Last week, we had a read-through of our unfinished script, 'For We Are Young And Free'.

We asked three very clever people to play the parts in the script and to provide us with feedback afterwards.

I honestly cannot offer any better advice to writers than DO A READ-THROUGH WITH ARTICULATE PEOPLE BEFORE YOU FEEL THE SCRIPT IS READY.

It was the best, most challenging and motivating session. I don't know why, but the potential horror of realising that certain things don't work or that certain other things need to be completely reshaped is (at the right point in the process) the most confidence-inspiring thing. You realise you can change that, you can tweak this, you are in control of the direction of the writing and there are things about it that actually work. It's a brilliant thing, the read-through.

And then, months from now, after the show, in the foyer (at the wrong point in the process) when someone says, "I didn't like this character" or "Did you ever think about taking this part out altogether?" (and there are people who say this kind of stuff in foyers after shows), you get to say, "Yes, we workshopped that, and it didn't work because [explain why person asking question is not as clever as you are]."

And it's quite a nice feeling to be able to say something constructive, rather than standing there feeling insecure, and it doesn't matter if people don't like the show (not everyone likes every show)... but it does matter that you feel like you thought things through and you challenged yourself early enough in the process that it made an impact on the script.

It's at this point that you look across the foyer at the people who were at the read-through and you think "Thank you", and quite often they look back at you and they give you a little wink and you remember them always.

Thanks very much to Tim, Jane, Emily and Rita.