The Soho theatre was once one of the better theatres in London. It was always highly politically correct, of course, but had the courtesy of providing a playwright with a detailed assessment of his work. Recently, however, it has, to use the colloquialism, completely jumped the shark.
I just received this rejection letter from the Soho after them having the script for barely one month. Now, anyone who knows anything about these things realises that no theatre will read an unsolicited script in less than three months and I've had theatres take six months to a year in the past.
In the above letter, the second paragraph in particular is instructive. They oddly describe the play as having a 1950s setting when, in fact, it is set in the 1530s. This seems more than proof that they have not read the script and barely speed read the covering letter; it appears to be a Freudian slip on their part.
Before this a lot of the usual waffle about resonance and contemporary etc. followed by a line admitting my play was all these things (and more). What could be more ever resonant than a play about individualism and the abuses of power?
I recall that the last attempted revolution in this country was led by the Duke of Monmouth. At his last stand, in Somerset, he marshalled his troops with the old hunting cry: "Soho!" He would be shocked to think that now Soho is no cry of rebellion, but of absolute conformism.
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