The Traveller project began whilst I was studying at university; with the earlier version of the stage play written between March and May 1999, as part of a creative writing course. Admittedly, the completed stage version of the script is weak (and it was my first attempt at writing a play!) But little did I know that one year later I would be re-writing Traveller and turning it into a film.

The following is an updated introduction that was written to accompany the stage play when it was handed in as a piece of university course work...


It can be argued that two people meeting and one telling their life story has been done before (as what happens in Traveller), but what made the play different were the unusual events that took place in my friend’s life that I reflected on within the script. The events did happen and even today still make him wonder what his experiences were all about.

At the time of writing the play, I did not undertake any research – I only worked carefully over my friend’s diary about things that he had forgotten. Traveller is in essence an exploration into an unusual form of depression. His depression. Many people become depressed at least once in their life. You might say that his experiences were a product of the depression - nothing else. But to him it was more. It was a time when he needed to stand up and fight things that were going on in his head. At a time when his friends and family did not know.
Traveller naturally changed and grew as I wrote it. The two main characters took a role-reversal and the message of the play became different. The central character of Will was meant to come across as strange and mysterious, but Madra’s character later adopted this role. [Will tells his story to Madra in the final edit].

I hoped that audiences who saw the play would go away wondering what on earth they had just seen. I hoped that they would go home, think about it and maybe ask themselves; who was Madra? Was she a Listener (an Empath)? Someone sent from God? Was she something from Will’s own imagination? Even to this day I cannot answer those questions. But I think they would have seen that there was a message hidden in the play. They would have looked at Will’s past and realised that the story told does happen to other people and could also happen to them. If Will could find the courage, energy and willpower to get through what happened - they could too. And they should know that they are not alone in times like those.

The initial idea for Traveller goes all the back to July 1998. I had treated myself to the computer game Queen: The eYe, (inspired by the band themselves!) and discovered that a lot of Queen’s music had been re-mastered for the game. Queen has always been a huge inspiration for me, and when I heard the music without the lyrics, it created a whole new atmosphere. Immediately I wanted to write something that could use the music. When I began the writing course, I leaped at the opportunity to do this.

But I had many problems. Would I write a play based on the music (and Ben Elton did just that with We Will Rock You), or would I write a play and place the music in it? Early ideas sprang from the song Innuendo. I wrote a monologue based on the lyrics to see where it would go, but I ended up almost copying the song, word for word. I needed a theme - an idea - for me to start exploring. That was when my friend became involved. It is quite a story and rather different to a lot of other peoples’, and this seemed the place to begin writing. I had already tried to explore my own personal experiences through monologues, poems and short stories based on my very own  diary entries, but nothing seemed to work well. Together, we pulled out the entire diary and the things that he had written, and slowly began going over it, bit by bit. We selected several events that I wanted to explore and then brainstormed for staging ideas.

This was the hardest part of all. I needed something to happen on the stage so that the events could be shown. I then decided on two characters that would meet up and one would tell the other the events. The Queen music, for now, was going to be left alone and put in later, but I thought that I’d read all their lyrics and pull out any appropriate lyrics that I could use in the play. (They wrote over 160 songs!)

My first attempt at writing something was based on an idea that I had had for a long time. A character, called ‘Voice’, sits on stage and addresses the audience. Voice questions who they are. Voice asks the audience whether they are a character on a stage, or an actor, or even the playwright. Voice finally asks if there could be someone else - someone they could never think of. I placed this scene as the first for the play.

Secondly, I wrote a monologue that had a character speaking to the audience and talking about something that had happened in his life. I used the Queen: The eYe version of You Take My Breath Away, as background music. (The piece is played solely on a piano and surprisingly the monologue fit perfectly with the music). The whole idea was that after his speech, flash backs would occur and then the events would be told. The only problem with this was that the monologue became very confusing and did not really make sense to the audience.

My third attempt was to use part of a separate short story that I had written 18-months previously. I stuck a load of quoted lyrics in it and added some music. The result worked well and was going to be used as the final scene. (I often work from the end back to the beginning). But it ended up as Scene 6 in the final script.

I finally decided that the one-man show would need another character. I then created Madra, to play opposite of the now-named Will. I played around with some dialogue for a while to see how their characters would take form and grow, but it did not get very far. But I continued to write the script and it worked well with the two meeting in a park late at night. Will asks about Madra’s past and then the events unfolded. I re-wrote the script and everything fell into place - but the characters’ naturally ended up swapping roles.
Throughout the play, Madra hints that she may be a Listener (an Empath). We know that Will is, but who really is she? She seems to know a lot about him, and her final exit asks even more questions. The idea for Scene 2 was to show that Will’s story, no matter who he tells, was not going to be listened to. (Hence Will’s imaginary talk show No Matter How Many Times You Tell Your Story, No-One is Really Listening). Following this I felt that the events should have their own individual scenes for each one and I think that idea carried quite well. The hardest thing for me was to condense all the information I wanted to get across into an easy to understand format. I had Will briefly explaining information on the bench with Madra, with the larger, more important events acted out and shown. Both go hand in hand and without the other.

Scene 4 was the first time music was used. The introduction to The Night Comes Down only lasts about 30 seconds and was long enough for this part of the play. It is an instrumental piece played on guitar and is what I can only describe as eerie, loud and unsettling.

In Scene 6, the second piece of music was used – ‘Track 13’, a 20-minute bonus track from the Made In Heaven album. The first four minutes that would be used in Traveller have a build up of strings, guitar and what sounds like an angel choir ‘ah’-ing. It creates a very peaceful and emotional atmosphere, appropriate to this important part of the play as Will has an emotional release.

The third piece of music was a mix of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra playing Innuendo, and the original music by Queen. I kept small parts of Freddie singing the song, and managed to mix it with the Spanish style of the Orchestra on my stereo. The result was fantastic. It was loud, energetic and very powerful. I put this into the play at this point because I had no other way to show Will’s ‘battle for sanity’. What I had in mind was Will and Madra dancing to the music to show the battle and to give the audience something new. (They would have been watching something rather depressing by this point).

The final scene was intended to give Madra that mysterious exit. Originally it was going to be Will, but the way things turned out, I believe they worked better. I finished with the Queen: The eYe version of A Kind of Magic. There are no lyrics in this version and it fitted perfectly to the mood and atmosphere as the curtain comes down.

Although I wanted to use quotes from songs, I only ended up using about 21 of them. In some scenes there were many, and in others there were none. However, I do believe they worked and added that extra touch to the play.

Traveller is a very personal play, and there are a lot of things hidden in the script that have meaning only to us both.

One year later I made it into a film....