Guest Blog: Playwright Nick Dawkins on The Long Road of Bringing A MANCHESTER ANTHEM to The Stage

How long does it take to develop a play before it's ready for an audience? At the end of July my first play A Manchester Anthem will begin it's run at The Hope Mill Theatre, finally being performed in the city it's named after, before transferring to London in August. I began working on the play over seven years ago. 

I was just starting out as a writer, living with my Best Friend, Tom, who was studying acting at LAMDA. I told him if I ever wrote a play for him it would begin with his character strutting onto stage dancing in his underwear. It was a stupid, throwaway joke at the time. Then a few months later, I decided to turn that joke into a full-length play.

Every aspect of the script was written to showcase Tom's strengths as a performer, his physicality, his range, his thunderous energy. The themes came out of those sprawling late night conversations you have in your early twenties, stumbling in from the pub and passionately vomiting up all our thoughts on politics, education and class.

Before the end of the year, I had a first draft. I nervously presented it to Tom on his birthday, sort of a joke, sort of a gift, not expecting anyone else to read it until he came to me a few weeks later suggesting we try and put it on. 

I was thrilled, in my head the hard part for me was over, I had already written the thing. Instead, the real work began, getting together a team willing to donate hours of their time unpaid. When we eventually performed a work in progress version of the show at The Space Theatre two years later, we had all invested hundreds of hours into it. We took time off work, used up holiday, to be able rehearse. All our failed Arts Council bids meant we were still working for free, and were completely exhausted. 

We were scheduled to perform at VAULT Festival in a few months, but when it was delayed a full year due to Covid it was clear we all were ready to take a step back and rest. Then, luckily, our final Arts Council bid was accepted. Suddenly we could afford to rehearse, to hire a rehearsal space, to bring on board set, lighting and sound designers. We were able to develop and grow the show in ways that we just couldn't afford to before.

During our run we were awarded the Pleasance Pick of VAULT Festival award, which gave us a slot, as well as financial and marketing support to perform the play at the Pleasance Courtyard in Edinburgh over the fringe. Taking a show to Edinburgh was something we would never have risked without this support. 

Now almost two years later we are bringing A Manchester Anthem back again. I'm not sure if we tried today, we would have ever got it off the ground in the first place. So much has changed in the last seven years. Arts Council cuts might mean we would be stuck without the funds to ever get a performance on its feet. The VAULT Festival, which used to run every year giving exposure to so many fantastic plays, comedians, and artists of all kinds, no longer exists. The Edinburgh Fringe has only become more and more expensive with accommodation costs alone pricing out so many artists in recent years.

I'm not sure there's any one rule for how much time it should take for a play to be staged, but I know that without proper funding and support, we will miss out on plenty of great shows that will never get the chance to grow.