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Afterword to the 2020 Edition by Mark Wheeller

We were all aware we were involved in a very special production, but none of us could ever have imagined how well-known this play would become.

Oaklands Youth Theatre/Community School (knocked down in 2014) in the very unspectacular area of Lordshill in Southampton. It was no Winchester College, but we had a professionally equipped theatre. In terms of our Youth Theatre, I set our aims high. My first original production was selected to be showcased at the Royal National Theatre. In the ensuing years we were selected to perform at the National Student Drama Festival, mostly populated by university and drama school productions. When I announced any new Youth Theatre production I supposed the potential members were vaguely aware of our track record. Regardless, they were aware that if they volunteered to become involved they would be working very hard (for the fun of doing it seriously).

I approached Darren, Rachael, Alex and Kate (with my friend and ex-student Danny Sturrock offering technical assistance) because I knew from their work, either in curriculum time or Youth Theatre, that they would be totally committed, so much so that they chose to give up much of their summer holiday to make the production happen. I didn’t have to motivate them to give their best. Once they heard what the production was they leapt onboard and did just that. It really mattered to us all.

We all had to get it right. That meant hard work.

We had zero budget, so had to get the play up and running with very limited resources. Danny had the bright idea of painting four of the theatre’s cubes to offer a thematic colour, using a sea blue that would give an impression of waves – a whole set for the cost of a couple of cans of paint! We used these cubes in various different arrangements to show the many different locations of the play. They also offered us the ability to have different levels. On top of that we had the ongoing cost of candles and Tesco

Finest Chocolate Truffle Cake. The Nolan family donated one of their huge posters, the same one I had seen on the day I travelled to Hamble for the first time, to act as our backdrop. We also bought T-shirts with the missing poster emblazoned onto them. We did the whole thing for well under £50.

Our focus was twofold: that the production would lead to news of Dan for his family and that we would create a committed piece of theatre that would attract a large audience. We hoped people would be impressed with the way we told this story. With the huge amount of narration we had to be imaginative in finding movement to illustrate the words being spoken, whilst also making every speech visually arresting. There was only one part where we needed help – the opening section, which we wanted to arrest the audience’s attention instantly. I invited an ex-student of mine in to help. Matt Kane had made a career from directing the professional touring productions of both Too Much Punch For Judy & Legal Weapon II, so I was keeping it ‘in the family’. He generated a high energy start that we never needed to alter. Thanks, Matt!

Schools tell me the only way to attract a decent audience was to do large-scale musicals. We trod a different path. We wanted to tell real stories about our community, to our community. We had no problem selling out frequently and created such a buzz around the town that we were featured on TV news programmes several times. This was our way of making a successful production. It worked.

None of us could have predicted what this so-called small production would go on to achieve in the years to come.

I admit that from the outset I had hopes that it would be toured into schools professionally. This had happened to a number of my previous plays, so seemed well within reach. This is precisely why I chose to work with a cast of four (2m 2f), so that it would be suitable for a professional TIE company. I hoped some of the cast would go on to become part of these professional companies.

In this respect, Missing Dan Nolan has underachieved. It only toured once, in 2006 by the Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch in that small region. It was a great production so I have no idea why it didn’t continue.

In 2016, a director who had successfully taken my Graham – World’s Fastest Blind Runner to the Edinburgh Fringe put on a large cast Youth Theatre production at the Lichfield Garrick Theatre where he had recently been appointed Artistic Director. It was a stunning production and features on the (current as I write) Wheellerplays DVD of the play which is now shown in schools alongside our original OYT production. Tim’s was very different to our four person TIE version and used the ensemble imaginatively adding a new and exciting dimension to the production.

What was also notable about that production was that Dan’s sister, Clare attended. Clare was probably thirteen when I met and interviewed her. The interview happened as an afterthought quite spontaneously when Clare wandered into the room. I was interviewing Pauline and she asked Clare if she wanted to speak. I remember Clare’s eloquence and her poignant memories of this massive tragedy. I drove back home afterwards, thinking how it would have been a great idea to do the whole play from Clare’s perspective, especially given that the performers would, as Youth Theatre members, be young people but, I felt it would be inappropriate to put her under such pressure so took the thought no further. (It’s only recently that I spoke to Clare about my thoughts on that day.)

