Game Over. Mark Wheeller

      Introduction

      I am often asked how I arrive at the subject matter for my plays.

      For most of my career I was a teacher/youth theatre director, so would choose subjects to interest/motivate my groups to produce their best work. The skills these performers picked up would cascade into the drama classroom. I guess that’s a factor in whatever I do but, as time has moved on, I was offered commissions where I had no choice about the content. This explains why I wrote so many road safety plays, commissioned off the back of the surprising success of Too Much Punch for Judy, rather than any passion I had about road safety.

      In recent years, I have been fortunate enough to be commissioned and allowed to choose the content I think will engage and motivate young people in their drama/theatre work.

      The story of how I came to author Game Over significantly links to a childhood experience of my own… more of that later.

      Game Over began with Fiona Spargo-Mabbs, mother of Dan, (from my 2016 Methuen Drama play I Love You Mum, I Promise I Won’t Die) and a Facebook post she made when she visited 10 Downing Street. Fiona was delivering a letter on behalf of the PSHE Association to campaign for statutory PSHE in schools. Alongside her were two mothers; Sasha Langton-Gilkes who lost her son to a brain tumour and Breck’s mum, Lorin. I had seen nothing of Breck’s story in the media despite extensive coverage. As soon as I saw Fiona’s post I looked Breck’s story up and remember thinking…

      “I’d love to write a play about that!”

      I spoke to Fiona, and she revealed Lorin had asked her about I Love You Mum and had expressed interest in a play telling Breck’s story. Fiona put us in contact but, given that I had just retired from running a youth theatre group, warned Lorin that it would need to be commissioned and a performance group found.

      Cut to October 2017 and out of the blue I receive an email from Zoë Shepherd, Assistant Headteacher, at Beaumont School, in St Albans, Hertfordshire.

      Dear Mark,

      We have just been awarded Artsmark Platinum and are keen to keep driving things forward. We have been looking for a play suitable for our Year 9 Drama Company to perform that explores LGBT+ issues. Anything we read doesn’t seem to be what we need. As we were discussing it, I said it would be great if there was a Mark Wheeller play (we study Missing Dan Nolan as our OCR GCSE set text).

      Is there anything in the pipeline or is this something you would be interested in exploring with our school if we could find funding for a commission?

      Zoë.

      Here’s another coincidence! Two months previously, I had agreed to dramatise a transgender story for another school. Funding was, I was told, being sorted. Contracts were drawn up and I had signed my side of them. I didn’t want to write two similar plays so I explained the situation and cheekily offered up the possibility of Breck’s story. (The transgender play never happened, as the commissioning school were unable to achieve the funds needed to develop a play – it’s not easy.)

      Meanwhile, Beaumont had jumped at the idea of using Breck’s story and made a successful bid to the National Lottery Community Fund for the project… writing and production.

      Things happened fast! Lynsey Wallace, Head of Drama at Beaumont and responsible for organising the bid was incredibly proactive, giving me total confidence in her ability to make this whole project work.

      The bid was granted in August 2018.

      Between September and October various permissions were sought, contracts signed and, throughout October, I conducted the interviews.

      Those with Lorin and the triplets were conducted in their home in three segments across about six hours. I spent the afternoon with Lorin alone, who told me everything up until the Spanish holiday.

      The triplets arrived home from school and told their version of the whole story, with Lorin chipping in. It had been unclear whether they would be willing to talk so it was such a relief to me that they did. The teenage voice is always a benefit to any play where teenagers will be reading/performing it.

      Their version of events, reflecting on an incident that happened when they were in Year 7 from the vantage point of now being in Year 12, was fascinating and hugely emotive (as you will see when you read the play).

      Some aspects of what they said (for example looking