Well I've finally succumbed to the pressure of certain people (Lisa) who are determined to ruin my record of never having had a play rejected in my life (unless you count Shotley Drama Group, who prefer to just ignore me for 15 months and hope I'll get the message), and I'm submitting 'Internet Cafe' to the International Playwriting Festival at the Warehouse Theatre.

Which has meant an entire weekend of work, largely due to the fact that I prefer my screenplay to my original play, and was therefore keen to work the two main extra scenes from the film version into the stage version. It's all very technical, and involves a lot of eye strain, eating Pringles, and cursing at Microsoft Word, but after two days of stress I now have the definitive version of 'Internet Cafe', which features all the swearing of the film version, but without the exotic location shots.

Interestingly, the Warehouse Theatre casually and caringly state that "any play offered for production elsewhere before the judges' decision is announced will be disqualified", which is very lovely of them. So I wonder how they'll feel if the shadowy Leigh returns with his Bedfordshire film company, and makes a definite decision to shoot 'Internet Cafe' this summer. I think I'll just forget to mention it. And besides, the screenplay still contains at least half a dozen extra lines of dialogue, so essentially they're two entirely different scripts. I'm sure they'll understand.

Right, well I'm all theatred out, and it's a bank holiday, so I'm off to eat chocolate cookies with my niece.