8. The Plays (6): Butterfly Fingers

Synopsis A short (20 minutes) two-hander - high on comedy with a pinch of something darker. Terri, a British Weather Girl, interviews for a job as the 'Face of the Race' to the Persian Gulf War. 

The script for Butterfly Fingers is published alongside Gifts of  War in 'Two into War'

Production History

'The Face of the Race to the Persian Gulf'- or Butterfly Fingers as it became, was first commissioned by Soho Theatre as part of a 'play-in-a-day' event called 'Write Now', in November 2002. The original commission was to write, rehearse and produce a short play in 24 hours, based on the day's news.

Soho Theatre Company, 21 November, 2002. Directed by Janette Smith

Terri........ ....Candida Benson

Martin...........Darren Strange

A revised and re-titled version was subsequently commissioned and produced by Menagerie Theatre for the Hotbed Festival on New Theatre in 2004. This production was directed by Josie Rourke and designed by Lucy Osborne.

Terri........Anna Maxwell-Martin 

Martin......................John Kirk

Fraser's View  As the ancient Chinese proverb goes - When presented with a challenge like 'read the morning newspaper, write a play based on that news, we will rehearse it in the afternoon and perform it in the evening' - it is  a good idea to cheat. The one thing I knew for sure would be in the paper that day was...the weather forecast. Meanwhile, lots of thoughts about the media-in-times-of-war were slamming around in my head (a hangover from working on another, full-length and never-produced play, Girl on a Tank).  The result was a two-handed comedy which, refined through a couple of rewrites, was commissioned by the Hotbed Festival in Cambridge, becoming Butterfly Fingers. My funniest play on War to date?