Pulse

An encouraging feature of Pulse is the opportunity it gives to emerging local talent. The New Wolsey's Springboard Rehearsed Readings suggests another positive step in the region's promotion of creative writing.

The Rehearsed Readings is a presentation of work generated by a group of writers who were led by Danusia Iwaszko's writing workshops earlier this year.

Six pieces were presented, all of which were answerable to the call made by the Scottish playwright David Greig: "Nothing should be on stage that doesn't demand to be there".

Sian Notley's Piggy In The Middle is a humorous piece that explores the strains of family relationships; Nikki McDonagh's The Sign Watcher tracks the troubled life of a young religious man; Rosalind Hewitt's Foreign Bodies is a thoughtful observation on the stigma attached to immigrants; Pete Watkins' Ancestral Voices focuses on society's fear of hearing voices; Jenny Barnett's Fra-g-ment-ing brings to life the difficulties of caring for elderly parents; and Clare Shaw's Parenting is about an interview with a writer whose books on parenting have had disturbing results.

The ordering of extracts produced variation in style and content. The pieces were relatively short which gave the whole presentation a snappy edge and easily retained audience attention. To emphasise the work of the writers, the staging of the pieces was minimal.

The talkback session at the end provided insight into the process of script-writing and revealed Springboard's plans for the future. The discussion over the transition from script to stage was particularly interesting as it emerged that the scenes that worked on stage were often ones that didn't work when read on paper.

As well as being a display of writing talent, the Rehearsed Readings was also an opportunity for the actors to take a variety of parts. The nature of the scripts allowed them to act some roles that they would not usually be given. The standard was high and despite scripts being used onstage, it did not hinder the quality of their performances.

However, by the end I did feel that the presentation was more for the writers themselves than for the general public. Rather than being a performance, it was a presentation of the creative process. The writers were the ones for whom the presentation had the most meaning because they were experiencing how their scripts could be brought to stage.

I was the privileged witness to the final part of their journey and watching this was a valuable experience. The ticket price was relatively low (£3), but it would be good to see it as a free entry event to promote creativity and writing workshops.

Next year Springboard plans to take one or two of the pieces for further development and staging. It would be exciting to see how the project continues as it offers such a fresh and original touch to the festival.