Melt: The Readthrough...

My first play reading in 10 years has been and gone.

The dialogue rattled along and worked, the gags worked – and in some cases should have been filthier – and the new structure hung together pretty well and was an improvement on the first three drafts.

There were obviously some problems that I noticed, even if nobody else did: the central character still needs to be more at the heart of the play and his fall from grace needs to be more accelerated and from a much greater height; there are some parts where the plot mechanics need to be clearer; some gags repeat too often; and some of it is overwritten and needs another edit. The very talented cast also gave me a few ideas with what they did on-stage and during rehearsals.

But overall my first reading in 10 years was a pretty successful affair and has really galvanised me going into the rewrites.

I was also really touched that a lot of the people I love were there to support me: the Missus, the Other Woman, the Other Woman Who Loves Other Women, several of my pool-playing pals, my martial arts teacher and her wife, etc.

And they all laughed at the show's best two gags. One involved a game about a porn film title, 'Glad-he-ate-her', and the other involved a joke about dwarves and statistics. You had to be there.

And, if you were, thank-you. If the quality of a life can be judged on the quality of the people around you then I'm doing pretty well.