Peter Kalu has written plays for stage, radio and film.

His first play was Afrogoth. Written for Radio 4, it came out of his 'Gothic' phase, a phase he explains as being related to living in Leeds!

He then wrote for Radio 3, Xango's Challenge, a variation on a story featured in Yoruba mythology. This was followed by Downfall, a gangster drama for stage, and then after a long sabbatical, Pants, the award-winning comedy for stage. Simultaneously with Pants, her wrote the ten minute detective film, No Trace. He is currently working on the double award-winning, Hills, Trees, Green Stuff, and on Carnival City, a community musical celebrating thirty years of UK based, West Indian Carnival.

His theatre play, Downfall received rave reviews from both The Independent and The Guardian He has had four novels published to date and his latest is due out in October 2001. His approach to research is eclectic, chaotic and uncoventional: This can incude walking around in Vampire costumes, learning Trinidadian stilt dances, convening a one-off meeting of all his ex-girlfriends, attempting to blag free meals from 'Indian' restaurants and joining a religious cult.

In the last three years he has worked on multimedia installations, dramatisations and writing and storytelling based projects with museums including: People's History Museum, Manchester Museum, Whitworth Art Gallery and The Imperial War Museum.

He runs occasional workshops in drama, an example of which is below....

Morning session:

The Set Up: the crucial importance of conflict. How it can drive your plot. A basic structure based on conflicting needs. Examples. Exercise: choose one from bath-house, launderette, four poster bed, changing room, rooftop, bus shelter, tent. Then introduce two characters at cross-purposes.

Character development: questions you need to be able to answer before writing your characters

Afternoon:

Monologue - getting your characters talking. Letting it flow. Examples. Exercise: writing a monologue featuring one of the characters you introduced in the morning.

Dialogue - What dialogue can do. Dialogue that flies - some examples. (Neil Simon?) Exercise: dialogue between two characters in a tight spot.

Arias: Are not only for operas: example (?). Exercise: have a go at writing an aria as delivered by one of your characters at a time of peak stress.

Questions and answers, discussion, anything else that arises

Participants can send up to ten pages of notes, ideas, or extract from their work in progress to arrive with me by min one week in advance of workshop date. I will try to provide feedback on it after the day's workshop."

No Trace Film Extract

ONE

1. INT. SHABBY OFFICE. DAY

DELROY JOHNSON is in one of the old warehouse type buildings in the middle of city centre, Manchester. Slowly we learn Delroy is a private investigator

DELROY
'Find him.' Easy. Easy to say. But it's not easy to do. Every city in the UK is just a train ride away, just a thumb hitch away, just a sell-yourself-one-last-time away. Truth is, I Delroy Johnson, I'm at breaking point. Take a look. My 'family album' of Missing Persons. Section: Juveniles. Dozens of them. Cute little kids from good family homes, the files say. Angels all of them. And all vanished into the thin air of the city. Scattered like little sparrows. I can't do it, dammit, can't find them anymore... Besides, this city, it's a chimera, a mirage. You seen this place from a distance? All those shimmering lights? The gorgeous pink and blue neons glistening like jewels sewn in a deep blue sky? Like a fairy blanket, it is. A heart stopping dream. Sometimes, driving back in my car, I look and it touches even me. Imagine what it is to these kids. From the distance it's Alice In Wonderland. (Pause) Sometimes I just sit down here in my office on my big fat butt and cry. Rub my eyes and bawl, you know. I drop a Bob Marley CD in the player, pour a rum, rub my 8 Ball head and cry - rub the grief out of my skull with the palms of my hands till it pours out of my eyeballs. (Pause) No, I shouldn't be in a job like this. I'm too soft. All this trails of wretchedness: trying to pick up fragments, bits and pieces of dreams, mashed up hopes, abuse and plain craziness. All this chasing shadows. Every which way there's grief. Every morning someone holding up pictures to me of somebody they know, somebody they love, asking me to find them. Lost souls that are haunting them. And if I do find them, they never look anything like their pictures. See how these ones stand in the photos, all sugar and smart in their best suits and birthday dresses. When I find them, they always look older. The stardust gone from their eyes. A thousand years older. Like they're walking with ghosts. Broken homes, broken minds, broken dreams, broken hearts, broken trust. Every day out there's like a desert storm - obliterates all the tracks. They come here to the city and -bssh- they disappear. Gone. Every morning I walk up these creaking stairs, just like you done, to this shoe box of an office. I come here, work the phones, get a little older. If I find one of the faces in this album in a month, I tell myself, well done, Delroy, you doin a good job, you doin a good job, well done.' ...

CHARLES:
Delroy, I'm not your counsellor. I'm a debt collector.

DELROY:
Give me time, Charles - something's bound to come along.

CHARLES:
Sure. Any minute a rich heiress'll walk through your door pay you a thou to find her lost poodle. You got one week.

DELROY:
'S'all I need.

