I'm Arthur Meek

I'm a playwright from New Zealand who lives and works in Norfolk, England. 

Traditionally, I adapt historical material into stories for stage and screen. 

That means that I use the source materials as a foundation for characters, events and story arcs. You've likely encountered many adaptations in the course of your reading, watching and listening. Adaptations generally kick off by saying that the story you're about to encounter is 'based on' real events. And they are. But as you can guess, adaptations take a heck of lot of artistic license. Usually, these additions and subtractions and reshuffles are necessary to turn the source material into a more engaging and moving story. 

After reading Voices of Gallipoli, I felt something very different. 

These twelve veterans gave me the most vividly powerful accounts of combat that I have ever encountered. I have spent my entire lifetime reading books about war and watching films and documentaries about war. I have never encountered the detail and narrative drive related by these veterans, in their own words, about what they saw, what they did and what they felt at Gallipoli during those 8 months during World War One. 

I believe that these accounts needed no adaptation at all. 

In fact, to take any artistic license, or to add music, or costumes, or characterisation could detract from the raw power of these words. 

There's only one way to unlock their full power: to speak them aloud.

I feel these words simply needed to be lifted off the page and spoken aloud - and that they can be spoken aloud by anyone - with no editing, interjections, context or interpretation. 

I want to collaborate with you to help these veterans from a different place and time to speak for themselves to the audiences of today.