AUTOBIOGRAPHY plays a big part in the writing of playwright John Godber.
He transformed his experience as a teacher into the play Teechers, he drew on his experiences as an aspiring actor working on the bins for Seasons in the Sun, and recently his time on a course to overcome his dislike of flying formed the basis of Fly Me to Moon.
So it is with some trepidation that I ask if his latest play, Screaming Blue Murder, a supernatural thriller about a man having an affair, is based on his own experiences.
Not particularly," answers Godber, one of the nation's most performed playwrights.
But everything is fed by something. I always seem to pull the short straw when I'm staying in a hotel because I always seem to get the room next to someone who's behaving badly.
In Screaming Blue Murder, the action takes place in a hotel room where Nick has planned a dirty weekend with his mistress Gill. But it seems there are more supernatural forces at play when piercing screams are heard from the rafters.
This seems something of a departure for the man who has made a career out of perfectly capturing the emotions and idiosyncracies of real life.
It's different in that it is a mystical thriller, said Godber.
But you've got to keep raising the bar or you'll end up treading the same ground.
The set is also quite different for me. It's a traditional box set, a real bedroom, with a real telephone and real wine being drunk. It's different because it's more substantial than the elastic sets of something like Men of the World.
The fascinating concept for me is the way this guy has checked into a hotel for a dirty weekend with his mistress but guilt plays on his mind. He knows he shouldn't be there and the guilt he feels is increasing.
When they first met there was this physical attraction but he realises he really doesn't know that much about her.
This is the first ever tour of Screaming Blue Murder and although a version of it premiered at Hull Truck, the theatre where Godber is artistic director, it underwent some dramatic rewrites before it began the tour a few weeks ago in Sheffield.
Godber is also about to start work on a companion-piece to Screaming Blue Murder, called Black Tie and Tales, which takes place in the same hotel and at the same time.
In the New Year, the plays will tour alongside each other with the same actors and be performed in rep.
Screaming Blue Murder runs
at the Swan Theatre in Worcester from Monday, November 3, to Saturday, November 8. Tickets cost from £8 to £16.50 and are available from the box office on 01905 611427.
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