Screenplays

Not in the current novella but planned for the TV series is the character of the Director of Public Prosecutions. Now they know who the killer is, he must decide whether to go ahead with a trial. It’s debatable if there is enough evidence to prove that it wasn’t an accident. Also does he want to prove it? Citizen Juries seem to be the silver bullet that can enable long term decisions to be made that can save our planet. A murder would undermine the whole concept. This leads to a crisis of conscience for the Director of Public Prosecutions who has skin in the game. This is his final case and all he wants is to retire from his job with his integrity intact and spend some time with his wife and, he hopes, grandchildren. But his daughter is too scared of the future to have children, until she hears that Citizen’s Juries have been granted proper power. His conscience forbids him to let a killer go loose, vigilantes can’t be tolerated. He does his own investigations and discover that the killer is not who they thought it was, but he now has to determine what to do about it. Before he knows it, he has become a vigilante himself.

Brief outline of season 1: This is three stories woven together: the story of the Cuban revolution, the true (ish) story of the making of the musical ‘Fidel’, but mainly the story of 21st century life seen both through the eyes of Fidel Castro (magically present as a 40 something revolutionary in 21st century UK) and through the eyes of GG: mother, colleague, aspiring composer, sister and also single woman thrust as an innocent into the bizarre world of online dating. While GG struggles with the emotional challenges of 21st century life, the key theme of how to survive the 21st century is played out in the secondary character Mel who is a sustainability lecturer and prepper, convinced the end of the world as we know it is nigh. The character of Fidel introduces us to Cuban solutions which enabled Cuba to survive on minimal resources and values of solidarity. Despite the themes of anxiety and loneliness, the tone is upbeat.
This is also a musical feast drawing on many musical traditions. All the songs mentioned that relate to the musical exist and are available to use – see www.fidelthemusical.org to hear the songs and get a sense of the true story underlying the script.
In following seasons, there are a series of crises that throw the community of characters into jeopardy and the community must learn skills to survive and thrive in a new world. Each season brings back a different historical character to assist.

SEASON 1: STORY LINES AND CHARACTERS
PLOT A: GG is around 40 and we meet her as she is lonely, having suffered the death of both her parents, splitting up with her long-time boyfriend and her son having left home. She is pathologically empathetic to the sufferings of others and her musical tastes reflect her tendency to wallow in misery. Although she is passionate about music and a musical lecturer, her last musical was a disaster – but this has not affected her dream to write a West End musical. On a visit to Cuba, she is inspired by the spirit of solidarity, community and tales of Fidel Castro to write a musical about Fidel. Rumours that Fidel is immortal seem to be borne out when he appears to GG after his death to help her write the musical ‘Fidel’. His aim is to tell his story and the story of Cuba from the Cuban perspective. The key hook throughout is whether GG is mad or is being haunted.
Casting suggestions for GG: Billie Piper, Sally Hawkins, Romola Garai (the Hour, Emma), Louise Brealey (Molly Hooper in Sherlock). A reader suggested Miranda Hart – it didn’t appeal as it makes the romantic angle less credible, but when I re-read it, I saw immediately the character has Miranda-ish elements in her authenticity and inability to hide her feelings.
For Fidel I’d love Javier Bardem or Jaime Camil.
PLOT B: Mike is GG’s brother, he is a marketing executive and he is married to GG’s colleague Mel who is a professor in sustainability. Mel has just kicked Mike out for sleeping with a colleague at a conference, and also because she despises his job which encourages consumption, which she believes is destroying the planet. Mel has nightmares that the ‘end of the world as we know it’ is nigh, and gets increasingly panicked about ensuring she is prepared and can keep her family safe. Mike is devastated to lose Mel and tries to woo her back with survivalist skills, archery certificates and hydroponic cucumbers, but it is not until he turns his marketing skills to good that he finally wins her back.
Mel is sardonic and more hard edged than GG: Sandra Horgan or Zawe Ashton?
Mike: Russell Tovey, Lee Ingleby, Will Mellor.
PLOT C: Charles is GG’s romantic interest. He is nerdy, a Tory and a re-enactor, yet despite their differences they are thrown together and discover a deep connection. Charles proves his worth, but suspicions arise when GG suspects he isn’t all he appears to be.
My first choice would be Matt Smith.
PLOT D: Sue is GG’s nemesis – another music lecturer, but more successful, manipulative, charming and hypocritical. GG’s friends and family like her and worst of all, prefer her music. Due to a misunderstanding, Sue is also writing a musical about Cuba, and each episode shows a reversal of fortune as first one then the other attains the upper hand. Finally, Sue gets GG sectioned under the mental health act as clips showing GG being possessed by Fidel Castro go viral. But GG gets out on the ‘Santa defence’ from Miracle on 34th Street, on the basis that one cannot say GG is mad just because she claims to be haunted by Fidel.
My casting choice for Sue would be Sally Phillips or Sandra Oh.

