$howing €nterprise

Aspiration and adversity. Three plays by Steve Gooch. Includes Running Wild, Bill of Health, and Handover. For purchasing details please see the Publications page.

Running Wild

When, thanks to bored estate agent Sharon, Edward and Emily find the country retreat of their dreams in a disused railway station, they little suspect that they will soon fall foul of environmentalist Ray, nimby Phil, Mr Jones of Planning, their best friends Bob and Louise and, to cap it all, a beautiful barn owl.

Bill of Health

First performed on radio, this stage version begins at the end of the hippy era when Si and Jenny take over a loft. Soon after seeing its suitability as a place for friends like Pete to work out, the business-minded Leah begins to realise its potential now that the ‘health biz’ is beginning to take off. Differing attitudes to their ‘golden egg’ threaten to tear the friends apart, but a suprising turn pulls them back together.

Handover

Explores the fate of a family running a high street print shop over three generations and four decades.

Fresh from university in the late 1970s Robin (a “sarky girl” according to his gruff grandad Will) is surprised when his down-to-earth father John suggests he might take over the shop. But Robin wants to be a journalist (“You know they’re all poufs?” says old Will.) It also outrages sister Sarah in her art school dungarees and she accepts a challenge from her dad to put the shop on a new footing.

By the end of the 1980s the shop has had a total makeover but is in serious debt, and Robin’s pregnant fiancee, Phyllida can help them out. Sarah huffs off, swearing revenge and by the 1990s has opened her own shop a few doors away. John worries to his dying father Will that the new emphasis on PR (or “RP” as he mistakenly calls it) is detracting from productivity in the back shop and, getting impatient with a photo op Phyllida has organised, simply walks out. By Christmas 2007 John is pouring paraffin in the front shop and about to set it all alight when Robin stops him. By night Sarah breaks into the empty premises and is surprised when Will’s ghost sweeps up in his wheelchair. He wants her to take it over, but will she?