“It’s not real. Not any of it. It’s like a play and everyone’s acting in it and, at the end, I’ll walk out that big door behind me and shake my head. But that’s bullshit, isn’t it? This is as real as it gets. This is how it goes.”
This is How is a free-ranging adaptation of MJ Hyland’s highly successful 2009 novel of the same name. Patrick, a young motor mechanic, escapes to an English seaside village to lick his wounds after a relationship break-up. However, he soon discovers that his demons have followed him, and he will end up doing a very, very bad thing. This is How traces the journey of a man through Britain’s criminal justice system in the late 1960s. A highly theatrical work for three actors, This is How riffs off the Pinteresque touches in Hyland’s novel, propelling the audience into Patrick’s inner world. It’s waking nightmare where fantasy and reality co-exist, where a cigar is just an adjustable wrench (except when it’s a knife).
David Tredinnick has worked as an actor, writer, house painter and freelance radio producer. Apart from his work in the theatre, he has written and adapted work for the wireless, academic and literary journals, as well as for secondary students. His play, Song of the Bleeding Throat, will be produced by Eleventh Hour Theatre in early 2011.
This is How was commissioned with the support of The Joan and Peter Clemenger Trust.
The Cybec Readings are proudly supported by the Cybec Foundation.
