SMP sent brand new play

David Collard,  retired academic turned playwright, has sent the SMP a brand new play, Inventing the Truth Shelley v Trelawny and become our latest supporter. Below, he explains what first drew him to Shelley.

David Collard

Kathryn Attwood from local theatre company Lights and Bushels has already written and produced a play about Shelley's early years entitled Mad Shelley,  which received its debut at the Capitol Theatre in 2019. David's play, in contrast, focusses on Shelley's legacy in terms of both his poetry and offspring. Set in Wales, where Shelley’s great friend Trelawny lived, the one act play centres on a visit made by Mary Shelley to Trelawny in her later life.

David has kindly 'gifted' us his new play and we are currently reading it and have also sent it to our  friends at Lights and Bushels for further consideration. 

We are thrilled to have received the play and that David has agreed to become a registered support. David explains:

My interest in Mary Shelley was accidental. Over thirty years ago I came to live in the little town of Usk in South Wales. I had long been interested in Trelawny and discovered that he and his family had lived here for about twelve years. Eventually he bought a large house and planted an arboretum which now stands as a memorial I suppose. He also planted cedar trees in the local churchyard at Llanbadoc from cones found by him at Shelley’s grave.

Mary visited South Wales very late in life and the play assumes that she visited Trelawny’s house, mainly to see Augusta. She and Mary discuss the old days. Trelawny barges in denouncing the current view of Shelley’s poetry and the proposal to build a memorial at Boscombe. He rescues a young woman from the river, carries her naked up to the house and announces to Augusta that he is off to start a new life in London as a literary lion.

Apart from the present play I have written, among other things, Henry VII , a Play after William Shakespeare and a book of short stories.