martinforeman.com thought-provoking drama and fiction

Home Drama     Full Length         Volpone a new version     One Act         Casanova Dreaming     One-Man / Woman         Angel (m)         Californian Lives (m/f)         Now We Are Pope (m)         Tadzio Speaks . . . (m)     10 minutes         The Report Monologues Performing Rights Fiction     Novels         The Butterfly's Wing         Weekend     Short Stories         First and Fiftieth         A Sense of Loss         Anthologies Non-Fiction Shop Contact Tweets by @actserious

"It is very easy to preach celibacy if you have no desire." Angel "I was young enough not to realise what I was letting myself in for, and young enough that if I had known I would not have cared." The Butterfly's Wing "Name me two cities and I'll tell you how to get from one to the other. La Cañada and West Covina? Come on, give me something difficult. Two-ten east then Ten west or Two-Ten east, Six-Oh-Five south and Ten east, depending on traffic and whether you want the Plaza or the Country Club." Californian Lives "Gets so, nobody's story's true. Not yours, not mine. But it's all we've got." First and Fiftieth "I have always found the Faith comfortable but the Faithful intolerable, almost every Catholick a sedulous ape, a treacherous snob, a slanderer, an oppressor or a liar." Now We Are Pope "We would fight and forgive, leave and live and love each other. He is everything I desire, he is my desire and he is here before me, he is here for me." A Sense of Loss "Disorientated still, it seemed to me that the world was a void in which only this stranger floated; unthinkingly I stared at him, trying to understand him, until his glance fell on mine." Tadzio Speaks . . . "It was as if he had awoken not only from the previous night's sleep but from the last three months and the growing happiness he had felt had been no more real than the morning's dream which had already faded from his mind." Weekend This site focuses on my writing; for my work as a theatre director, see martinforeman.me.uk My first story collection and novel were written from a primarily British gay perspective while my later fiction offers a much broader view of human experience. Throughout, the predominant themes have been desire, love and loss. The perspective is often intense and pessimistic, which I am aware limits my readership. Apart from brief forays in youth and middle-age, my involvement in theatre began in 2011. Having acted in comedy and drama on stage and on screen in London and Edinburgh, I am now more often behind the scenes, as writer, director or producer. In 2018 I won the Pitlochry Festival Theatre Short Play Award for The Report. I am currently working on two projects for the first half of 2020: (a) directing Noel Coward's Hay Fever for Edinburgh community drama group EGTG, and (b) creating a new version of The Satyricon for Arbery Productions. My non-fiction consists primarily of studies of the social causes and consequences of HIV/AIDS across the world in the 1980s-2000s. I also wrote light journalism - travel articles, book reviews, opinion pieces - during this time. Born in Dundee, I grew up in Edinburgh. My next forty years were spent working across the globe, first as a teacher of English as a Foreign Language, later as a consultant in HIV/AIDS education, briefly as a tour operator. Over the years I have made a home in London, Halkis (Greece), Rio de Janeiro, Los Angeles, New York and Bangkok. In 2014 I returned to Scotland, where - notwithstanding the threats of independence and the collapse of civilisation from overpopulation and climate change - I hope to spend the next forty years. After that I have no plans. I dislike social media but post occasionally on Facebook and Twitter as "actserious". This site does not use cookies and does not retain any data relating to visitors. Any email received will be treated in confidence and no details passed to third parties.