Meet The Prestons.

This evening will mark the 2 year anniversary of a 25 year old me, crouching down on all floors behind a soundbox in a dark studio theatre; hands over my head, heartbeat in my mouth, trying not vomit on the floor.

My debut play 'Anomaly' was in its final scene, and I knew in only five minutes time that I had to face a packed studio theatre, largely populated with my family and friends, after they had witnessed the play I had been writing for over 2 years. Relationships, jobs and haircuts had outlived my writing process. I knew the three Preston sisters - my protagonists - better than most of my own friends and family. And now, they were in the public domain, and I had to face the music.

The youngest daughter of the media mogul powerhouse Phillip Preston had been with me since the beginning; back in 2016. She lived in a different draft of a different play, and was a far cry from the stubborn and feisty Polly Preston that ended up on stage. The glamorous socialite middle sister Penny had originally been called Pearl, and had first appeared in the first official read through of Anomaly, though just in voiceover form. Piper, the eldest sister, CEO of the family business and fierce matriarch of the Prestons had sprung into my mind on a late flight back from Munich in 2017; the final piece of the Preston family puzzle.

I had been working full time as a waiter at Flat Iron, often not getting in from my shift until midnight. I would write until the early hours, only to delete everything I had written out of sheer embarrassment the next morning. To say it was a laborious process would be an understatement, but I gradually chipped away at the boulder. Every so often a big chunk of rock would crumble away and I would be filled with elation, wanting to scream out of the window like a millennial Archimedes, 'EUREKA!'. Those moments kept me going, but it was no surprise it took me so long to finish a solid first draft.

I didn't think the script was anything of note, until I started the playwriting course at The National Theatre in early 2017. 10 weeks of collaboration with about 12 other writers had allowed my imposter syndrome to subside a little, and I was filled with a feeling I had never really felt before when these writers would discuss my work. What made sense, what didn't. At that time, it was an ensemble piece of around seventeen characters; eventually this would be whittled down to just the three sisters. Ryan Craig, playwright and tutor for the course, pulled me to one side after our penultimate session. 'You've got something really special here' he said, addressing me with a directness that I had come not to expect from him, 'but you are controlling it too much. Let it breathe; just trust it, and let it happen.' On the way home, I nearly backflipped into the Thames with joy. After months of writing alone in my room, that little nugget of feedback was something that I had so desperately craved and was enough to keep me going at that boulder for a little while longer. I hugged that feeling close to me as I skipped down the river towards Waterloo station.

Enter my future director and producer, Adam Small. Adam was (is) the boyfriend of my good friend Ayesha, who was also working at Flat Iron at the time. She passed my script along and he fell in love with it - a feat, I was told later, that was incredibly rare. 'I'll give it a read, but I'm way too busy' were his initial words, but after only a few days he had arranged a meeting with me. 'This needs to be on this year or next.' He insisted, with an urgent flash in his eyes. I wasn't surprised at insistence; the subject matter was steeped in the MeToo movement, with my unseen antagonist, Phillip Preston, acting as my own Harvey Weinstein. The MeToo movement, we hoped, would rage on for years, but the press attention undoubtedly had an expiry date. In order to keep the story as relevant as possible, we needed to act quick. Anomaly had to be on soon, and it was not going to be easy.

Fast forward 6 months, and Adam and I were sat in a booth at the Picturehouse Cinema in Piccadilly, pouring over hundreds of headshots and CV's. The Old Red Lion Theatre in Angel had picked up the script, and we had January 8th 2019 booked in as opening night. It had all become very, very real. We knew that Broadway World were announcing The Old Red Lion's Autumn/Winter Season in September, so the pressure was on to find the perfect actresses to make these 3 women come to life. I had made it clear to Adam from the beginning that I felt really strongly that the three sisters needed to bear a family resemblance - the play is steeped in genetics that they cannot escape from. We also had a conversation about the race of the sisters. We agreed that, despite wanting to provide actresses of colour with an opportunity, The Preston family and their story was steeped in white privilege. Not to say that WOC could never tell their story further down the line, but the original set of sisters needed to face up to the entitlement and complicity that many caucasian women have historically avoided. We were hyper aware the white feminism is an issue in itself, and these women were the blueprint for it.

