Toto Kerblammo! appeared twenty years ago when I was commissioned to write a play that would be performed both on stage and on the radio – a headphone play using early binaural technology. For many reasons that commission never met an audience but the idea stayed with me. A girl and her dog. Despair, hope, love. It’s my wife, Julia, who I have to thank for it finally seeing the light of day. Over the years, she’s prodded me about Toto as scraps of it mouldered in a folder on my laptop. Eventually I sent a dusty document to the Unicorn who have given me a second chance to return to the story – relocating it, re-wiring it, finishing it. I’ve also softened it a little. The world is different to how it was twenty years ago. It feels like we’ve all lost a layer of skin since then. The Unicorn have been brilliant in testing the wounds of the play with their young associates. But still a girl and her dog. Despair, hope and love.

For a play written so early in my writing career it’s interesting to see so many of the ideas and forms that I’ve spent the last twenty years exploring. I write for audiences, not for spectators. My plays are to be listened to as much as watched. I’m obsessed with the relationship between what the eye sees and what the ear ‘sees’ – the pictures inside our heads. And so Toto’s insistence to listen, ‘really listen’, runs deep through all my work. I’ve also held strong to the belief that emotion is the best vehicle for ideas. Theatre is a space to collectively think. But, more importantly, it’s a space to collectively feel. Theatre for young people can sometimes shy away from complicated emotions. Modern life is hard. Our collective mental health is being tested. Young people live in the same world as the adults; they see the same things on the street, on their screens. They need a place to show their world reflected back to them and to acknowledge that it’s okay to feel.

And now, writing this at the end of our first week of rehearsals, I’m an emotional wreck. I cried as I watched Toto curled up on the fur floor listening to fireworks. I cried as Effy refused to see beyond herself. I’m being tenderised by the rehearsal process! Peyvand and Felipe are breaking my heart on a daily basis. Lily Arnold has designed a set that levitates my play to a place I never imagined. Helen Skiera is creating sounds I could only dream of. Will Monks is opening my eyes to the possibilities of light and haze. Ingrid Mackinnnon has helped pull Effy up from the deep end. I’m constantly having to check in: is this too much for our audience? can a nine year old handle the world of this play if the playwright himself is struggling? And the good people around me keep saying ‘yes’. Yes.