Tip Tray Event – What Happens Next? –  Friday 19th January 2024

What Happens Next? is a playwriting competition, pitting writers, directors, actors – entire theatre companies against each other to produce the most engaging, compelling and gripping first 20 minutes of a play that’s possible to make.

Following on from last year’s epic success of the three-night spectacular, Tip Tray Theatre has well and truly earned its place on Hope Street’s 2024 programme. This time round sees six play segments performed over two nights. Each night, the audience and the judges get to vote for the play they want to see return to the stage. These plays are invited back for the grand final on Saturday 20th January, when there can only be one winner, the one play Tip Tray Theatre will launch as a full theatre piece with the help of Papatango. Lets see how night two went and who got to the final!

Play 1: Play 1: Pointless? Written by Bernie Winston, directed by Ellie Thornhill

Gill’s aspiration to be on the TV game show Pointless is fulfilled when she teams up with friend Gerry, a quiz aficionado and compere down at the local pub. The dream team, right? Wrong. Things don’t start well when the London Underground map proves too much for the colour-blind Gerry and get worse when they are greeted by stage manager Jules who disapproves of the contestant’s wardrobe choices – uncouth Gerry proudly unveiling a completely inappropriate Hawaiian shirt. The hapless Bootle-based duo clash with privately-educated Jules’ whose patience eventually runs out as the pair bicker and squabble before even a question has been asked.

Fast-forwarding through the show, which inevitably goes badly, the two settle down into more sombre and personal musings. Gerry reveals how he’s single and hankers for companionship (“Someone to watch Top Gear repeats, play Trivial Pursuit with and sit at the top of the stairs pretending to be on The Chase”) and Gill reveals her own difficult home life with her mother and daughter who lives with a life-threatening condition.

The staging and direction is simple and effective and the acting is spot-on propelling this light and amusing story. Perhaps more of the poignancy we see briefly could have been further explored to give this introduction more depth and texture? And, of course, what next? Is our quizzing couple beginning to bond in a way that suggests more than just friendship and will Gerry’s secret that he’s broken Pointless rules by applying for the show on two occasions be rumbled by Jules.

Play 2: Four Written by Elspeth Todd, directed by Ellie Begley

Four is a heavily stylised and visually arresting play that attacks the senses from the outset. The play opens with teenager Elspeth on-stage lip-synching the words of toddler Elspeth who we see on a grainy film behind her. The play then flits between choreographed physical theatre with multiple actors and Elspeth narrating her own life story via flashbacks. We witness school incidents (being told off for chewing gum) and awkward encounters with boys before we ramp up to our central character being asked to go to reception where a key life moment is clearly about to occur.

Recalling last year’s entry Pink (Incorporated), this is an engaging, highly technical piece of theatre displaying superb synergy between the producer, director and actors. It’s an autobiographical story that in this opening sequence only begins to scratch the surface of, what I expect, to be the full gamut of human emotions. I confess to feeling slightly overawed and intoxicated by the opening - being someone who prefers old-fashioned dialogue, but this is clearly imaginative and distinct theatre.

And there is something intriguing in that this is just one quarter of the story. We hear Elspeth’s version of events but she is only one part of the jigsaw, a member of a family whose journeys we get to go on next. It’s beautifully set up.

Play 3: Tomorrow Drifters Written by Jack Mcloughlin, directed by George Caple

Tomorrow Drifters is set in Liverpool and begins on New Year’s Eve. Billy has just dropped out of university and can’t face his dad so goes round to Eddie’s flat to chew it over. These two are clearly best mates and cut from similar, but not identical, cloth. Billy is having an existential crisis, if it’s possible to have one at eighteen, unsure of his next big life move. He misreads the signals of a girl he fancies (“Three kisses on a text means you’re halfway to a neck”) invoking an awkward moment and is troubled by the anniversary of a dead girl friend and laments not having the bottle to ask her out when she was alive. Eddie prefers to study at the ‘university of life’ and sit on the couch puffing on fags and ‘green’. And he really doesn’t want to go to Josh’s party.

The relationship between these two lads is entirely believable thanks to a superb script, steeped in heavy local dialect and colloquialisms, and fantastic acting. I lost count of the number of ‘lads’ in the first minute but this is not ‘scouse humour’. Their banter is genuine and not laden with signposted gags and quips about all things scouse and it’s refreshing to see such authenticity. And underneath their bravado we find sensitivity. There is a brilliant moment where Billy is confronted by his father about his decision to drop out of uni and we see Billy’s fragility. He bemoans ‘society’ pressuring him in to thinking he should have his life panned out and like many young people, he’s confused and unsure of who he is and what to do.

The set is minimal but used effectively, including one extremely memorable transition to a house party, and complements this warm, funny and poignant opening twenty minutes. The characters are superbly drawn and we feel totally invested in their lives.

The winners

The audience vote: Tomorrow Drifters

Rarely do you watch twenty minutes of a play and feel like you really know someone. But in Billy we have a rich and layered character whose journey we all wanted to be a part of. This was my pick of the three.

The judge’s vote: Four

Similarly, Elspeth’s life is one we already know a lot about and want to know more about. And this heavily stylised and distinct play clearly captured the imagination of our judges.

Tomorrow Drifters and Four join Kill, Boom, Stop & Run and A Submarine for Mice in tonight’s hotly anticipated final.

Written by, Ted Grant