Eventually after over 1,200 applications and 2 full days of auditioning the final 60 women, we had our sisters. Natasha Cowley was a natural choice for Piper. Graceful, beautiful, and never missed a beat. Alice Handoll and her pixie cut grabbed us immediately as the black sheep of the family Polly, and Katherine Samuelson was the last to join the team, after sending us a self tape from a family holiday. She caused a lump in our throats whilst deftly delivering her audition speech; managing to achieve the delicate balance of Penny's innate vulnerability and her blinding Kardashian Hollywood smile.

Rehearsals started in December of 2018, as did my press circuit. The PR company attached to Anomaly were an all female faction, as were our creative team, which Adam made sure of. I could tell he felt the weight and responsibility of being a male director of a show like this, and I admired his attentiveness and duty of care throughout. Never once did he make us feel uncomfortable throughout the rehearsal process, which couldn't not have been easy, considering the themes of the play. Whilst the girls and Adam would start to dissect the script inside out, I did interviews with the help of my PR rep, Chloe.

My first ever TV interview on London Live was an experience I will never forget; being granted access to the highly secure building in Kensington that was home to The Daily Mail. We were led through the glass corridors by a very intimidating security guard, whilst Chloe reminded me multiple times not to mention Harvey Weinstein too much. We may be a small play thousands of miles from Hollywood, but his name was in the papers every other day and we didn't want to bring too much (bad) attention to ourselves. Her words swirled around in my head as I perched on the edge of the turquoise sofa, two large cameras being set up to face me. I tried desperately to smile and my legs went numb as the host welcomed me to the programme, only for his first question to be 'So the unseen father figure in your play, Phillip Preston, is a disgraced Media Mogul. Can I assume he is based on Harvey Weinstein?'

Another high profile interview I did was on BBC Radio London, and was actually live. A 15 minute discussion on the play and the TimesUp and MeToo movements, which at the beginning of the process would have crippled me with fear. However, I had become much more familiar with the pitfalls to be aware of, and I genuinely looked forward to the interview, knowing that my Mum was sat in her car somewhere, biting her nails waiting for my voice to waft out of her speakers. The red light had been blinking for a while now, and I was in my stride. 'This is so fucking cool' I thought. Just keep calm, you can get through it. Almost there.

'I actually know Harvey and Georgia, you know. I've been to his house multiple times. Met his daughters.'

The host had thrown a curveball my way, and I had let it sail straight past my head. 'Oh really?' I said. 'Yes.' He replied. My stomach squeezed. I had not had a totally easy time with interviews up until now; one guy even challenging me on the themes of power and manipulation that surrounded the MeToo movement.

'Kevin Spacey wasn't even famous when he was first accused of misconduct. How is that an abuse of power?'

This curveball I caught pretty easily, pointing out that anyone can abuse their power, famous or not. Your boss can cause as much damage as the biggest actor in the world. That seemed to placate him, but his next comment I was not ready for.

'Surely these women wrapped up in the MeToo movement can't keep going like this forever. At some point they will just have to get over it, no?'

I could feel Chloe shift beside me, ready to intervene, but I stopped her. He was testing me, and I knew that playing into the angry millennial feminazi role was way too predictable a trap to fall into.

'Why should they?' I asked. To which he said nothing, and continued to write in his notebook.

