I was meant to be writing a book. Instead I wrote a play. The play won a competition.

Entitled The Seagull Has Landed, it’s an affectionate tribute to Blackpool and was submitted to the Power Plays festival at The Old Electric Theatre in the town, where it won a staged professional reading.

Here’s the pitch:

Blackpool’s North Pier is a magnet. It draws locals, regular tourists and first-time visitors alike. And seagulls.

So it’s no surprise to find three disparate people from very different backgrounds contemplating their lives on the pier one sunny afternoon. It is a bit weirder to find a seagull as their therapist.

As a Southerner, a Northerner and a Sandgrown’un trade ideas, experiences and the occasional bit of Aristotelian narrative theory, their colliding views are brought into sharp focus by the seagull, who brings a literal bird’s eye perspective to their entrenched opinions.

But can a surreal, absurdist intervention really change the power dynamics in a world that’s already difficult to navigate? Is it possible to learn empathy from a bird? And will the seagull survive the whole performance without pooping?