Greenwich Theatre To Host First Rehearsed Reading Of Wayne Adrian Drew's Controversial New Play

A local playwright who's become prolific during his "mature years", having written 25 plays since 2008, showcases one of them at a rehearsed reading at Greenwich Theatre on Sunday, October 18.

You Bring Me Joy, set in present day Blackheath, is described by Wayne Adrian Drew as "an emotional roller-coaster with a storyline strong enough to take the audience by the throat and shake them en route".

The reading has already attracted numerous names from the world of film and theatre, including writer Thom Racina, who discovered Brad Pitt and has had eight Emmy nominations himself.

The play is about a middle-aged American scriptwriter, played by the stunning American actor Nigel Barber. His wife is the wonderful Charlotte Moore and the big find is a young man called Michael Idris, who has already played Orlando in As You Like It.

Nigel Barber's film credits include both the Mission Impossible and Bond franchises. Charlotte Moore is an acclaimed actress who understudied both Helen Mirren and Kristen Scott Thomas in the West End production of The Audience. Michael Idris is an emerging actor whose credits include the site specific production of As You Like It for Butterfly Theatre.

"The play is about how a middle-aged, totally heterosexual man, married to a Latin teacher in just an ordinary marriage, is asked to mentor a young man who wishes to become a film maker" said Wayne. "An intense relationship of enormous complexity develops between the two of them. Anyone who knows how The Bridge on TV ends will find that this one goes even darker."

Wayne is from a tiny mining village in Wales and was the first member of his family to go to university. "Going into the arts was something way beyond our financial and social status," he said, "but I wrote a play in 1975 about Dylan Thomas and, a bit like a fairy story, a man called Thomas saw it and wanted to put it on in New York."

He abandoned his teaching job to go to New York and began an extraordinary career that went from a production post at the BBC to the British Film Institute - where he created the BFI awards - working for his "greatest mentor" Richard Attenborough and then joining the Prince of Wales as director of communications.

"So the boy from the Welsh mining valleys saw society at every level," said Wayne. "Then, as chief executive of IBCA, the professional body for business and public sector communications, I met Kevin Spacey and I was absolutely blown away by him. It was Kevin who said I should write something, so I did.

"You Bring Me Joy was one of the first plays. I wanted to write something very full bloodied and emotional. Although people might not realise it, the play is based on book six of Virgil's Aeneid, where Aeneas goes searching for his dead father.

"I've worked at different jobs throughout my life but this is what I find immensely enjoyable, and Greenwich Theatre is one of the jewels in the crown of London, let alone the borough.

James Haddrell, the theatre's Artistic and Executive Director, said: "I've been aware of Wayne's work for quite a long time. He's a very exciting writer and after meeting with him about his new project we decided we would showcase the play in this way.

"It gives people the sense of what the finished piece will be like and also the opportunity to meet and talk with film and theatre professionals in the bar afterwards, Usually, rehearsed readings are held behind closed doors for a select group of people but I think it's much better this way because it's the public who will ultimately be buying tickets for the play when it's produced in London or around the world one day."

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