Back in the rehearsal room, Adam was putting the girls through their paces as a director. He would ask each of them to choose their favourite song for everyone to dance to in the morning, to shake the cobwebs off. He would arrange a therapy meeting for the girls to turn up to in character, in order to hash out their differences within the context of the play. 'I guarantee you -' He said to me, after the girls had left the room to prepare for the exercise, 'Piper will need to leave early for a meeting, Penny will be on her phone the whole time, and Polly will arrive 20 minutes late.' He was spot on on all counts. I started to see Adam really come into his own; a young director who also had the crippling financial pressure of producing the play under his company, WildChild productions. One morning he had to leave the rehearsal room to vomit on more than one occasion, but when he came into his own, he was unstoppable. I realised he had started to know these women better than myself, despite them being created in my own head.

The rehearsal process was not easy for me. Long days in a freezing cold studio would end with me writing up notes until the early morning hours; rewrites continued until the hour before press night, and some notes were easier to take than others. I had to change the name of Phillip Preston more than once, to avoid existing public figures. The order of the play changed throughout, as did the scenes. I remember vividly, after one change that Adam made in the script, him turning to me and seeing the thunderous look on my face.

'I know you hate me right now.'

I could feel the girls looking at me, and my face went hot. 'Only a little.'

'Tell me honestly. Does that part really need to be in the play?

'I feel uncomfortable taking it out. It's been in there from the beginning.'

'And?'

...Fuck. He was fucking right, the fucker.

I grit my teeth. 'Fine. Change it.'

As a baby writer it was a baptism by fire, and some days I would get home and do one of two things - fall asleep on the sofa with my coat still on, or cry. I was trying desperately hard not to be a stereotypical stubborn writer that afraid of any sort of change, but I started to find someone else dissecting and rebuilding something that lived in only my head for years increasingly difficult.

Then suddenly, it became all the more real.

The clock was ticking, and the process thundered on. The incredibly complex soundscape was orchestrated (with over 300 cues due to the large amount of voiceovers, which I apologised for more than once), the set was designed, and lighting was mapped out. Posters had started to be put up at The Old Red Lion down the road in Islington, and the first few nights of the run had completely sold out. Adam had made a point of not telling the girls who was coming to Press night, but had confided in me one night after rehearsal. 'The Guardian, The Stage, and The Spectator, amongst others.' he whispered. 'Lloyd Evans is a renowned tough nut to crack, and is a close friend of Boris Johnson. This will not be his thing; expect one or two stars from him.'

That night, I went bowling with Ben and my housemates. Whilst the sound of clattering balls against pins rattled around in my brain, I felt my throat tighten and my stomach squeeze. 'I can't do it.' I say to Ben. 'What if they hate it? What are they going to say about me?' The reality of my debut play as a young female writer being centred around the biggest movement in the world at the time, with numerous powerful men at the helm, had started to cave in around me. We even had Weinstein and Spacey's names on our poster, for crying out loud. 'What have I done?' I kept thinking. 'I am not ready for this. I cant do it. I can't do it.'

Little did I know, Ben was equally as terrified. We had been together for under a year, and he had never read any of my writing. What if it's not good? What would he say to me? He couldn't lie; even if he did, I would see right through it. The reality of being in a relationship with a person who wanted to make a living through her writing was becoming apparent. 'If it's bad' he confided to his colleagues at work on the day of opening night 'What happens then? Where do we go from there?'

My godfather Bobby was dreading it, but for a different reason. England was playing downstairs in The Old Red Lion bar, and he had bargained with my godmother that he would turn up and support me, but would slip out in the interval to watch the match if it was dragging. Little did he know that it was 70 minutes straight through, and he would not get that opportunity.

So the day was here, and the set was built. Adam was in and out of the theatre, on the phone and downing multiple coffees. He could barely speak. I have never, to this day, seen a more stressed out person. The girls, ever the professionals, were warming up and getting into costume. We had agreed on a pre-show ritual of all dancing around to S Club 7's 'Don't Stop Movin', a song that featured in the show. As the noise began to hum from downstairs, I pictured Ben down there, praying to every God that was listening for this to be good. My Mum and whole family, all my friends, even my boss, all downstairs. I had suggested to some of them to give opening night a miss; let the girls get settled in, wait after press night at least... but none of them could resist the opening night buzz, and to be honest, I didn't blame them.

