Chequered Flags to Chequered Futures

New revised and updated 2020 version

Mark Wheeller

• Publisher: Salamander Street Ltd.
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781913630355
• eBook ISBN: 9781913630348
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

New revised 2020 version

Chequered Flags to Chequered Futures tells the true story of Chris Gilfoy, the Rookie's World Champion Banger Racer in 2000.

In 2006 Chris was being driven along a public road in a powerful BMW by a racing friend. She was thought to be driving at 90 mph in a 30 limit. None were wearing seatbelts and, unknown to Chris, the driver was uninsured. Disastrously, they crashed into a wall, narrowly avoiding killing another driver. The consequences for all three in the car were life changing in very different ways.

The play tells the fast-paced story through the words of Chris and his family with great opportunities for imaginative ensemble work. In a parallel strand of powerful monologues, Jane (the mother of the driver) tells her story of the aftermath of the accident. 

Suitable for: Key Stage 3/4/5, BTEC, A-Level to adult

Duration: 60 minutes approximately

Cast: 5 female, 3 male, 3 female/male

"Mark beautifully crafts and weaves the story of the three friends and cleverly integrates some stunning monologues." Tim Ford: Artistic Director Garrick Theatre, Litchfield

CHRIS’S STORY 1

Music plays as lights gradually fade up on a stage which is littered with 20 1ft x 1ft wooden squares painted black (10) and white (10). The cast enter and with a stylised movement to represent ambition and determination, they each pick a square up and move to the front of the stage to form a vertical chequered flag.

The underscored music crescendos as two cast members hit the centre of the flag (in slow motion) forming it to disintegrate, again in slow motion. This cue also triggered a small blast from the smoke machine and some strong back lighting which, whilst the segments of flag are lowered to the floor, reveal a penitent-looking SHELLEY. The cast place the wooden squares along the front of the stage in a straight line which represent not only the chequered start line of a race track but the timeline of the play, leading up to the devastating decisions made by CHRIS, GRAHAM and SHELLEY. The opening closes with the chorus recreating the crash in slow-motion with ANN and ROY looking on and reacting with horror, to heighten the impact with the three central characters in their respective places in the car. As they complete this BRYONI emerges from the scene showing she has been one of the central performers in the scene. She speaks, indicating CHRIS, as the rest of the cast continue in a tableau or slow motion supportive action. CHRIS, ANN, ROY & ACTOR all leave the scene as it becomes their turn to speak¹.

BRYONI: When I started doing drama at secondary school my dad always told me the history of when he was there. “I done this, I done that,” and it’s like “Oh God!” Oh, and “I got an A*”. (Laughs)

CHRIS: At secondary school I loved drama… liked to make people laugh.

ANN: He could just pick up something and make it funny.

CHRIS: I’d walk through them theatre doors and it was like we was somewhere else.

It started through Mum (Indicates ANN.), who worked there. I used to go from junior school to get a lift home and sat in the little spinney chairs in her office, spinning myself around for hours.

ANN: (Laughing) If he was looking at a poster, say about badminton, he’d be there trying to do the actions of a badminton player.

CHRIS: One day I saw a poster for OYT auditions. I thought, “I’ll have a go at that,” I never realised I’d get into it as heavily as I did.

ANN: We had an idea he’d be good because he was very… erm I don’t know quite what the word would be but…

ROY: He was comical.

ANN: Yes.

ROY: … and he’s still like it.

CHRIS: I made so many friends.

ANN: I remember him coming home one day and saying, I’m going to help Mark, his drama teacher, to write a play. I said, “Oh what’s that?” And he said:

CHRIS: It’s going to be called “Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?”

ANN: (Laughing) And I went “What?”

BRYONI: Yeh, he’s always saying: “I wrote a play with Mark Wheeller!”

CHRIS: It was a road safety play… went on to tour all over the UK.

ROY: It was comical wasn’t it?

ANN: It was sad, Roy.

ROY: Some of it was funny.

ANN: It was down to earth.

ROY: Yeh.

CHRIS: I went to see the professional group do it after we did it and when the rhyming speech at the end came I was mouthing all the words.

ACTOR: People’d say I’d encouraged her with a dare. They’d make judgements and suspect I didn’t care They’d say I should have known better… should have been more mature. But everyone knows… for a moment’s stupidity there is no known cure.

CHRIS: After all those years I remembered it word for word! It’s ironic how I was part of this road safety play and… well… what’s happened to me now.

ANN: It’s very similar isn’t it? Taking risks.

CHRIS: As much as drama was a passion, motor racing was something I’d always done and when the opportunities came of going abroad with it I thought, this is serious. There never was a moment where I decided not to do drama, just where I couldn’t do it.

1 Credit to Matthew Russell and his production at The Samuel Ward School (now Academy) who provided Mark with the inspiration to use his introduction to the play rather than what appeared in the original publication.

JANE’S STORY 1

JANE: Right… going back to May 2007… it was the FA Cup Final, Chelsea v Man U. John and I went out for lunch with some friends and got back early afternoon to watch the match. Shelley was at home in the morning with me. She was meeting up with some old friends so, when she left, I said:

See you later,

…and that was it.

She was watching the match in the pub and she phoned her dad to sort of say… they were having a bit of banter. I just remember her dad laughing and saying… “Well we’re off now, Shell…” ’cos we were going out with friends… we were off to speedway ’cos my son, Danny, is a speedway rider.

John, Danny and Stewart stayed in the pits, you know, to get the bike organised and everything.

My friend and I went up to the bar at the speedway track. We were stood there having a drink and I saw Danny and Kayleigh, his girlfriend… I could just tell by the way they were walking that something had gone down… something had happened. Danny said:

“There’s been a bad accident in Wing and (Voice breaks.) I think Shelley was driving.”

CHRIS’S STORY 2

CHRIS: Motorsport was my life if you know what I mean? I’ve always been involved, since I was a baby… literally when I was born, my dad raced grass track motorcycles and we’d go literally every weekend from March ’til November… every weekend in a different part of the country, racing bikes.

ANN: When I met Roy, in 1979, one of the things he made clear to me was that his first love was motor racing.

ROY: All of a sudden, erm, I was asked to have my kids from my first marriage, and Ann said:

ANN: That’s all right. Go and get them. I’ll have them.

ROY: Ann, I need you to know. My fi...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Afterword 2020
• From Page to Stage with Matt Russell
• Chequered Flags to Chequered Futures