(I delayed this from Friday for reasons that I will explain below but from now on it'll be Friday mornings.)

Hello hello,

As I started to write this, I realised that to present the origin and development of an idea as a linear process doesn't speak to the truth of the way your instincts, emotions and drives knot together. I also realised that the script development is a different thing from the idea development (though naturally both evolve together). So what you're getting is a non-linear presentation of how this adaptation coalesced and I will actually look to explore what changed between drafts and why more fully next time around. Anywhere, here we go...

It's January 2020 - I'm in New Zealand for a friend's wedding. I've injured myself playing football immediately before flying out because I am very clever and the ensuing immobility means that I'd doing a lot of reading. And what I'm reading is a book containing the letters of Russian writer Anton Chekhov, spanning his whole life. The letters are brilliant. Genuinely fascinating and funny. I'm liberally posting relatable quotations about not wanting to write on Instagram. There are a lot of them.

It's mid-2017 (I think?!) - I'm in a writers' room for Doctor Who, explaining my pitch for a story. It involves the Tardis being snared by a generation ship that is moving at a speed, on a defined course, from which it cannot deviate from or it risks never getting to the intended destination. I talk about how, in a funny way, the idea of a generation ship - where you never will see the place you're hoping to get to, but your descendants will - feels not dissimilar to an immigration narrative, where one generation makes the biggest sacrifices in the hope that their kids and grandkids will have the future they always hoped for. I like sci-fi the most when it hooks up to something emotionally tangible like that. We bat around ideas to fill in the loose idea, work up a rough plot. It's really fun but not quite right. So it goes.

It's November 2018 - My paternal grandmother, Kamla, is packing for a trip to India. Her first one alone since her husband passed away last year. She's excited. She's trying on some nice clothes. She looks so commanding. I am aghast that she is going to take three big suitcases with her. She smiles and jokes that she needs four.

It's May 2019 - I'm meeting Jay Miller, the Artistic Director of the Yard Theatre for a general chat about writing something for them. Truthfully I'm not expecting anything to come from this. The Yard is perhaps best known for its experimental work and though I've liked a lot of what I've seen there, it's not really my style. I tell Jay words to this effect and then I remember, half-joking, that I do have this one idea...

It's February 2018 - I'm tweeting Theresa Ikoko, saying that I want to put a big Chekhov style brown family drama on a spaceship.

It's September 2017 - I'm writing the eulogy for my paternal grandfather. I think about his name, Jayanti. What it means. How to honour it.

It's July 2018 - We've just done a reading of my play An Adventure at the Bush Theatre. It's going on in September and it's clear that it still needs a lot of work. It's the biggest thing I've ever done, both in terms of scale but also in the sense that it is an attempt to capture something of the lives of my grandparent's generation before they all die. Especially as I've named the characters "Jyoti" and "Rasik" after my maternal grandparents. And Rasik is still around to see this play Eep. Pressure. Some of the notes involve a desire for more plot and incident. They aren't wrong. But I've been doing a lot of plot and incident in my telly work and I'd rather write something more intensely character-focused, that Theatre of Mood that you can get away with if you're someone who isn't me. The sort of thing Chekhov is great at.

It's 19th April 2020 - The world has kind of exploded. But as a silver lining, a group of brilliant actors (who all happen to be free because of the world exploding) are kind enough to come together and read the first draft of my version of The Cherry Orchard or, as it is labelled then in order to let me feel free with it, Brown Chekhov in Space.

I am unsure whether this will be the final title. The reading helps enormously. The transplanting of the plot onto the spaceship seems to be working, but there's a lot of work to be done still in stepping away from the original and trying to make this play the best version of what it now is.

It's September 2020 - I'm writing a second draft of Brown Chekhov in Space. I think about memory, legacy, how easy it is to be forgotten. I write some lines for the 'eternal student' character:  "TALWAR: The other week, during one one of my trips to the abandoned zone, I found an old etching in a bulkhead. It said: “Jayanti was here.” Simply that. “Jayanti was here”. Scratched with such pride, as if one should know, centuries later, who the hell this Jayanti was! Pride is a distraction from self-reflection. And from taking the necessary action to evolve. All there is is the work towards progress."

It's 12th February 2022 - I'm visiting my paternal grandmother in hospital. It's a beautiful day. I know already, somehow, that it's her last one. In Bolton, a beautiful revival of An Adventure is playing its matinee. As I try to calm down my agitated, disorientated grandmother, I tell her that in another city, right at this very moment, a version of her story is being told. I brush her hair. I hold her hand. I imagine her on the bridge of starship. I play her a video of her great-granddaughter burbling. Something in it cuts through. I'm aware that I've overstayed my covid-specificed slot and leave. An hour later, the matinee performance finishes. Minutes after that, my grandmother passes away. 

I arrive home to my empty flat and decide that I will go ahead with my evening plans and go watch a friend performing in a play at the Orange Tree theatre. Watching a play written by a brown woman and performed by two brown women somehow seems like a good way to honour the woman who raised me. 

It's (early, pre-lockdown) March 2020 - Nothing yet is terrible. I'm writing a Patelogram, trying to grapple with the possibility of "brown neutrality" I know that I am interested in this being a play that was built with specificity, but could be adapted for other places and needs. I write a long note at the front of the play trying to make sense of these desires.

It's December 2018 - I make a project file called Brown Chekhov Style Space Play. I imagine an older brown woman, dressed in ceremonial garb, looking not unlike my maternal grandmother in a photo I've taken of her. She's on the bridge of a starship, speaking to a younger version of herself (a clone, perhaps? Not sure yet). I give her the first words of the play: "I'm interested in the dead."

