Arthur McKenzie’s Blackbird in the Snow finally lands on stage
A play which has been 20 years in the making takes flight this week on Tyneside. Sam Wonfor investigates its journey with police detective-turned-writer, Arthur McKenzie
At the age of 85, former Northumbria Police detective Arthur McKenzie has clocked up more than four decades of writing for stage and screen.
As well as an arms-length list of theatre credits, including a musical with John Miles about the Jarrow March, he’s written extensively for TV - bringing his inside knowledge to episodes of The Bill as well as penning episodes for Casualty and Wylcliffe and writing 2013 crime feature, Harrigan starring Stephen Tomkinson.
But talking to Arthur during rehearsals for his latest stage production, he quickly puts to bed any sense that he finds it any easier - or less nervewracking - to write and get something made than he ever has.
“I’m nervous - of course I am. Always,” he says during a lunch break following the first full read through of Blackbird in the Snow - a dark comedic tale of estrangement, regret, and redemption - in the bar at Laurels Theatre, Whitley Bay where the play will premiere next week (May 6).
“I’m confident in my ability to write, but of course you never know how it’s going to go - and with this play in particular, I feel a real responsibility to make it as good as it can be. For Davey.”
It was more than 20 years ago that Arthur began writing Blackbird in the Snow with longtime friend and much-admired North East actor, David Whitaker.
“I was telling him about what I’d been through with my then recent heart problems - the surgeries, the fear - and he said, ‘There’s a play in that.’ We came up with the idea of two old comedians, hating each other, stuck side-by-side in a hospital. Life catching up with them.”
As they started working, life imitated art with uncanny closeness. “David said to me, ‘I’m getting the same pains as you were talking about.’ And sure enough, he ended up needing heart treatment too.”
Over the years that followed, the friends kept coming back to work on the idea. They were half way through writing the first act, when David, who was one of the co-founders of Live Theatre in Newcastle, had a devastating stroke in 2012, leaving him needing round-the-clock care.
Arthur visited him often and made him a promise. “I told him, ‘I’ll finish it for you, Davey.’ That’s why I kept going. That’s the only reason I kept going - I’ve been trying to get it produced ever since.”
Sadly, David died in 2020. Since then, Arthur has been making good on his promise to finish the play and get it seen. Not that it has been a straightforward process.
“I’ve rewritten it 20 times,” he says. “Over the years, the script evolved. A lot of what’s in it - the humour, the bitterness, even the hospital scenes - they’re pulled from my life with Davey. From our talks. From our illnesses. One of the scenes is pretty much word for word taken from one of my appointments with a consultant.”
Currently preparing for another heart operation, Arthur says there’s pain and pathos in Blackbird in the Snow, but also warmth and wit - something he attributes to his lifelong ear for dialogue, first recognised by legendary North East playwright, Tom Hadaway who encouraged him to write his debut play, The Bait Room, set in a police station’s shared breakroom.
“Tom read it, put it down, and said, ‘You know how to write dialogue, son.’ That was it. That was the validation I needed,” remembers Arthur who only began writing in his 40s while still serving in the police force, prompted by an article he wrote about living conditions in 1970s Hong Kong.
“It got published in the Police Review. They paid me £25. That was the first time I thought - maybe I’ve got something here,” he smiles.
“I’ve always written fast, put daft things in, sometimes just for the crack. Davey was the voice of reason,” he adds, bringing us back to the play in hand. “He’d pull me back when I went too far.”
Though Blackbird in the Snow has had private readings - including an early workshop at Live Theatre in Newcastle - this premiere at Laurels Theatre marks its first full staging.
And it’s only happening, Arthur says, because someone - namely Laurels’ founding artistic director and Olivier Award winner, Jamie Eastlake - finally had “the bottle to take it on”.
“As soon as I spoke to Jamie, I knew he believed in it,” says Arthur. “That means the world, because for a long time, I was knocking on doors and people just didn’t want to know.
“Maybe because I was a cop, maybe because it’s about stroke and illness. But this isn’t a play about dying. It’s about friendship. It’s about love. It’s about how bloody hard it is to say sorry - especially when you’re old.”
Although Jamie has recently moved on from Laurels, Alison Stanley who has signed on as Laurels’ head of theatre and programming, had no hesitation in moving forward with the production and is also directing.
The cast sees Donald McBride - one of David Whitaker’s best friends, who performed in the aforementioned Live Theatre reading of the play - and Grammy Award-winning film maker Bob Smeaton taking the leading roles of Bob and Earl respectively.
Once a popular double act, the play, which is set across three time periods in 1985, 1995 and 2005, finds its leading men unexpectedly reunited in adjacent heart ward hospital beds.
During the decade which has passed since their last contact, Earl has been riding a wave of TV fame while Bobby has been grinding out a living in fading working men’s clubs.
“The cast is great, and I’m particularly pleased Donald was able to do the play, especially having been involved from the beginning and being one of Davey’s best pals,” says Arthur.
Also on stage will be actors Lesley Saint John (Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, Byker Grove) as the nurse looking after the duo and Steve Wraith who is multi-rolling as both a hospital consultant and showbiz agent.
“It feels good to be doing this, finally,” says Arthur as he prepares to head back into rehearsals. It’s funny, no matter how much I can look back and know how much I’ve already done, I still feel like I’m just starting.
“But I’m proud of this one. It’s a tribute. It’s for Davey. And I hope people come and see it.”
Blackbird in the Snow opens on May 6 at Laurels Theatre, Whitley Bay and runs to May 17. For tickets, visit the website at www.laurelswhitley.co.uk