Richard Douglas first dreamed up the eponymous character of his first play Barbara the Zoo Keeper back in 2009 when he wrote a comedy blog to pass the time whilst job hunting. Three years later he took the idea to the Write for the Stage class and brought the title character back to life adding into the mix Judith and Fleetwood. The first WriteForTheStage course helped Richard to develop the characters from simple ideas to three dimensional complex people that jumped out of the pages. At the end of the ten week course not only had our rabble of characters come to life but the first fifteen minutes of the play was complete. This was performed as a script-in-hand piece in front of an audience who were given the opportunity to feed back their opinions. The advanced course helped Richard take the solid foundations built in the beginners class and expand the play to its full length. Barbara the Zoo Keeper Barbara's first outing was in May 2014 when she hit the stage at the Kings Arms, Salford. The four night run was supported by the Arts Council England and the play was watched by more than a hundred people. Emmy Fyles played harebrained Barbara, Chrissy Hoey was the unhinged Judith and Robert Moore the underhand Fleetwood. The Good Review wrote; 'Barbara the Zoo Keeper is a great debut for RP Douglas. It delivered a big dollop of something that is often missing from a lot of plays - fun. Not only was it a complete joy to watch, it looked like the cast were having a whale of a time performing it.'