I began writing in 2007 whilst on a break from acting. I wrote a play called Save Your Kisses For Me, which included the Brotherhood Of Man’s Eurovision-winning song. It was the first record I ever bought (I was very young and had questionable musical taste…. as opposed to now when I’m older and have appalling musical taste). I still remember the dance routine and can occasionally be seen performing it at parties, usually persuaded by friends and alcohol; which for me is halfway down my second glass of Merlot. I can’t drink. My friends call me a ‘Two-Pint Screamer’.
David Kerby-Kendall
I’m originally from Leicester (though I’ve lived in Muswell Hill for fifteen years). My Nan was an elocution teacher and insisted I speak ‘proper’. Honestly, I made Little Lord Fauntleroy sound common! I wasn’t allowed to have an ice-cream unless I pronounced Mister Whippy as Mr Fwippy. I moved to Kent when I was five (my Mum had died and I was adopted) and my accent dropped off a tad. It was my Nan who encouraged me to write and act. She was my soul-mate, best friend, and utterly irreplaceable. She thought I showed great promise as an actor, though she advised me not to sing professionally (‘darling, you’ve got a voice like a cat being ironed’). She wrote plays and her, my Grandad, my brother and me would record them on to an old reel-to-reel tape recorder. I still listen to them occasionally. I’m awful in them.
I’ve adapted three of David Walliam’s wonderful children’s novels for the stage. Mr Stink did a national tour in 2015, Ratburger in 2016 and Billionaire Boy is currently on tour. I’ve been very lucky as a writer and have had twelve plays produced in ten years, both independently and for Heartbreak Productions, for whom I’m the In-House writer. I currently have two other plays on national tours and my new play, 20:40, (about depression) is to be staged in London in early 2018, with me acting in it.
I worked for a bank for eight years when I left school. Goodness knows why. When it comes to accounts I’m as much use as a handbrake on a canoe. I’ve also worked in advertising (wearing pink braces and throwing a hissy tantrum if your double-shot gingerbread latte isn’t EXACTLY the right temperature) and I’ve been a butler at Phantom Of The Opera (spilling champagne down rich people’s sleeves).
I do all my writing in cafes. I write in long-hand with a fountain pen. I know this makes me sound like I’m about to disappear up my own bottom, but I can’t write with ball-points and I get absolutely no inspiration from staring at a laptop. (And the fountain pen was £9.99 from Amazon. There, you see, I’m not a snob…or, if I am, I’m a cheap one). I love the energy and atmosphere of cafes. Look around and people are writing books, plays, composing songs, making business deals, creating new projects and new friendships. And cafes are timeless. If you look closely, you can see Picasso discussing surrealism with Modiglani, Shakespeare chatting to Marlowe about tempests and twelfth nights. Creativity breeding creativity. I love it!
One of the reasons I wrote The Rainbow Player was to address how often we use labels to describe people. And how toxic they are; how they divide us. I recently watched a documentary on battered wives where many ladies who had been beaten senseless said, “I had to stay with him because he’s my husband”. Who cares what his ‘label’ is; he’s a monster and deserves to spend forever in jail. Why can’t a football player be gay? Who you cuddle and tickle and laugh and cry and choose duvet covers with doesn’t have a bearing on how good a footballer you are. A person is a person. We love people for who they are, not what they are.
When I decided to tell my best friend that, after a couple of girlfriends, I’d had a boyfriend and was very happy about this fact, I thought I would be subtle about it. I said, ‘Nessa, you know the really attractive girl I went out with before Christmas? Well, it wasn’t a girl’. She answered, ‘Oh my God, David, when did you find out?! I mean, surely you must have noticed she had a …thingy?’. I thought, well, if it’s going to be THIS difficult to tell people I’m gay, I might just stay straight!
I’m terrified of heights and spiders.
I wanted to make The Rainbow Player accessible to everyone, especially non-football-lovers. So the book is about Sammy’s coming-of-age; more about his life than his career as such; everything from losing his virginity to Katie Turnpike at a bus-stop (‘total disaster, bus came before I did’) to all the people he loves and that helped him escape from a deprived South London estate and an abusive father: Old Thomas, the bookseller and his surrogate Dad, Davey, his soul-mate and Gran, a modern day Mrs Malaprop who’s adorable but constantly getting her words wrong, and still insists on rubbing TCP on bruises situated where a 29 year-old probably doesn’t want his Gran to see (‘Ooh, trendy underpants, our Sammy. Look, Herbert, Kevin Kleins’). This way, everyone can get to know the real, fallible person behind the icon, laugh and cry with him and understand his impossible predicament when he has to be honest about his sexuality in a profession where it is the last taboo.
I don’t think any of us should grow up. We should always keep the seven year-old inside us. Children don’t adhere to all the unnecessary rules that we place on ourselves because society says that this is how we should behave. Who is this ‘society’, and what right do they have to tell us what to do? Five years ago I was at a friend’s funeral and I could hear her voice in my head saying, ‘You’ve grown up; you don’t skip anymore’. So I skipped, and remembered that life is for grabbing and flying as high and as fast as we want to. A couple of weeks ago, a 93 year-old ex-ballet dancer was being interviewed on the radio. She was asked, ‘Doesn’t it annoy you that you can’t do what you used to do?’. She answered, ‘Of course not, dear, I just do different things’. I LOVE that attitude!
The Rainbow Player by David Kerby Kendall (published by Whiteley Publishing 20th June 2017 in paperback and ebook is available to buy online from retailers including amazon.co.uk . For more information please visit www.davidkerbykendall.com