Hello Emilia!

Thank you for your lovely letter.

You would like to write a play of THE GEEK THE GREEK AND THE PIMPERNEL? That’s amazing!

And it will be even more amazing if I can give you some advice about how to write a play… Well, I’ll try but please don’t come and hit me over the head with a soggy haddock if the advice turns out not to be very helpful.

Keep it short and keep your scenes short. Have a max of tens scenes (and probably a minimum of five)and make sure you know what you want to happen in each scene.

Never have people talking unless what they say adds to the action, so you keep pushing the story on all the time.

Don’t feel you have to tell the whole story; select what you want to use and skip anything that’s too tricky. It might be fun just to try to use the mystery of who is the Pimpernel as the thing that drives your version of the story.

Remember it is your play so you can do what you want.

And most importantly…

Have fun!