Playwright and performer Tiggy Bayley reflects on the making of Squidge — from its earliest spark and the shaping of Daisy’s voice to the play’s themes of grief, care and connection. She also shares insights into her writing process, rehearsal discoveries, and the differences between creating work for stage and screen.
What was the very first spark for Squidge?
The first sparks of Squidge came from working in a school and writing down the little things that I found ironic in a notebook. The strictness of fire alarms that are NEVER real, the apathy surrounding P.E., the rain… etc and then there was Daisy…
Did Daisy arrive fully formed, or did you discover her voice over time?
The first iteration of Daisy came in 2021. I wrote a short monologue about a dysfunctional teaching assistant called Nelly. I liked the idea of a teacher being terrible at her job. She became Daisy when I started writing scenes for the play and constructing a narrative around grief. Daisy’s arc became the backbone of the play and then it was about deciding what scenes went where. I like working with my hands, putting post-it notes all over my desk and moving them around.
Why this story now? As a screenwriter, what did you feel theatre could hold than other medium couldn’t?
The story feels urgent because I had something to say – that the connections we make with each other are the most important thing that we have. That is at the heart of Squidge. The worst moments in my life have not been defined by the bad and the ugly, but by the good, by the moments of kindness and generosity of good people who have helped to pull me out of the darkness and into the light. Squidge is important because it is about drawing attention to the good in the world. It is about taking a stand against people who do the wrong thing and using art to show that every one of us, like Daisy, has a chance to do good in the everyday. We are not alone.
Rather than feeling like it would only work for theatre, I wrote it for theatre because it felt explosive. The words just came out in the form of a monologue. It also felt tangible – I could just say these words to tell the story, whereas with film I’d need to get a whole team and a whole lot of money together in order to tell the story.
How did you actually build the script?
I wrote the story in a difficult period of my life. So the act of writing was a cathartic process in itself because it gave me a focus. I simply sat at my desk and mined away, writing it scene by scene.
What did your earliest draft look like compared with the version that’s published and staged?
Apart from the awful title, Looking For Angels, it’s very similar actually, I’ve been looking back through it. The subsequent drafts were about finessing details, streamlining the text and finding the importance of Squidge. I also had to change some names… But the bones, that central relationship between Daisy and Paddy is the same. The heart of the show didn’t change so it didn’t need big edits.
Did you do specific research?
Much of Squidge was based on my lived experience of working in schools in South London. I did some research into Irish travellers. Mostly though, the text was based on observation. The observation of difference and that, particularly at school, everyone’s there for one purpose but you don’t know what’s going on in peoples’ home lives. It’s about the importance of nuance in that way. Maybe that’s why it feels so important, because nuance has been erased so much from modern life, or the appreciation of it at least.
There’s a strong sense of rhythm – repeats, refrains and momentum. Do you think musically when you write?
I love repeats. Paddy and Daisy mirror each other, at the end he grabs her by the hand and drags her inside. It’s fun to work those things into the script it feels like a satisfying game. Like chess, when you execute a plan. I suppose I do think rhythmically, especially with a monologue. I sometime dictate to Google docs so I can hear the way it sounds. I listened to a lot of kids singing while I was writing the music lesson scene…
What drew you to the relationship between Daisy and Paddy as the central axis?
I worked in education for five years and the show is very much inspired by how much I have learned from the children. I’ve drawn on my teaching experiences and lots of different magical kids that gave me the strength to carry on through hard times. So Paddy was a way to represent what lots of kids did for me – that they gave me the strength to carry on. As Mum says in the play, “that’s what we all have to decide, do we care enough to carry on through the grief.”
The play suggests that ‘pretending not to care’ is a survival strategy. Did you set out to interrogate that, or did it emerge as you wrote?
I think I worked backwards, I knew that what mattered to me was caring, so in order for that message to land Daisy has to not care in the beginning.
If a drama student were preparing Daisy, what would you tell them to prioritise?
I would work on the grief which is in a way vulnerability. I had some great acting advice from Laurence Mitchell that the pain is always there, right at the surface. So when it shows its ugly self, it’s not about finding it from deep down, it should be right at the surface bubbling away. It’s just thinly masked or covered by Daisy’s sense of humour. Daisy feels unworthy of love and being seen, so when people try to reach her that’s what makes her cry.
Are there moments when silence matters as much as text? How should performers treat those pauses?
I hate too much and too many pauses. I think that’s up to the director.
What felt most different moving from film work to making a theatre piece?
One of the biggest differences moving from theatre to film is how intimate making theatre is. I spent hours and hours in a room with Selwin, my director, and no one else. I also found scriptwriting a little more fluid in theatre, when a film goes to shoot, my experience is that the script is pretty set in stone. In theatre, it’s more expected to play with the text. That said, I love improv whatever the medium is.
Did you find theatre more exposing, more collaborative, or more freeing than film?
I found theatre more exposing than film. I felt naked but that might be because it’s one woman show so I wasn’t held by a big team and because it’s live – no cuts! To me film feels more collaborative but that might be because there was only two of us working on Squidge for the most part. I trained in theatre so it was magical coming back to the stage and moving about in a way that’s more freeing than film, Jacques Lecoq, where I trained, was very physical.
What what the most surprising thing you discovered once the script was spoken aloud?
How much of a dick Daisy is. It took some getting used to opening the play the way she does and not judging her for it. I have to ignore people in the audience’s faces for the first 10 minutes of the show. I had to learn to trust the structure of the piece and that Daisy will win the audience round in good time.
Did any scenes change radically in rehearsals?
Some scenes changed because of the way they were directed. For example, in the script, when Daisy finds out about the plumber, she lies down exhausted. But Selwin added that she slams the coat repeatedly in order to get to that exhausted state. That’s an example of how the script was built upon in rehearsal, but textually I didn’t have that in there with Selwin wanting to add something more visual.
A wise friend told me it’s important, as writers, to allow actors to slag off your work in rehearsal. I like that. Obviously it’s important to respect the writing, but it’s also important for actors and directors to feel like they have ownership over the piece. So I applied that logic to myself. Conflict can be a healthy part of the creative process, it can create progress. I had to let my director and myself, as an actor, discover new things about the text.
What conversations do you hope the play starts after the show?
What I want people to take away from the show is that life is hard but we can make it better for each other.
What’s next for you?
I write for screen mainly. I’ve written a short about kids doing ket in the toilet which I’m hoping to shoot with some friends. And I’m working on a couple of features, one horror and one sci-fi-esque romance. I’ve also written the pilot for Squidge as a TV show so hopefully that gets made. I love performing the stuff I write so I’ve written a sketch for theatre about a convict paying for a revenge rampage which I’m hoping to develop into a full length piece too.
