Rikki Beodle-Blair & Sarah Maclennan - an earnest conversation

Photo: Bush Theatre

Prior to this event, I was unfamiliar with Rikki Beadle-Blair’s work. Really, it was the offer of free food and listening to another writer yap was that had me seated, intrigued and satiated. And fortunately, Rikki Beadle-Blair’s conversation with Sarah Maclennan was exactly what I hoped it would be: funny, inspiring, and all-round lovely.  

Arriving at the event, I was greeted with a spread of various sweet treats and hot drinks which I took full advantage of (I’m not paying nine grand a year for nothing). And, to my surprise, Beadle-Blair was stationed at the door to welcome everyone into the lecture hall.  

When Maclennan and Beodle-Blair started their discussion, despite the decent turn out, ranging from students to members of RILCH, I felt like I was directly involved and, most importantly, I didn’t feel like I was being talked down to. I suspect Beadle-Blairs approach to both Maclennan and the audience was influenced by his childhood as he attended a ‘Free School’, where he was taught that children teach teachers just as much as teachers teach the children.  

He also explained part of his writing process, like how, when he’s finished with a project he’s working on, he deletes it. Yes. His hard work, gone, just like that. If he wants any to access his old work, he has to contact actors and distributors for a copy of it instead of simply searching his computer. 

Why would someone even think of that, let alone do it?  

Well, simply put: if you’re stuck in the past, you will never evolve. A statement so powerful that a decade’s worth of my writing quivers whenever it hears my mum shredding old payslips. I would never do something that drastic, but the insight to a successful writer's process has caused me to think about my own.  

Beadle-Blair is a terrific speaker; he’s charismatic, funny, all of which was complimented by Maclennan’s wonderfully curated questions. The respect both had for one another was obvious in the way they spoke to each other, and despite not knowing Beadle-Blair prior to this event, I definitely left a fan of his.