Isolde Fenton introduces her new Drama On One play Chalk & Cheese, a winner of the PJ O'Connor Award - a story about a girl who wants to be heard, and a boy who doesn't speak...
In 2021, during my final months at the Gaiety School of Acting, our Manifesto tutor, Donal Courtney, gave us one final challenge: to create anything we wanted. Manifesto is a class unique to the GSA. It's designed to offer you tools and practices you can use to develop original work. Each week, Donal gave us a new prompt, from "create a 30-second piece with no dialogue" to "write a scene using this Shakespearean insult," and we’d perform our responses the next day. It was fast, intense, and unpredictable; the perfect balance of structure and chaos. So when the final brief came with no rules at all, I was nervous. I had made some pieces I was proud of, and others I hoped would quietly disappear. With this final opportunity, I wanted to say something important. But I hadn't a clue what. I had already explored themes like the Catholic Church, hypochondria, even a dystopian world where touch was illegal. I felt like I had run out of ideas.
And then I thought of Séimí.
Séimí is my younger brother. He’s funny, handsome, and he has autism. Growing up with an autistic sibling is complicated. You learn early on that their needs will often come first, which is something that’s difficult to understand as a child. There are moments of deep frustration, loneliness, and miscommunication. You become familiar with anxiety, both your sibling’s and your own. They’re connected, yet different, like mirror images. However, those moments are also balanced by lessons in patience, empathy, and learning a worldview entirely different from your own. You quickly become aware of how autistic people are treated. The stares, the whispers during public meltdowns, the slurs. They hurt the most. I heard that one particularly awful word more than once, long before I even knew what it meant. I saw the way people flinched or laughed or rolled their eyes as it fell out of their mouths and thought - well, that it must mean something bad. So why were they using it to describe my brother?
While the story itself is fictionalised, the emotions and the feelings it explores come from a very real place.
Suddenly, the phrase "chalk and cheese" came to mind. It was a silly saying I had heard a lot growing up. All at once, it seemed unbelievably fitting. So I started writing. I wrote about a girl who wanted to be heard, and a boy who didn't speak; a sister who didn’t want to understand, and a brother who couldn’t. It all came rushing out. The next day, I performed the first draft of Chalk & Cheese to my classmates. The response was overwhelming. Afterwards, Donal kept me back to talk about where this piece could go next; how it could grow, deepen, become something more. I will always be grateful for his guidance. I had been aware of the PJ O’Connor Award for a while - after seeing the callout for the first time I knew it was something I wanted to apply for.
In 2022, Chalk & Cheese had a mini debut as part of the amazing Scene & Heard Festival run by Smock Alley Theatre. After that run, I wasn’t sure how to develop it further. The language and the flow felt complete. I decided to adapt it for radio, and was instantly struck by how right it felt. I applied for the award at the start of 2024 with my fully realised script. In September of that year, my mother called me to tell me I had won. Her friend had heard it announced on the radio. I was overwhelmed with emotion. I had been having a tough time as a writer, thinking of taking a step back. Winning this award brought me so much hope and drive to keep going. I will forever be thankful to the judges and for Drama on One for giving me this opportunity. Listening to radio plays on Sundays while driving around Ireland was something my family and I loved doing.
And now, amazingly, my play will be part of that. Chalk & Cheese is extremely important to me. While the story itself is fictionalised, the emotions and the feelings it explores come from a very real place. It’s about complicated love, frustration, confusion; siblings and parents, growing up, neurodiversity and ignorance. It’s poetic, visceral and unapologetic. It’s a personal story, but it is not unique to me or my family. This play is for the siblings. It is for the parents. It is for those who haven’t lived this experience; who stare, who judge, who mutter words they don’t fully understand. And, more than anything, it is for my brother Séimí. Thank you for listening.
Drama On One: Chalk & Cheese, RTÉ Radio 1, Sunday September 21st at - listen to more from Drama On One here
