One of the great
pleasures of primary school was that on Friday afternoon, fifteen
minutes before the bell, Miss Smith would tell us all to pull our
chairs away from our desks and face the front and to close our eyes.
She would then read us 1a chapter of a story. In this way she
introduced me to the world of Narnia and other rather beautiful
tales.
I was lucky to be a
child of the Jackanory generation. Every day on my return from
school, I would sit myself in the front room, which as anybody from
the North of England will know is quite simply the poshest room in
the house, turn on what we referred to as the colour telly; the
pictures were black-and-white, but the television was orange, and lap
up whatever story was being told that week. Sometimes the storyteller
would make me lose interest by Wednesday. They just didn't seem to
believe in what they were saying but on other weeks, the conclusion
on a Friday would bring with it a deep feeling of loss and a desire
to run to the library at the end of the Lane and take out the book
and read the story in full. Looking back, it's interesting that both
of these experiences involve the idea of a story spoken word.
Something we tell each other.
The incident on
which I based "The Punishment” happened to me in the early
1980s when as an unemployed actor I had to find all sorts of ways of
passing the time and raising money. I wasn't as adventurous as Dan is
in the book, and I said no to the proposition, but the circumstances
that led up to it have often formed what I think is an amusing dinner
table story. I have told it in a variety of circumstances to an
awful lot of people, some of whom may have found their way into the
finished version.
Writing two
non-fiction books about the world of acting, I was immensely grateful
in being guided by an editor who told me to write in the second
person as though telling young actors how they might build a
successful career. That style stood me in good stead when I settled
down to create what I'd always wanted to write; a book that kept
people turning the pages.
The first exercise
we did on a writing course in France run by the fabulous Jane Wenham
Jones was to tell our partner an incident which had involved breaking
the law. Somewhere in the darkest recesses of my mind, the story
surfaced of the sexy burglar. My partner, an ex-CID officer from
Liverpool, who was a sheer delight and didn’t arrest me on the
spot, questioned me and I realised that here was the basis of a tale
that could take in a world I was familiar with. The life of an actor,
veering as it does from the depths of unemployment to the heights of
TV soap stardom and in the telling, I hoped I could have a little fun
along the way. I think a day where you don't make people laugh is a
day wasted.
Although it's not
popular in the genre, I determined that my finished story would amuse
as well as thrill. It was enormous fun to put my alter ego through
the situations in the book and to surround him with a cast of
characters who, I hope, would provide great opportunities for the
best of British actors if it's ever adapted for the screen. Whether
I've succeeded, is for you to decide. I just hope you enjoy making
the decision.
Paul Clayton
What do you do when you are an ex-soap star down on your luck and running out of money?
For Daniel Maple, a chance meeting in a nightclub presents him with an offer he finds hard to refuse...
But crime makes you pay.
And someone, somewhere, wants you punished.
His previous books are So You Want To Be A Corporate Actor? and The Working Actor and he is a regular columnist in The Stage.
.
He is a proud patron of Grimm and Co, the children’s literacy charity, based in his home town of Rotherham.
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