you E4!

New rota means I have to write 2,500 words three times a week in order to achieve my self-imposed deadline of a completed first draft of Inter Vivos by April. Wish me luck!

In other news, I've just had my hair cut, and my new fringe is starting to piss me off already...