It's July 2022 - I'm finishing a rehearsal draft. The play is called The Cherry Orchard. Partly because I don't want the actors to feel like they're in a joke, and partly because I've tried to honour the play of the man whose letters I've loved reading. The note at the front of the play has been greatly simplified. It now reads:
 

The action takes place an indeterminate number of years in the future, on a generation ship travelling through interstellar space. This ship, with this crew, is the one I care about. The first. Others can come after. You decide from where on Earth (or beyond) your ship departed and what the circumstances of it leaving were. Change names, genders, references, the title if you like.

 

But this will always be the first ship.

It's April 2021 - The world has kept on exploding. My maternal grandfather has died and I've come off a job in quick succession. I feel the lowest I have for a long time. Spending these lockdowns alone have damaged me in a big way that I'm not even aware of yet. But something about this situation lends itself to rewriting my version of The Cherry Orchard with a deep truth about what it means to be stuck in a place, bored, dreaming of more. By stripping everything good about modern city life, the pandemic has given me a Chekovian moment that I never expected. The draft I write is one of the favourite things I've ever written. I tell the people who have commissioned me that I think the draft is really good, which is something I have never done. Luckily, they agree.
 

 

It's 18th May 2011 - I am 25 years old. I am studying for a Masters at a London drama school. I am worried about my future. My grandparents are worried about my future. But, at this moment, I take some solace in being a student and knowing that the future is not quite over yet. I came onto the course thinking I would be writing a film for my final, full-length piece but I have been seduced by theatre which has previously not figured hugely in my life. So I'm trying to watch as much of it is I can so I can learn to do write it one day. It will be more than three years before my first play goes on. But right now I am sat at the very back of the Olivier at the National Theatre. On the stage in front of me is Famous Actor Zoe Wanamaker (allegedly - from my seat it's hard to know). She is starring in Famous Play The Cherry Orchard.

The production is fine. I suspect I am a bit bored but I am also aware that I have no idea what's good and I know that This Is Good so the fault lies with me. And then we are at the very end of the final scene. The house has been abandoned. The doors have been locked (nailed, maybe?) shut. The stage is bare. And then on shuffles the elderly servant, Firs. My jaw drops. They other characters have spent the whole bloody scene talking about how someone has made sure Firs has been looked after and they've only gone and accidentally locked him in. Is...he going to die? Yes he is. Bloody hell. This is the bleakest, darkest, funniest thing I've seen in ages and I cannot believe that this is happening in a Ye Olde Play. All set up with sitcom precision without me realising it.

I will think about that moment for ages. I will talk about it for years and years to come. It will be the moment that keeps that play in my head. It's what I'll mention in a pitch, when I'm trying to impress an intimidating theatre person who I want to like me, when I'm trying to seem like I have The Right Taste at parties. But I don't know any of this yet. All I know is that, as I applaud the bow, I'm thinking: "Maybe The Cherry Orchard is pretty great actually?"
 

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KITTY KORNER

So here's the reason for the delay of this newsletter: I know my cats have some admirers among you and so I thought you'd like to know that today is exactly FIVE YEARS since I welcomed the cats into my home. Keeping to the theme of origins, for those of you who don't know the story, the short version is that there were three cats that hung around my estate who I came to love and eventually adopted.

The longer version...I'd see these cats on my way home, which was always a treat since they were incredibly friendly. Not knowing their owner or their names, I identified them by their most present attributes: Chill Cat, Hero Cat (very keen on big leaps and fighting foxes), Pretty Cat.

Eventually they'd come and hang out on the "porch" outside my flat whenever I sat outside at night. It was at a point when I was at my most depressed and just that simple thing of a creature wanting to rest their head on your legs made everything - in those few moments - feel bearable and light. For a couple of years, this was a bit of cycle that gradually become more (wonderfully) intense. They'd start to follow me on walks around the blocks. I'd often find them waiting for me as as a trio outside the front door when I came out.

Everyone on my estate loved them, and its from this adoration that I learned that they were in fact brothers and owned by a woman named Jasmine opposite me on the estate. I never met Jasmine. I had heard that she was wonderful and, sadly, also quite poorly. She passed away in the summer of 2017. I was gutted I never knocked on her door to say hello like I had intended. I did manage to talk to her stepmother while she was helping to clear the flat and she mentioned how it was a shame that the three cats would have to go to a shelter. Jasmine loved those cats. They were born and raised on this estate. I immediately offered to take them in (apologies to my then housemate, who I did not ask first).

And so began the process of slowly acclimatising them to a move across the road. My neighbours, others on the estate who knew both Jasmine and the cats, were keen to be involved. One even helped me construct a cat house out the front of my flat. It was a long process (teaching older cats how to get in and out of my flat through a window was a joy) but felt like a genuine achievement whenever I saw them napping on various bits of soft furniture. Alas, Hero got sick quite quickly and had to be put down. His ashes were scattered on Jasmine's grave, where they belong. 

The other two, however, continue to thrive and delight to this day. They saved me in lockdown as they did in those first few months I knew them. They've taught me the meaning of unconditional love in the context of dealing with vomit, poop and the occasional small mammal they've brought home. They're so emotionally attuned that they were a huge comfort in the multiple times I was grieving (Chill Cat actually licking tears off my face).

A few months ago, a neighbour passed me in the street and asked how the cats were getting on. I told her there were a few medical niggles as they got older - fifteen now! - but I think were having a nice time generally. She said that she'd seen them about, thought they looked great and told me Jasmine would've been very happy. Honestly, in that moment, it was the best feedback I'd ever gotten.

Happy anniversary, lads. Cheers for it all.

Vin x

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