Students complete a Sixty Second Challenge

Julia has been writing plays since she was at primary school, when she persuaded other children to rehearse them with her in the playground and present them to the class. She went on to write and tour shows for children and also worked in community arts and as a theatre reviewer, as well as teaching drama in a stage school (where memorable pupils included James Corden and Aaron Johnson!).

In recent years, she has co-written a few radio plays which have been broadcast on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire and Cambridge 105, and written many short and very short stage and Zoom plays, which have been performed by Cambridge-based group, WRiTEON, as rehearsed readings. She has also produced, directed and performed in new writing, as well as running a number of writing workshops, to help and encourage other writers and aspiring writers.

Last year, she wrote and performed a solo show, which she took to The Edinburgh Fringe. She is currently co-leading a Verbatim Theatre Project for WRiTEON, which involves using the actual words of real people, collected in recorded interviews, to create a play about their recollections of things that were said to them when they were children. She is also collaborating with a fellow writer-performer to create a part-devised, part-scripted, part-improvised show, which they plan to perform in various locations, including the 2026 Edinburgh Fringe.

Julia Bolden.

Below is Mica’s play followed by Julia’s feedback. Illustration is  by creative student Willow Donovan.

Holiday Season: Characters: GENERAL (male), SERGEANT (male), and SUSAN (female). The whole time, SUSAN sits on her chair reading a book and smoking a cigarette, uninterested in what’s happening around her.

GENERAL and SUSAN recline on chairs next to each other. SERGEANT rushes in stage left, panicked.

SERGEANT: General!

GENERAL: (standing up) Sergeant? What are you doing here?

SERGEANT: In a bout of mania, the President has set the entire nuclear arsenal to go off at eight o’clock this evening.

GENERAL: Why… (checking his watch) It’s already 7:59! What took you so long?

SERGEANT: You’re on holiday in Cambodia with your darling wife. It took me a number of hours to fly here.

GENERAL: Alright. Well, send our best negotiator.

SERGEANT: Our best negotiator is in Tenerife with his darling wife.

GENERAL: Drats! Our second-best negotiator, then.

SERGEANT: On it!

SERGEANT salutes and exits stage left. GENERAL faces the audience.

GENERAL: (sombrely) Oh, Susan, my darling wife. If today is the day we both die, then shall I burn out a General first and a husband second. I apologise, Susan. However many feelings I hold for you, my first love will always be my country. Though, if we truly must die today…

GENERAL rushes to kneel in front of SUSAN. She doesn’t care.

GENERAL: (desperately) Kiss me, Susan! Kiss me, that I may one last time–

Enter SERGEANT stage left.

SERGEANT: General! Our second-best negotiator is in Hawaii with his darling wife!

GENERAL: (standing up) Drats! Why must the president have such a crisis during Holiday Season?

SERGEANT: It’s nearly eight o’clock.

GENERAL: That’s right. (looking at his watch) In 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2…

SERGEANT and GENERAL both brace. Short pause as nothing happens.

SERGEANT: You know, we probably have a few hours yet to deal with this. Because of the time zone difference.

GENERAL: Of course! The time zones! To the airport!

Exit SERGEANT and GENERAL stage right.

The End

FEEDBACK:Julia: This is dark and scary but it made me smile a lot. I love the tension created by setting up major jeopardy at the start of this one-minute play with just one-minute to oblivion. Smoking on stage is discouraged, these days. Is it really essential to this play?  It could be mimed but would just reading her book be enough? Or could you substitute drinking a mug of tea or coffee or a glass of wine/beer/cider or a bottle of something? Or, if she’s on holiday, perhaps she could be busy applying sun lotion, prior to settling down to her book?

While non-speaking characters seem a bit sad in longer plays because they have to attend rehearsals despite having nothing to say, they are great in very short plays, as these will likely be performed along with a number of others and an actor can double who has larger roles in other plays. Also, in this case, Susan’s silence actually makes her a powerful presence.

I love the absurdity, in this day and age, of the General travelling to the holiday destination instead of communicating electronically. I love the General’s speech to Susan, his melodramatic behaviour and Susan’s complete lack of interest.

Just a suggestion – maybe it would be a nice little modification for one of the negotiators to be on holiday ‘with her darling husband’? or ‘his darling husband’/’her darling wife’ or one of each (i.e. you could make one a heterosexual female and the other gay and either male or female).

I love the time zones twist at the end which is both absurd and satisfying.

Overall, it’s a well-structured piece that makes great use of the concept of a 60-Second Play and I am happy to forgive the slight cheat of having a few lines before the ‘7:59’ and a few lines after the countdown. I tried reading it aloud and it comes pretty close to accurate timing, if played at speed. It wouldn’t actually matter whether or not the timing played out perfectly, as the audience would accept what they are told about the time as being true, as long as it’s close enough to be credible, which it is.