I’m a New Zealander, and very proud of it. Whenever this comes up in conversation, I am usually asked some quite predictable questions. ‘Do you like Flight of the Concords?’ – Yes. ‘Are you in the All Blacks.’ – No. ‘Are you a hobbit?’ – Debatable.

The other popular topic for discussion is, of course, sheep. I tell people, often to their surprise, that there are 4 million people in New Zealand, and 40 million sheep. I’ve wanted to write a play about New Zealand for a long time, but I didn’t really know how I should go about it. I did know, however, that I wanted it to be truly ‘kiwi’. So what better place to start than with our beloved woolly friends.

The Golden Fleece is set on a sheep farm in the rural heartland of New Zealand. The play is named after a competition that takes place each year in New Zealand to find the best sheep’s fleece in the country. The Golden Fleece follows the exploits of Murray, a farmer, as he tries to win the competition despite a distinct lack of ability and the best efforts of his arch-nemesis, Trevor, to quash his chances.

The Golden Fleece is my second play to be staged in Cambridge. My first was Esio Trot which played at the ADC last term and will transfer to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August. To be honest, in writing Esio Trot Roald Dahl had already done most of the work for me. As Hannah Mirsky (for The Tab) commented, “If someone told me that they didn’t like Roald Dahl, I’d suspect them of being either not entirely honest, or not entirely human.” With this project, it was a blank slate – there was no Roald Dahl peering over my shoulder to give me a helping hand. However, one thing I really tried to emulate in The Golden Fleece was Esio Trot’s characteristic ‘silliness’. The Golden Fleece is light-hearted piece that is aware of its own theatricality, and able to laugh at it.

Tom Wells (one of my favourite playwrights, author of Me, As A Penguin, which was staged at the Corpus Playroom in Michaelmas) has said that “a bit of heart, a bit of mischief, some words – and that's a play.” This has become a mantra for me in my writing. My starting point is to assemble a crop of diverse and intriguing characters, and the rest sort of falls into place from there. From Trevor, with his strange love for structuralism, to Murray, who hasn’t washed a pair of socks for nearly two years.

Despite their various quirks and flaws, for me, the most important quality of all of these characters, even (and especially) the villains, is their sense of warmth. Indeed, warmth is the quality I value most in my writing. As such, I was rather pleased when Stefan Golaszewski (the judge of this year’s Harry Porter Prize, for which The Golden Fleece was shortlisted) described the play as “a very warm, gentle piece … I enjoyed the sense of light coming out through the darkness.”

The really tricky job is translating that from page to stage. However, I couldn’t have hoped for a better team for the job. The director (Madeleine Heyes) and producer (Claire O’Brien) are both magnificent, the cast is hilarious, and the crew is committed. If anyone can salvage the script, it’s this bunch.

Finally, I think an important thing to remember about is that the theatre scene in Cambridge is a place for learning. The plays that are put on each week are of a massively high standard, but they’re put on by people – actors, directors, technicians, and musicians - who are still working out how to do what they do, to the best of their ability. The same thing applies to writers. I’m not trying to be Shakespeare or Beckett or Stoppard. What I am trying to do is figure out what works and what doesn’t, and Cambridge provides the perfect opportunity to do this. The Golden Fleece is not going to be flawless, but I’ve given it a darned good shot.