Write Now festival returns

The Write Now festival of one act plays has found a new home in the Unity Theatre, and things get underway next week. Six brand new pieces, one from outside the region and five from Merseyside-based playwrights will be being performed from  Wednesday (September 18) to Saturday (September 21). “We relocated to the Unity and have tweaked the structure for this our fourth event, putting the focus firmly upon the playwright and director,” says festival founder and director Ian Moore. Margot Agnew’s Guardian Angel looks at how one woman’s desperation to seek a cure for her sick daughter leads her to be drawn into occult practices which have unexpected results. Happiness by Danny Whitehead asks the question if, when we're happiest, are we at our most vulnerable? The play is described as "a dark but uplifting exploration of love, rage, and forgiveness". Two Liverpool born playwrights, Brian Brown and Johnny Parker premiere new pieces. Brian explores moral values in Hoverin’ on the Edge where two young men seek to profit by volunteering for charity but have their outlook changed by the experience; while Johnny takes a Billy Elliot-esque approach with Stings like a Butterfly, where life alone is the toughest fight for ex-boxer Biffo. Could salsa save him or is he too macho to mambo? The financial crisis within the NHS bring a little more comedy to the festival with Mari Lloyd’s light-hearted Last Tango at St Leonards. With innovative management, loyal staff, generous volunteers and grateful patients what could possibly go wrong? And a poignant story of "trainers in the fridge, Lady Macbeth, and the love between a daughter and her mother" makes up the six productions with Angela Walsh’s Road to Skibbereen. There are a whole host of other events to see and get involved in as an audience or as a creative: The Write Now Writers Challenge will bring together three playwrights, six performers and a director for the first time on the first Wednesday morning of the festival, their task being to stage a piece of brand new material on Saturday afternoon. In addition, four brand new fifteen minute pieces written by Liverpool-born or based playwrights will receive script-in-hand performances. Each play will be performed twice at different dates over the festival - for more information, see the Unity's site.