Time passes: there's no trade. Flowers on DELROY'S table wilt, dry up, hit the waste paper basket. DELROY playing paperbasket basketball with scrunched up paper. DELROY shadow boxing - he's quite good actually. DELROY spraying air freshener in the room, on a whim, sprays his armpits too. DELROY chasing a fly with a swatter. DELROY looking at the phone: please ring, phone.

DELROY: (At desk) OK - thanks… yeah, glad you're so pleased with the job I done. No need for a bonus… If you twist my arm (writes 'Chicken Tikka' on pad) I'm blushing here, know that? Goodbye, Miss Hargreaves (To new client, who we at last notice, sitting in the customer chair) Where were we?

JADE: My daughter.

DELROY: Right, er, what's her name and what she look like?

JADE: Simone. Like me.

Gabrielle in her Teens  

It was my fourteenth birthday last week.  Daddy  says I'm old enough for boys to lead me astray now. I know lots about boys.   And music.  And film stars.  I got lots of presents for my birthday.  Some socks and a new doll and a little flag to wave and sweets and…    A new boy in class called Victor says he's going to give me a jewellery for my birthday.  I told him I'm not allowed, my Daddy will beat me if he find out, but Victor says how he goin find out?  …Nothing ever private in our house - a people always roun you.

Did I tell you about Victor?  He has gorgeous deep eyes you can drown in.  When he laughs the whole class fall about because he's so funny.  The teacher bawl him out but he nah 'fraid.  He has these big muscles on his arm - he let me feel them.  He live past where I live and he walks me home sometime, not to the gate - Auntie would explode if she see him with me.  He give me a wave when he goes like this and he ask to hold mi hand…

Today, the sky is bluer, the beach is sandier, my shoes is shinier.  Why?  Because I'm in love.  I know all about love.  I read about it in one of mummy’s old romance book   Love cures your spots and makes your heart swell and cures headaches.    Look what he bought me.  It’s a bangle. He bought it at the beach and me and him gonna meet there tonight.

My auntie follow me and follow me and follow me and follow me.  And Victor is with the boys and they’re all there together and chatting and wearing fancy clothes.  Victor see me and wave.  My auntie ask ( suspiciously) Is that a boy waving at you?  No Auntie, I giggle, me no know them at all.   Aunty stick tight on me like glue, like sand between your toe, no matter where me go me cyan lose her.  I say, auntie you like my ghost.  She say, no I’m your guardian angel . But she give me this crease eye look an don’t smile, like  she know something.  Then one of me sister arrive and auntie got problem.  Who she fe follow - she or me?  And she toing an froing like a grandfather clock! Me sneak away.

Victor have his guitar and he start playing me a song.  It make me sigh and me relax.  We hidden in the sand jus we two. Auntie wandering roun trying fe find me and Victor laugh and me laugh wid him cos it funny how she walk and search.  He play me another song says this one is just for you.  And when he finish he lean over and kiss me.  On me lips.

We meet again at this dance.  I was moving round the dance floor  I and two of my friend from school, oh! the music it sweet it get me deep I was swaying and turning this way then that, it felt so good, I felt I was floating, and I in love too!

Then he say dance wid me and we start fe dance and we outside. I did not know when we had left the other but I feel safe with Victor I always do - he more than a friend.   We dance first hand in hand and then roun mi waist and then he pull me close. I get this tingling all over and his hands start searching all over me like he lost something.  Then he lean me down and start fumbling wid me clothes, rubbing hisself against me.  He’s grunting.  Are you alright Victor?  me ask him.  He go quiet and say he sorry.  I don’t know what for. 

Suddenly Auntie fine us and she shriek like a bird.  Aiee! I knew licks was going follow. She start  beat me all the way all the way home, then mi daddy join in: you (whack) been (whack) making (whack) babies (whack) with  (whack)  some (whack) rahtid Romeo? In the midst of each lick I said his going England one day, he got ambition . And I know he love me !  My daddy said if he love you the right way then why he don’t come see me first  and tell me he would like fe walkout wid my girl, but no you to havfe snick round like puss ina bag!   I stilled my self, I made up my mind, I feel strong. I say, Victor he going to Ingland and I’m going one day with him (whack). Me cry till there’s no tears left in mi body.  Me  no unerstan, why daddy  talkin bout babies? 

Mi father go roun Victor house an Victor take some licks that night too fe sure.  Now mi not allowed fi see Victor and him haffi move a different class in school.  Every time in di morning now if mi ask for another pone  everyone look an sayn mi mus be preganant.   Auntie  she say we cyan afford no doctor bill.  She look worried all the time  She start walk me to school every day and walk me home.  Weekend she watch me work on di farm.

Victor friend come and tell me in class that Victor sorry an all that, his mother say we not to meet.  Sometimes I think about Victor, I think about his deep brown eyes and his singing and the way he laugh.  I still have the bangle he gave me hidden in mi bible case.