My autobiographical play 'Lucifer'

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Roger and the poster for his play Lucifer

Playwright Roger Goldsmith shares his experiences of school-life with a stammer, and tells us how a negative speaking experience at work inspired his play Lucifer, which is showing at London's Bread & Roses Theatre later this October.

From memory, I always stammered. I remembered my mum taking me to a clinic where she was told "Roger will grow out of it in time," suggesting it was something temporary like a cough or a cold. I remember thinking then: but Mum, you stammer. Why haven't you grown out of it? Not sure I ever asked her though.

In infants school there was a boy who sat behind me who would dig his pencil into my shoulder blade whenever the teacher asked the question "Who wants to read?" and shout out "Goldsmith, Sir". It's several decades ago now, but I can still feel that pencil!

I could express all that I wanted to without having to open my mouth and say a word. 

At secondary school, my stammering was still prominent and being made Head Boy didn't help as I had to give presentations to the Lord Mayor on Open Days. Exams and reading tests were a nightmare. I did one test in front of the Headmaster as it was too embarrassing to do it in front of the classroom. Maybe that was a concession for being Head Boy.  

Immersing myself in writing

At sixteen I 'discovered' writing. It was a revelation. A gift from the heavens. What a joy. I immersed myself in the world of fiction, creating characters and stories. I could express all that I wanted to without having to open my mouth and say a word. I wrote a play called The Family, which I issued to Arnold Wesker, a prominent playwright at the time, along with Pinter and Osborne, known as 'the big three'. Clive Barker, a director who worked with Wesker, invited me to London to meet up and told me that the National Youth Theatre wanted to stage my play. Wow! I was thrilled. It never happened in the end, but still, wow!

I forgot about writing plays and went into engineering, starting off as a technical clerk and ending up as the Head of Planning for various companies, travelling the world and being very successful. I still stammered, of course I did. Just a little. But it was accepted. It was part of me. It was who I was. I did my job well and progressed, being offered the position of Head of Planning for the Athabasca Sands project, the biggest oil extraction project in the world. I turned it down. I'd always promised I would get back into writing one day and this was the time. People thought I was mad. I can still see my boss's face when I said no, thank you to his offer of "more money than you ever dreamed of". But I didn't dream of money. I dreamed of satisfaction, of pleasure, of what does it for you. I wanted to write.

Lucifer is so personal that I wonder whether an audience will enjoy it. I hope so

I wrote a short film called Blackberry Stains, which won an award in L.A. and then concentrated on writing plays. I have won a number of festival awards and my play It Started With A Touch was staged in London and the USA. 

The one thing about stammering is that it never goes away. You think it does, and sometimes you think it has, but it hasn't. In 2016, I was lucky enough to be invited to join a Playwright's Workshop. Meeting new people was always difficult — especially those who were younger than me. "Tell me your name please, one at a time. Let's go round the circle," the workshop leader said. All my childhood memories flooded back, it was just the same as when the teacher called out the register. 

My new play

When I told a friend in theatre several years ago about my experiences working as an engineer, he suggested I write a play about it. Now, finally I have written my story. My play Lucifer, which is being staged in London at the Bread & Roses Theatre from 28th October to 1st November, is part-autobiographical. In it, the lead character Tom has to give a presentation for a major offshore project to a multinational oil company. He stammers during it and is subsequently given three month's notice, and asked to clear his desk out and leave. That is a true event, it happened to me. Lucifer tells the story of what happens to Tom from that point and how he handles it. How he feels. 

Tom is played by Will Middleton, an actor who doesn't stammer himself but has a parent who does, so when he read the script it resonated with him. I'm so impressed with the director, Luci Florence, who has done a great job of researching stammering and how she should approach it by consulting STAMMA. I'm very much looking forward to the play's development. It's so personal that I wonder whether an audience will enjoy it. I hope so. We will see.

Roger’s play Lucifer is showing at The Bread & Roses Theatre in Clapham, South London, from the 28th October to the 1st November, at 7:30pm. To book tickets, and for more details, see the The Bread & Roses Theatre’s website.

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