‘I have always been a writer for the people’

Apr 19 2008 by Gavin Allen, Western Mail

Valleys writer Frank Vickery is about to revive the first of two of his ‘deeper’ plays. He tells Gavin Allen why he feels it really is possible to be true to his roots and still expand

FRANK VICKERY may have a reputation as the comic voice of Valleys theatre, but this year he wants to get serious.

In a lifetime of writing, Vickery has amassed 30 plays, the majority of which have been broad comedies, lovingly caricaturing the people of the communities within which he still lives and works.

The 56-year-old writer, producer, actor and director, has almost always put his audience first because he knows they are his lifeblood.

“Whatever success I have had,” he points out, “is because I have entertained my audience.”

But as he enters the later stages of his career, Vickery’s attention is turning to the body of work he leaves behind – and he doesn’t want to be known only as a jester.

“I’d be lying if I said I did,” he said from his rehearsal base at The Park and Dare Theatre in Treorchy in the Rhondda Valley.

“I don’t know what or when my last play will be, and I think people will always associate me with the likes of Family Planning and Trivial Pursuits, but within those 30 plays there is a body of work that I am extremely proud of.

“I’m taking nothing away from Family Planning or One O’Clock From The House, but they do nothing except entertain you.

“But I have seven or eight plays – Erogenous Zones, Roots and Wings, Breaking The String, A Kiss On The Bottom, Sleeping With Mickey, All’s Fair – which are not just funny, they are more than that.”

Vickery’s latest touring production is a revival of one of those pieces, his 1995 play Roots And Wings which, as well as providing laughs, deals with a Valley’s family coming to terms with their son’s homosexuality.

Later this year, Vickery’s company Grassroots will stage a revival of Erogenous Zones, another play which the author feels contains technical depth, while next spring he will unveil a new play, Barkin’, in the same mould.

“If you ask any of my audience members which is their favourite of my plays,” he begins, “they will always pick one from five or six of my comedies, because that’s the reason people come out, to enjoy themselves.

“I know that when I do Granny Annie it will be a box office success, that audiences will go for it in a big way.

“Personally I think Erogenous Zones is my best play, as a technical piece of writing, but I know it won’t be as popular as the others.

“I have been writing for over 30 years and it’s the comedies that go down best, but sometimes I can’t just do what my audience wants, sometimes I have to write what I want.”

With that in mind, he describes his upcoming new play Barkin’, about the relationship between a daughter and her unseen elderly mother, as a black comedy.

“I think it’s a little bit different for me, it takes you in a direction I haven’t taken my audience before, and I’m really excited about it.

“I think it’s a good piece of writing, well constructed with good characters.

“Maybe it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, until you produce it then you just don’t know, but I don’t think it will be in people’s top six of my plays.”

Vickery’s audiences have always appreciated his efforts, taking your mam, dad, uncle and gran and putting them up on that stage, very often literally.

But Vickery’s work has not enjoyed the critical acclaim he would have liked. “I won’t ever conquer the arty-farty types,” he says, with typical snap. “There are an awful lot of people out there who won’t give me any time at all but I accepted that a long time ago.

“I have always been a writer for the people and I’m not ashamed of that.”