“I wrote four subjects on the blackboard, however there is one pupil who decided to write about a FIFTH subject that I did NOT write on the blackboard” so said my teacher in Infants 1 Primary school. I was not yet six years old, which is why I was innocent enough to believe she was complimenting me…until she tore my first essay in two and sent me to the headmasters office. Luckily, the headmaster (Rabbi Cohen) was a dear and kind man, who first calmed me with orangeade and buscuits and then stuck my essay back together with selotape and actually read it. And loved it.
Maybe he saved my career as a writer :)

I write comedy and drama for theatre, tv and cinema and have done quite a bit of songwriting too… I love writing although it’s probably the loneliest and most sisyphean part of my profession. Of course, I have the characters to keep me company (or drive me mad!). At the dialogue stage, if I do not hear the characters themselves speak in my head – I cannot write them.