Episode 1:
GG is in trouble for making her students cry with her miserable music course and is sent to Cuba to learn about some more upbeat Latin music for the World Music course. She goes with her sister-in-law Mel who is a professor in sustainability, and is keen to learn lessons from Cuba who has learned how to survive amidst 60 years of lack of resources due to the embargo. In Cuba GG and Mel become inspired by what they see, and learn about the Cuban revolution and meet many people who know Fidel. GG becomes a ‘Fidelista’. Mel gets off with their Cuban guide as revenge against her husband (and GG’s brother) Mike. The idea of a musical about Fidel Castro is floated as a joke while drunk. The idea lies dormant till, on the moment of his death Fidel appears to haunt GG asking her to tell the Cuban story and keep her promise to write a musical ‘Fidel’.
Episodes 2 – 7 are fully written and follow plot arcs as above.
Cameos
Episode 6 includes lots of cameos that are pure fun when different actors compete to play Che and Fidel. They could also work using fictional names that represent these kinds of personalities or with the actual actors, but nothing in the plot depends on them so they are optional bits of fun.
1. George Clooney and Brad Pitt discuss who should play Che and who Fidel and who can pull off a beret, while their wives/girlfriends debate Cuban politics. 2. Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon do a masterful display of acting one-upmanship as they challenge each other to play different actors playing Fidel and Che e.g. “Now Sean Connery as Fidel”, “Queen Elizabeth as Che Guevara!” 3. Alexei Sayle barges into the auditions, waves away the script and does a rant of his own. He carries such conviction that he wins everyone over but then glares at them all as if they were the cause of his rant and storms out again.

4. Hugh Grant hears that they want Hugh, and thinks they mean him. His apologetic style is not very Fidel like.
SEASON 1 PITCH
This is the original pitch for the screenplay version and still works for season 1, but if you want to pitch it including the idea of future seasons then it would need rewriting:
“A revolution is a struggle to the death between the future and the past” Fidel Castro
GG is on the market again, but the market isn’t like it used to be, and neither is she. Looking for love in the 21stCentury is a different game.
Time for a time-out. A Caribbean sojourn to re-arm and re-assess. But when your island retreat is Cuba, birthplace of revolutionary communism, you are apt to come back with more than a tan and a souvenir shot glass.
Back to reality, GG finds she has a new ally in the war on life. He might be an imaginary, bearded socialist icon (deceased) but still, she needs all the help she can get.
A man of action, even in death, must not reserve his seductions and seditions to one woman alone. And GG is curious to see what ripples result from dropping her hot political firebrand into the tepid pond of democratic apathy, and into the fresh produce aisle at Tescos.
Captured by his story and swayed by his persuasive rhetoric, GG is compelled to build a monument to her guerrilla muse, his loves and his cause. An all-singing, all-dancing monument that will wake the sleeping consciousness of the capitalist bourgeoisie and release like doves the captured souls of the proletariat.
As she builds her monument, GG takes on the past with the future. Her own and that of the wider world. The struggle is real, Comrade. The struggle is real.
“A revolution is not a bed of roses” Fidel Castro

FUTURE SEASONS
Season 2 focuses on the prime minister (who we meet as the foreign minister in Episode 1) who is taken over by Che Guevara. What is a Tory Minister (a mixture of Trump and Boris) to do when he is guided by the man who epitomises the spirit of solidarity in a country in crisis as climate change brings an influx of refugees? Che’s solution is to do a knowledge swap: our knowledge helps desertified regions in Africa flourish again, and African knowledge helps strengthen UK local communities making them more resilient to shortages. But to sell this solution to his party, the Prime Minster must pitch this as ‘sending them back to where they came from’.
Season 3 brings back Lizzie Magie – a little known 19th century American woman who invented Monopoly, was a stand-up comedian, an inventor of gadgets and political activist. She designed the game with two sets of rules – one where as one person gains, everyone gains – win-win. The alternative set of rules (the current Monopoly) was designed to be a cautionary tale – she turns in her grave when she realises the wrong version prevailed. These themes of win-lose versus win-win are played out against shortages of supplies (as Mel predicted) and a breakdown in money supply. Charles finds that he and his re-enactors are being asked to become a kind of local guerrilla army for hire. Sue tries to recruit them to protect her stash – she was prepared because she listened to Mel’s predictions unlike others and made plans. Sam wants Charles to use his group to steal food for him and his new wife and baby. Charles is torn between the self-interested values of some of his re-enactors and Sue, and concern for GG’s son Sam and also the values of solidarity that mean so much to GG. Luckily over the years Mike’s tool- sharing plan has morphed into a whole new sharing business model which helps people deal with the breakdown in supply chains and infra-structure. Gradually they all bring the community back from the brink of feral self-interest to a functioning community.

