A workshop last night for this play I've just angrily bashed out.

Silly to say it was totally miraculous as we just peered at each other, out of our screens, and said stuff. I babbled over-enthusiastically and tried to entice people to share hideous secrets.

But it was a beautiful reminder of what I've missed about this theatre-making business.  

I have a version of the script in my head. And it was as fascinating as ever to see how people have let this version worm its way into their heads until the characters have become something like real for them.

There was a great debate about whether one character would swear in front of her mother or not. (I obviously have no boundaries or respect. The others do.)

I learnt that Bev's character, Viv, drinks whisky. I had her down as a gin drinker but of course, whisky. makes total sense. 

I learnt that Richard's character, (Rode)Rick's anxiety is fed by watching all his friends getting on with life around him, courtesy of social media. Of course that would make him feel worse.

One of the young ones said something I've felt but articulated it far better than I have. That time just slides by at this time. She'd go upstairs to her bedroom, she said, and start on something and realise suddenly that hours had passed.

It hadn't even occurred to me that Helen, the patient, long-suffering, trying to hold it all together nurse, might be paranoid about passing on the virus to her kids - which is a foolish oversight.

And my (bubble) world was sharply shaken when it occurred to me that maybe Helen, single mother and daughter of a single mother, might be terrified at the prospect of she herself getting the virus, dying, abandoning all of them. 

My heart is fat with the joy of making something and then watching it get better in front of my very eyes, thanks to the collective wisdom and love that comes from the group.

Redraft next. Then we can begin.