Talk about giving me a heart attack. I received a plain white envelope in today's post, which I idly opened while still bleary-eyed and caffeine-free. Whereupon I took out a letter, unfolded it, and saw the 'Soho Theatre & Writers Centre' logo at the top, followed by my name and address, and the words:

"Dear Mr Gardner, On behalf of everyone at Soho Theatre, it is my great pleasure to announce..."

It's at that point my heart stopped beating.

Sadly the rest of the letter featured very little about how they want to stage 'Be Worth It' for a two month run this summer, and rather more about 'The Verity Bargate Award 2004'. It seems that I'm on their official mailing list for playwrights (which is quite nice - at least someone thinks I'm a playwright), and now subject to theatrical junk mail of all kinds.

So ignoring the fact that they're already in possession of one of my plays, they're now wondering if I'd like to send them another one by August 13th, with the lure of £3,500 (pah!) and the mention that Sue Townsend won the Verity Bargate Award in the 1980s.

On the plus side, they insist you include "your CV listing all plays written and produced, when and where", so at least I know it wouldn't take long.

If your name's Lisa, you'll be shoving 'Internet Cafe' into an envelope as we speak.