Can be written as one-off drama or series
Its 2030 and all the climate change predictions have come true. Water is scarce, key minerals and resources have all but run out, cod and chips is now a rare treat. But with the ingenuity of humankind we survive. In fact most have never had it so good. Everyone is happy except for Professor Maxwell Blithe and his wife Dr Jane Blithe.

Dr. Jane Blithe is a character whose self-image depends upon looking perfect and thinking herself to be better than others. It kills her that she is a lower academic rank than her professor husband.

Professor Maxwell Blithe is arrogant, short-tempered but quite straight forward person who has little interest in anything other than his research.

Maxwell and Jane met on a biological field trip in Papua New Guinea. They fell in love. Now its 20 years later, they argue constantly, they have a daughter who can’t wait to leave home, and they’re facing the unwelcome prospect of being alone together. Jane’s resentment at her career not going here she wanted it to, partly due to motherhood, turns her bitter, passive- aggressive and underhand. The deference Maxwell receives as a professor has turned him into an arrogant git. Their marriage is falling apart and the only thing they agree on is that it’s all the other person’s fault.

Plot outline
Things come to a head when Maxwell’s research to clone a chimp is turned down. He believes his wife, who is on the wellbeing committee spoke against his proposal only to spite him.

An argument culminates in a bet being made that the other one cannot live with themselves for a month.

Maxwell and Jane illegally decide to clone themselves, to prove the other is impossible to live with.

Maxwell goes first but the moment his clone is created they have a problem – Maxwell and his clone are both positive that they are the original and the other is the clone.

To avoid this problem, when Jane gets cloned she finds a way to be clear who is the original – this gives rise to a different problem – from the very start Jane’s clone complains of being seen as a 2nd class citizen.

Maxwell and Maxwell make efforts to get on and work things out to accommodate two people, but it quickly goes wrong. They both want same chair, both want to drive, both need to have the last word, both want to work. Things get ugly very quickly. They get caught out both being at work, and say they are twins. They end up being chased in car by nature/nurture researchers. One ends up in hospital and he has to give blood/kidney to his clone, then both at home recovering. Maxwell’s story comes to a head when he tries to punch his own reflection thinking it’s the clone.

Jane’s trajectory is different. Her clone’s complaints of being seen as a second class citizen sound very much like Jane’s complaints about being held back as a woman. Her clone is passive aggressive towards her in the same way she was towards Maxwell. Jane’s clone starts to undermine Jane whenever she can. They both sulk, clone isn’t happy with anything Jane offers, as she feels patronised and treated as a charity. The clone undermines Jane by putting pictures up of herself on social media when she is looking less than perfect. Jane – usually meticulous in appearance – is furious when her clone stops using hair remover and allows a faint moustache to grow in the name of female empowerment. Jane’s story comes a head when she thinks about poisoning her clone, but just as the thought occurs to her, her clone sweetly offers her a cup of tea…

Maxwell realising he is impossible to live with rushes to see Jane, but finds her in bed with his clone – who clearly had had the same idea. There is a fight, but Jane’s clone stops it, and takes him away. They get on well – remember early days.

Clones start to die due to problem in research. Maxwell is prepared to save Jane’s clone, but wants to let his clone die. Jane persuades him to save both clones. This shows she still loves Maxwell, and despite her loathing of her clone does not want to be party to murder. So she is actually more ethical than Maxwell, although she’s had to realise that her ethics have also been compromised by underhand motives. They both start to appreciate the best in the other person, and also that technology and ethics need each other. They work together to save their clones.

Clones get saved, but now what to do with them? Their other halves aren’t eligible for a carbon allowance making thing very tight indeed.

Daughter gives birth. Decide that originals will return to Papua New Guinea and clones will look after things at home for a while.

Cut to 10 years later and they are arguing again – he says that he gets on fine with his clone now, so don’t tell him he can’t live with himself. She says yes that’s because you’re a sexist, if you had to live with yourself as a woman, that would be a different matter…. (sequel opportunity!)