Skittles aka Love & Sweets
Hello. If you’ve come here from googling Cardboard Heart, please go to my new site.
Love & Sweets won Best Scripted Comedy Drama at the BBC Audio Drama Awards.
Skittles is now published, in a volume with my new play Wingman.
Start press again.
Skittles was on Radio 4 at 23:30 from Tuesday 2nd to Friday 5th April 2013, as Richard Marsh: Love and Sweets. It’s off iPlayer now, but there’s a clip here.
Skittles is a story about love (and sweets, which are more reliable). This page is mostly about the run at the Edinburgh fringe in 2011. Ongoing news as and when.
Reviews:
Also twitter reviews from Telegraph and Observer:
Telegraph
Forget the Pinter poetry thing @Pleasance; for verse with heart and verve see Richard Marsh‘s dazzling love-gone-wrong show Skittles
@domcavendish (Dominic Cavendish, Telegraph).
Observer
Ideal blast of lunchtime wit & whimsy in spoken-word show SKITTLES @ Plez Below. Great writing, great performance… free Skittle.
@tomlamont (Tom Lamont, Observer).
A nice review of the December 2011 BAC shows here. (Obviously this is a nice review, I’m telling you about it. What’s more revealing is there appear to be no bad ones*).
* so far this is the only review**.
** Not any more***.
*** Also a review of the York show in June 2012 here.
During the fringe, I wrote some blogs at Whatsonstage. Here is the first.
Frankly, they deteriorate as they go on but if you’re feeling persistent:
If you’ve been to see the show, please get in touch either below, or by emailing 2011skittles@gmail.com. Or follow me on twitter – @richardbmarsh
Richard Marsh 
Hiya, I know this thread hasn’t had many comments for a little while, but I just remembered this podcast again, and – like everyone else – was sad to find nowhere to listen back to it. This isn’t a plea for publication (though that would be great), it’s more of a commendation that 4 years after I listened to your work it still had enough of an impact to make me frantically search through old texts with friends in order to find its name again.
Alice
Alice, that’s a wonderful thing to hear. Thank you. It means a lot. I write in order to (hopefully) reach people so it’s lovely to hear that something has connected. And congrats on keeping your phone for four years…
The show is occasionally repeated on Radio 4 Extra, and when it is you can download it as a podcast for free (quite good because it doesn’t auto-delete like iPlayer does).
In terms of publication, the radio show isn’t available at the moment sadly, but the words are. (Actually not the radio show, but the play it was based on). If you’d like to look for it, google Wingman & Skittles and it should come up. (It’s a lot cheaper direct from Bloomsbury than from Amazon btw).
All the best, Richard
Hello, I love “love and sweets”, i downloaded onto my ipod as a podcast off bbc i player so now its permanently on there. It makes me laugh out loud which gets me strange looks if i’m on public transport. If i’m having a really stressful day or i can’t face listening to ‘in our time’, i re-listen and it totally cheers me up! i really hope you do more of it
Jess
That’s very kind of you, Jess. I’m used to strange looks on public transport so I sympathise.
I don’t think there’ll be more of this story, but we’re waiting to hear back about another show for next year. Watch this space…
I would love a recording of the programmes. The quirky turn of phrase and timing just creased me up! Don’t know when I’ve enjoyed something so much. More please, much more!
Thanks, Jacqui. We’re working on more ideas so hopefully there will be more at some point. I think it’s hard for them to put the recording out as it uses quite a lot of music that’s tricky to license – but they will be repeating it at some point. If you’re anywhere near London, I’m doing some new work this Friday – details on the gigs page.
Richard, I love all of the work that you do. Will Love and Sweets ever be available to purchase? I caught it in April when it was on BBC iplayer. Disappointed not to own a copy of it. Ironically it got me through a few boring days at work!
Thanks, Amy. Very glad you liked it. Do you mean the recording or the script itself? The recording I don’t know about, but I’m hoping the script will be published at some point, in a collection, if I get enough other plays written.
Glad it helped at work. Some of it was written there.
Richard
Hi Rich,
Got to be honest… I don’t normally like poetry (I know that’s a huge generalisation – don’t throw tomatoes at me!) but heard your show last week on Radio 4 and really enjoyed it! I thought the delivery was brilliant with incredibly clever rhymes and “quirks”. It kept me wanting to listen to find out what happened!
Look forward to hearing more hopefully.
Tom
Thanks, Tom. No tomatoes – I think a lot of people feel the same way. I’m chuffed you enjoyed it.
Hopefully there will be more on the radio – we’re waiting to hear on the next thing. I’ll mention it on the site if it goes through.
All the best,
Richard
Same thing happened to me. Absolutely blown away by this talent. Beautiful storytelling with wit, rhyme and action. Has the ability to make you laugh and cry. Would love to see more of his stuff!
I happened to attend after meeting Rich in the cue at Fringe…. went on a whim and was blown away. Skittles is outstanding – delivered with quick wit, crisp pose and utter perfection for nearly one hour. Rich Marsh is brilliant and will go far – ok, I’ve said it here – heck, maybe you already have!
Thanks, David. Glad you liked it. I can’t work out what your email address is – the technology of my own website is beyond me – but if you email me I can keep you in touch with other things I’m doing, if you’d be interested.
I live in the states, so when you get this way let me know, but if you have recorded “Skittles” I sure would be interested in purchasing a copy – really one of the best plays/poetry/programs I’ve seen in a long time.
e-mail is AMOPTBDDWN@aol.com