Clare attended the OYT performances and was always chatty afterwards and, a few years later I was pleased to become Facebook friends. We messaged one another when something newsworthy happened with the play. One of these messages was about the Lichfield performance and I let her know that, despite the distance, I was planning to attend. Clare and her boyfriend decided they would attend and she agreed to be part of a Q&A with the cast after the performance.

It was wonderful meeting her after such a long break and, having seen the production the previous evening, I knew the performance was a stunner! She was duly blown away by it. Her contribution to the Q&A afterwards floored me. The passion with which she spoke about how her brother’s disappearance wasn’t a simple case of drowning… she was certain there were far more sinister motives behind his disappearance.

There was another moment in 2016, where I remember messaging Clare, a moment where the play overreached any expectations I could ever have had for any of my plays produced for a Youth Theatre in a school on an unexceptional estate in Southampton.

In 2016 OCR examination board announced that Missing Dan Nolan was to become a set text for the new GCSE (9-1) Drama examination alongside plays that came out of the professional world of theatre. I hadn’t been contacted to forewarn me of this so it came as a total surprise!

When it was first studied there was some debate about whether they should study the OYT production or the subsequent professional tour. I was adamant that it should be OYT, as this is where the real development of the play had occurred. That was where the story was – the story of us performing it in our theatre and getting the most incredible review when we first performed it:

I can’t remember the last time I saw a grown man, a stranger, cry in front of me. Or, for that matter, sat in a room of people gripped by mutual sorrow and unspeakable heartache.

This play about the tragic evening that the fifteen-year-old Hamble boy went missing after a fishing trip with friends will haunt everyone who witnesses it.

It’s a gripping human drama that will appeal to – and appall – anyone with a heart.

As the tale of a family in freefall unfolded, slowly and silently loved ones sought out each others’ hands and clasped them tightly in the darkness to a chorus of staccato sniffs and muffled sobs.

A row of young lads were trying desperately to hide their embarrassed tears in front of their mates – who wouldn’t have noticed anyway because they too were sobbing.

Also in the audience, the play’s central characters – Dan’s mum, Pauline Nolan and her daughter Clare – watched themselves portrayed by the young amateur thespians from Oaklands Youth Theatre.

The performance is based on real conversations with the family and instead of a script there has been an editing process where their statements have been fused into a coherent and powerful dialogue.

Dan’s last known movements are brought to life as well as the events leading up to and just after his disappearance at Hamble Quay on New Year’s Day.

It raises questions of the police who appeared slow to act. It took them a week to print missing posters, CCTV footage from the village was only analysed after the family prompted and key information took months to uncover because witnesses were not thoroughly quizzed.

The overriding impression from the play is that the police assumed the worst had happened to Dan and were not prepared to put resources into a manhunt.

But the family, it becomes clear, are adamant that their precious son and brother is still alive. Throughout the play they press a disturbing case that all avenues have not been explored.

Every person who has fallen into the Hamble and drowned has had their body recovered. The longest it has taken for a body to surface is four months.

Dan went missing eleven months ago.

Ben Clerkin, Southern Evening Echo

We took it to our local Totton Drama Festival, fully expecting to win, so much so that we didn’t even rehearse in the week of the festival. We ended up coming second to last! The cast were pulled up for their poor diction, something I viewed as just a fact of “Lordshill kids” and the structure of the play was questioned and new suggestions offered.

Rather than returning home and falling apart I re-wrote the script, using the suggestions of the knowledgeable adjudicator. The cast came in, rehearsed hard and frequently, determined to improve their enunciation. Six months later we took our refined production to the Woking Drama Festival (the biggest amateur One-Act Drama Festival in the country and…

… WE WON THE YOUTH AWARD!!!

It wasn’t easy. But we did it – by working relentlessly and overcoming any problems that confronted us. There was never any mention of the cast’s words being indistinct for any OYT show from that point onwards.

One of the most wonderful things I can say about this production is that the cast and crew remain in touch (partly due to Facebook), are still very proud of what we achieved together and now, nearly twenty years on, aware that the early production is studied. I am pleased (for the first time) to bring their memories to you as well as mine…

I hope you find the play as fulfilling as we did. Please try to bring something new to it just as we had to.