In the entertainment industry it is kind of never too late.

This tale is all that I love about being part of the entertainment industry.

After I do not know how many years as a carpet fitter, retiring at I assume 65-year-old, Ray Castleton decides to tread the boards. 

A bit Jess Oakroyd in THE GOOD COMPANIONS I hear you say. (What do you mean you have never read it)?

Now at the age of 70, he has not only written a very powerful four-hander theatre play, he has got off his arse instead of sitting around waiting for someone else to do something about it he has taken control. All very Norman Tebbit you might be thinking, but the subject matter is most definitely not Norman Thatcher Tebbit. 

Ray Castleton with no experience whatsoever has raised money from Peter and Paul and various arts funding bodies all by himself and booked theatre's, church hall's, town halls, arts centres, museums, social clubs, trade union institutions and colleges and given four actors well-paid work for two months staging this remarkable play.

I think all actors should try to produce. There is no better way to ensure you work, than to employ yourself. 

On top of this, it is actually an impressive, entertaining, thought-provoking, moving and wonderfully acted by four actors all of you filmmaker reading this should be checking out for any Northern films you are working on. So many times this kind of venture by someone new to showbiz is sadly not. AND Ray has also started acting. Not in this. He hands that over to Ray Ashcroft my temporary landlord, which is why I had skived off Sheffield Doc/Fest, to see his thesping once more. 

It should be on the Edinburgh Fringe. It should be playing in London. If only I knew more about this sort of theatre I could help. I shall have to put Ray in touch with Sarah Berger for she is to theatre what Chris Jones and Elliot Grove are to film. 

Ray Castleton in just 5 years is now a well-reviewed playwright and actor and also a very successful producer. How many other professionals offer such chances at such a late stage of a persons life?

What is even more extraordinary is that in the audience at the Theatre Royal York last night was a young woman Sophia Tamaro who came on my Meet The Experts panel last year at the London Screenwriters Festival and had cast Ray Castleton in her latest short film (we gave her great advice apparently Gary Phillips and was kind. Apparently, some of the others who attended found me scary) AND wait for this someone  Toby Osmond  who was at our last networking event of actors, crew, crafts people, film financiers, sales agents, distributors etc. I did think she looked familiar but she ignored one of the most important rules of our industry - tell people who you are and what you do and then remind them ALL THE TIME. 

    

It is as they say a small world.