Adam comes back into the theatre, and asks everyone to leave except the three girls, the stage manager Cara, and myself. We all sit down, trying to ignore the thrum of noise that was slowly getting louder as people made their way up the stairs.

'Remember,' Adam addresses us directly, with a sense of calm that I hadn't seen in him for a while, 'we have a duty to tell these women's stories. There are many survivors of sexual abuse who don't have a voice to tell their own, and this is what we are here to do.'

I immediately wanted to cry, the stress and anticipation of the last few months caving in on me. He was right. These women were real. They existed all over the world. I had created these characters, together we had built them into real human beings.

So there I was, on the floor, in the last 5 minutes of the show. The play was designed to feel like a melting pot; 70 minutes of growing intensity, culminating in the last scene - which, helped by the deep bass undertone of the soundscape, made you feel like you couldn't breathe. I was clutching my head, in the braced position, next to Cara in the booth. She didn't bat an eyelid - this was a portrait of a writer on their opening night; I wasn't her first, and I wouldn't be her last. I mouthed along to the words, counting down the seconds until it was over. And then it was.

Silence.

Then noise. Deafening noise.

My godfather, Bobby, was the last to leave the theatre. He had been plastered to his seat, and said later that his legs simply wouldn't allow him to stand up. 'Fucking hell, La' he said as he eventually walked past me. 'You clever girl.' He held me very tightly but I clocked a slight tremble in his voice; which, as a ex market-stall worker in the heart of the East End, he did not let happen very often.

Ben's was the first face I saw. I don't think he has ever hugged me that hard. 'Oh my God' were the only words that allowed themselves out his mouth. 'Thank fuck for that.'

Adam could not bring himself to attend press night. He opted instead, to wait with a drink over the road in Jamie's Italian. He knew the stakes; a bad review, especially for a new play by an unknown writer on London's fringe, could be game over for us.

We had been given a generous start; The Spectator had put us on the 'The Best New Theatre Shows for Spring 2019' and dubbed Anomaly 'The Outside Bet.'

'For this play, though, the signs look good. The writer, Liv Warden, has been coached by both Soho Theatre and the National. The play itself is a taut post-Weinstein drama promising to explore ‘sisterhood, reputation and loyalty’. I have high hopes.'

The theatre filled up and the familiar lighting filled the room ready for Natasha and Katherine, as Piper and Penny respectively, to make their entrance for the first scene. The atmosphere was different tonight; quieter, more focused. The actresses realised the stakes for them, as did we. We needed to pull it off.

'How did it go then?' Adam was waiting for me at the bar. I shrugged. The buzz was undoubtedly dimmed compared to the previews; the girls took less risks, and arguably had less fun. 'You couldn't tell.'

'Well, we will know tomorrow.' he gripped his glass. 'The reviews should slowly stream in from the morning.'

The first one gave us 2 stars. 'Liv Warden has created a character in Phillip Preston that simply would not exist in reality.' was its final remark. 'Who is that much of a monster?' Glancing at that day's newspaper headlines of Kevin Spacey's arrest, the irony of that statement was not lost on any of us. I shook it off, but an intense feeling of dread had started to creep up on me. Had we imagined it? Had we created something that audiences just didn't connect with? It could have been too soon, or not done in the right way. 'Fuck.' I said, letting my head fall onto the table.

Refresh. Refresh.

Lloyd Evans, who traditionally picks a big West End production and a smaller Fringe show to review at the same time, did not care for it.

'The script was developed on ‘writing courses’ at both the Arcola and the National Theatre. These bodies set a very high value on their expertise and yet their script doctors failed to warn the playwright that mixing live action with taped dialogue is clumsy and very distracting.

Liv Warden is a talent to watch but she deserves better guidance.'

'Not an easy read, that one.' I text Adam as soon as it came in.

