When you get funding for a project you’ve spent over a decade envisioning, writing, deleting, re-writing and re-deleting, two thoughts go through your head. First, you think:

“Thank God, I get to make this show!”.

For a brief moment all is well with the world. And then you think:

“Oh God… I have to make this show.”

David is speaking standing in front of a small audience. He is smiling slightly and gesticulating with his hands. He has dark hair and a short dark beard. He is wearing dark jeans and a grey bomber jacket.

Figuring out the logistics of a thus-far completely theoretical idea is terrifying. I’m endlessly grateful for the discoveries I made and the support Shaper/Caper gave me but…maybe a little while before the next pipe-dream becomes reality please!

My pitch for the BRAW bursary was a chance to develop IV Effigy - an autobiographical play about being a test-tube baby, the product of a decade’s worth of hospital appointments, sharp needles and heartbreaks and also a 100% bona-fide homosexual. It’s about our relationships to the people who care about us; about the versions of ourselves we try to be; and, ultimately, about the ways we try to be worthy of people’s investment in us.

Through this whole process I had one goal: amongst the heartfelt, it had to be funny. I was handling topics that were brooding, introspective and a little bit pretentious – the least I could for an audience was to make them laugh. Imagine my delight and relief at the sharing when there were actual chuckles! Mission accomplished.

If writing about yourself is hard (and it is), it’s even harder when your story is inextricably linked to someone else’s. I thought I was making a play about being put on a pedestal, but I discovered I’d been just as guilty of idolising my parents. I’ve been using the time the BRAW bursary gave me to sit down with them and talk about their experiences. It’s been fascinating to hear them reminisce, to compare our mutual memories and to hear about the things I never knew. Turns out I’m actually an IUI baby, a different fertility treatment altogether, but I U Iffigy just doesn’t have the same ring…

I also got a chance to actually write the first ten minutes of the darn thing (finding the funny, or at the very least finding a placeholder for the funny) and start to envision what the next steps look like. I want the show to incorporate song, inspired by the many cringey poems teenage me wrote about this topic, to explore the history of IVF and fertility treatments (it’s much younger than I imagined) and to start playing within the freedom of the unknown variables. What would happen if I was never born? What would happen if was a girl? What would happen if I was straight?!?

Whilst I ponder these questions, I’ll be taking steps to secure funding for some more development time. I’m endlessly grateful to Shaper/Caper for giving me the time, space and support to start IV Effigy on its path out of my brain and into the real world.

David Wood is a director, facilitator and writer. He especially loves new writing and theatre for young audiences. Previous work includes: Untitled 2009 (Queen Jesus Productions); A Ladder to the Stars (Visible Fictions); and Member (FairlyLucid Productions).

David Wood: I V Effigy | BRAW Bursary