AMANDA VERLAQUE

THIS SH*T HAPPENS ALL THE TIME

BY GARY CAMPION

For those readers who know nothing about you, your career or plays, give us an overview of who you are and how you got to where you are today.

I am a queer woman in my 50’s, I am a fiery feminist from a working-class background. I have worked as a freelance journalist and an arts and entertainment journalist. I then moved into TV development and production but I always wanted to write. Writing was something that had burned in me for a long time but I was afraid to do it, it was when I hit the age of 50 I decided that I had to stop thinking about it and start doing it. I have been writing full-time now for 6 or 7 years and the majority of my work has been for theatre. I love writing plays but I am currently dipping my toe into TV land so who knows what else will happen in 2024.

You have been lucky enough to have worked for the BBC in various positions.

How did you get to that level?

I gained my initial training at the BBC, I started as a reader of unsolicited manuscripts, it was great onthe-job training as I got to fine-tune what was good, bad and indifferent in the scripts for television. I’ve worked for various companies and broadcasters since then, as a script editor, storyliner, producer and eventually as an executive producer.

What advice would you give any budding writers from your vast experience?

Don’t just watch TV, devour it!

Download all the free scripts from the likes of the BBC Writers Room, read your favourite scripts and then go back and watch that show to see how they have been constructed. Keep writing one word after the other, something Stephen King famously said when asked how he writes.

Keep asking yourself questions as you are writing, live and breathe your characters, if they drink wine know what wine they drink.

Develop a thick skin and never submit a first draft Script. Give yourself enough time to write it, then put it in a drawer and forget about it for a while. Then go back and read it. You’ll see loads of options to improve it and opportunities to edit out lines that you’d be mortified if anyone had read. It’s called a “Vomit Script” for a reason!

One final and most important piece of advice I would give anyone wanting a career in the arts is to support each other’s wins and celebrate local talent. If we work together and support each other opportunities will come, we have so much amazing talent here.

You are currently promoting your play “This Sh*t Happens All the Time,” I was lucky enough to see it during its run at the Lyric Theatre in 2022. (FYI I thought it was Brilliant!)

Can you tell our readers what they need to know about the play without giving any spoilers?

A young woman falls in love, her girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend responds with murderous intent. It is a love story that goes off the rails because of homophobia and misogyny. It is a story about homophobic hate crime when the term didn’t even exist. Whilst we have made so many strides in terms of equality and visibility it’s still not good enough as “this shit happens all the time,” still! My favourite strap line for this play is “Who we love shouldn’t come with a death threat.”

What was your process from initial thoughts for this play to what we can see today?

I wanted to write about it because it always stuck in my craw that something like this could have happened and still happens. I wanted to tell my story, my lived experience. I tried to write it so many different ways but it just wasn’t ready. I ended up doing it as a 10 x 9 event at the Black Box, where you have 10 minutes to tell a true story. It is just you at a podium, with your script and if you go over the 10 minutes a Klaxon sounds and you have to stop. My script was timed at 9 minutes 30 seconds and I realised I had the bare bones of the story. I used this as the spine for the script that exists today, helped along by funding from the Imagine and Outburst Festivals, the Arts Council and the support of many, many people.

How close to your real-life experience is the play? Practically all of it, especially the emotions I went through, the fear I experienced and how I came out the other side. It’s amazing how you can think about things \ experiences in your life and they can be quite sketchy and other things like this are engrained and stuck in your head and you remember every single part with great clarity. I think that’s because it was so traumatic. There are a few moments that are dramatised for effect or the demands of the production but there is something creatively freeing about that when it comes into play.

If I were to put a percentage on it I would say 85% of this is my actual real-life experience.

Why did you choose for it to be a one-woman show?

It’s strange as I can never actually pinpoint how or why it ended up working out the way it has, maybe it’s because I did it myself as a 10x9 and then it developed from that.

I can see how it would look with more than one person on stage, but its power lies in the fact that it’s just one person telling the story in all its joy and despair and ultimate positivity. It’s a lot of work for an actress, to carry 65 /70 minutes with no interval but Nicky Harley is an amazing performer and Rhiann Jeffrey is one of the best directors in the business.

If you could pick one Oscar-winning actress to play the lead, who would it be and why?

There’s a line in the play “Jodie Foster isn’t going to come knocking on your door anytime soon.” If you are of a certain age then you grew up with Jodie, from her roles in Freaky Friday to her Oscar winning turns in later years. She’s got an amazing presence and knocks it out of the park to this day. If there was ever a chance of this becoming a film I hope that her agent tells her this is the perfect part for her! So, it’s Jodie Foster!

Were there any things you were unable to include in the play for whatever reason?

There wasn’t much I didn’t / couldn’t include. I think if anything the bits that were edited out allows the play to pack a bigger punch. It is a very lean show where every moment counts. You know sometimes when you watch something and think to yourself this could’ve ended 20 minutes ago? I didn’t want that to happen.

If you could go back to where the start of the play is set and give your younger self one piece of advice, what would it be?

Listen to your gut, I wish I had listened to mine. I knew there was something wrong and I regret not listening to my gut. I don’t beat myself up about it now but I did back then.

If something is too good to be true it generally always is!

A lot has changed in the law since your experiences, but there is still some way to go for better equality and protection within the law. What would your advice be to anyone who potentially is experiencing any sort of homophobic hate crime?

Report it, report it, report it. If you don’t feel you can go to the PSNI then go to The Rainbow Project, HereNI or Cara friend. They all have Hate Crime officers who will support and help you through it all. By reporting it you are helping build accurate figures which have a real purpose and life to them, they are evidence that “This shit happens all the time!” The only way we are going to stop it and challenge it is by reporting it and calling it out. This play isn’t just for the LGBTQIA+ community, this is a play for allies and people who don’t even realise they are allies yet.

Finally, what is next for you after This Sh*t Happens all the time?

I am working on a play for the National Theatre for their Connections season 2025 for and it’s about challenging homophobia, not surprising I hear you say! This particular play is about challenging the normalisation of homophobia and hate crime.

I have just started writing a play about older lesbians and I am also developing a female-led comedy drama for TV, but I don’t want to talk too much about that cos I don’t want to jinx myself.

I would love someone from a production company to come and watch this play and have the guts to say right let’s transition this to TV or film. You only have to look at what has happened with the Post Office scandal and the power that drama has had with that true story. There’s a real power in TV dramas that call out homophobia and hate crime so let’s keep telling our stories!

I am going to keep writing about complex, flawed female characters, about the world and my place in it and hope that the generations coming after us see positive reflections of themselves in every walk of life.

This Sh*t Happens all the Time! Tickets available at www.goh.co.uk