'Mate, he called you a talent to watch, thats all you need to take from it. Besides, did you see what he said about Pinter in the same review? It looks like we got off scot free.'

That was true. He really, really didn't care for Pinter.

'Both these plays are OK. Skip them and you miss little.'

The Guardian was nicer. A predictable 3 stars from them but a punchy headline: A Pacy, Perceptive Debut. I dared let out a cautious breath.

Refresh. Refresh.

Our first four star arrived from LondonTheatre1, then another. Twitter had started to ramp up with it's audience reviews; 'Gorgeously, painfully written and superbly acted. Best thing I've seen on the fringe ever.' one tweet reads. 'I came with my daughters last night' reads another. 'We were all blown away.'

Soon, this happened.

It was out there, in the world. I went to almost every show, which I don't know if I would do again. The 28 or so performances over that month had become all consuming, and I ended up never really going home. In the daytimes, I would be in the bar writing Gretel! The Musical (the next project that I had agreed to), and then as the evening rolled around I would meet the friends who had bought tickets for that night's show in the bar. I was drinking too much, and not sleeping enough. The quieter shows I would dread but always attend to support the girls, and the fuller shows I simply couldn't miss. It was not sustainable; maybe in a longer run it would have been different. But soon, the 2nd of February arrived and it was our last night.

The matinee was a fucking disaster. An awful audience that talked most of the way through, which angered the girls, and rightly so. If you have ever seen a show at The Old Red Lion then you will know how distracting that would have been; on the front row, you are literally nose to the nose with the actors. I was so upset at the thought of the show ending on a sour note that once the storm had settled, I left the building altogether.

Over the road in Jamie's, my family was there to wait for me with an Anomaly cake. The inevitable end to the run was upon us, and it was a bittersweet feeling. Years of work had culminated in a project I was really proud of, but I was addicted to the buzz and not ready to give it up and go back to being a waiter. I wanted to chase the feeling forever, and I vowed to myself I would.

That night, the theatre was packed. People had snuck in and were sat on the stairs - I was on the floor. The lights went down for the last time, and silence fell.

Then the noise.

It was all over.

I stood at the door next to the soundbox that I had crouched behind only a month ago for the last time. People poured out of the theatre, chatting about what they had just seen and eager to get a bottle of house wine to mull over it with. I felt so tired I thought I was going to pass out. I held each of the girls tightly and thanked them for all their hard work - a show like that could not have been easy to recreate 7 times a week.

Adam had turned his mind to breaking down the set and getting out in record time, but he was equally elated. Possibly from relief, but he knew what we had created and how much it meant to all of us. He had taken on the responsibilities and shitty jobs that the rest of us never had to worry about, and managed to put on a show, against all odds, that was a success. He was spectacular.

2 years later, I still hug those memories close to me. The theatre industry is currently hanging by a thread, and those sweaty evenings above a pub awash with a buzz of anticipation seem like a lifetime ago. We were small, but we achieved something. Anomaly got its South American transfer later that year, and was due to premiere in Montevideo, Uruguay before the COVID-19 pandemic postponed its opening. It was also the script that landed me a mentorship scheme with Channel 4 this coming year.

(L-R) Katherine Samuelson, Alice Handoll, Natasha Cowley.

So! Happy Birthday to the play that kickstarted my career. In the current climate, I don't know when my next one will be, which is a scary thought.

I miss what you represented. I miss those women inhabiting my brain, even when I didn't want them there. I miss the smell of the room. I miss having to hurriedly re-write a scene because another high profile figure was arrested and we needed to avoid defamation. I miss the team. I miss the girls. I miss Adam and the way he expanded my mind and built me up as a writer, despite my resistance at times. I miss the Prestons... bar Phillip, of course. The man too evil to exist, apparently.

In the midst of a third lockdown, it is hard to keep these memories alive. But I have had to remind myself today; keep going. Keep writing.

Those rooms will exist again, and the stories will too.