Directed by Roddy Begg, my play Chanceshot was performed at Aberdeen Lemon Tree, 2 evening  performances and an afternoon matinee, on 20/21 January 2009, part of a series of new plays, November 09 – February 09 selected by Writers and Actors Collaboration (WAC), who usually meet on Wednesday evenings at HM Theatre, Aberdeen to discuss playwriting and read scripts.  A very exciting initiative to be part of!

First written about 15 years ago for a competition organised by George Gunn, playwright and director, who was then Writer in Residence for Banff Buchan, Chanceshot won one of 4 prizes of rehearsed reading.  The 4 winning plays were read by professional actors with George directing.  (Many thanks George for your encouragement, without which I doubt if I’d have taken my playwriting seriously let alone written a full length play – and would never have started writing poetry.)

Chanceshot is about the changes in the fishing industry in the last part of the 20th century – social, environmental, politics – told through the story of one family. 

Although originally written in Doric and set in North East Scotland, the same changes were happening all over UK… and the story could be set in any fishing community in the UK in the 20th century.  A director in Grimsby has expressed interest in a future production of Chanceshot, which as now also available in plain English (easier to read than dialect!) 

Chanceshot – When his father’s fishing boat is tied up because they have already met their quota limit, Danny, a young fisherman, against his father’s advice and his mother’s wishes, takes a short-term berth on another boat to make some extra money.  The skipper, ignoring a very bad forecast, takes a terrible risk and sails out….