Browse Sections
Interactive
Popular Sections
Partly sunnyMagazine
On safari in Cheshire
by Conrad Astley14/ 4/2005
WRITER Tim Firth says a lot of his own experiences went into his
latest play The Safari Party.
The play, having its Manchester debut tonight at the Library
Theatre, is set in his own native Cheshire.
It revolves around a dinner party, in which the characters shift to
each other's houses for each of the meal's three courses, and an
old table, sold to one of them by a shady local.
The playwright freely admitted this was directly lifted from his
own experience, saying: "The table in question was one I was
sold.
"Some woman in an antique shops regaled me with some story about
how the markings in the wood were from Woodbines the farmer had
smoked when he fell asleep after a hard day's working in the
field.
"I was being sold this idea, whereas what would really have
happened was the farmer looked at it, and thought `this table's had
it, I'll go and buy a new one from Ikea'.
"A lot of people have got this very idealised view of the
countryside, and want it to be this place full of corn
dollies.
"There's some young farmers in the play, and what really fascinates
me is these are lads who would really prefer to go out clubbing,
and aren't at all interested in running a farm."
Born and brought up in Warrington before moving to a barn
conversion in rural Frodsham, Tim says he has far more to do with
the play's middle-class characters than with the indigenous
farmers.
However, he has now developed an insight into the hypocrisy behind
what he says is a middle-class attempt to preserve the countryside
- often at the expense of those trying to make a living in it - and
wanted to attack this idea in the play.
While writing The Safari Party, he was being forced to rebuild the
shed he used as a study, after influential local characters
complained the building did not fit in with planning regulations -
being 18in too high and likely to affect the openness of the
Cheshire plain.
Tim said: "No-one is able to build a modern-looking building in the
green belt at all now. It would have to be in keeping with the
countryside, but that really means in keeping with how the
countryside looked in the 19th century.
"At the same time as this was happening some farmers we know had
their land taken from them by the local authority as part of a
compulsory purchase order to create a tip.
"These are the guys everyone thinks they're trying to protect.
There's a lot of inconsistencies, and that was what I was looking
at in the play."
The countryside has provided a setting for another of Tim's works,
the film Calendar Girls, based on a true story about a group of
women's institute members who made a nude fundraising
calendar.
The writer admits being blown away by the film's success, saying he
thought it would be watched by a few people like his mum and
grandma, but had no idea "they would all go to see it".
By coincidence, Tim had bought the calendar from one of the
original WI members several years earlier, and had been on holiday
to the village where the events took place every year since his
childhood.
So when a producer asked him to write the script - starting afresh
after another writer made a failed attempt - Tim felt he knew the
characters and finished it very quickly.
Tim, who oversaw the transition to the small screen of his play
Neville's Island and was also well known for the series All Quiet
On The Preston Front, says he is happy writing for the stage, as
well as for TV and film, and despairs that many of theatre's best
writers are lost to television.
However, his latest work is another film. Kinky Boots, due out
later this year, tells the true story of a traditional Northampton
gentleman's shoe factory which lost its niche market until its
bosses hit on the idea of creating boots for transsexuals.
Meanwhile, another stage show is also in the pipeline, and a new
production of Neville's Island has just opened in Birmingham.
After more than a decade since the original, Tim was called in to
re-write a scene in which one of the characters - marooned on a
Cumbrian island after a management motivation course goes horribly
wrong - describes a method of killing trout by battering the fish
with a mobile phone.
The passage needed re-writing out of consideration for the size
mobiles had shrunk over the years - a task the playwright never
envisaged having to do.
The Safari Party opens at the Library Theatre tonight
(Friday).
Got an opinion you want to share?| Company | Typical APR |
| Platinum Exclusive Loan | 7.8% |
| Sainsbury's Personal Loan | 7.9% |
| Halifax (Semi-exclusive) | 8.6% |
| Bank of Scotland (Semi-exclusive) | 8.6% |
| Alliance & Leicester | 8.7% |
| Provider | AER* |
|
ICICI BANK HiSAVE Savings Account |
5.50% |
|
SAINSBURYS FINANCE Internet Saver |
3.50% |
|
FIRST DIRECT Everyday e-Saver |
2.75% |
|
ALLIANCE & LEICESTER Online Tracker |
6.00% |
|
ABBEY Instant Access Saver (Special Issue 2) |
6.00% |
|
ING DIRECT Savings Account |
6.00% |
|
ALLIANCE & LEICESTER eSaver - Issue 2 |
6.30% |
|
ABBEY eSaver Direct |
6.00% |
|
POST OFFICE Instant Saver |
3.75% |