Me And Me Dad, Hull Truck Theatre, until March 20 (From York Press)

Me And Me Dad, Hull Truck Theatre, until March 20

11:52am Friday 5th February 2010 in

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IF YOU are wondering what happened to Dave, the aspiring actor in Nick Lane’s My Favourite Summer, who spent a season working alongside a nutcase called Melvin, he now returns in the sequel Me And Me Dad.

“It’s a more tender and bittersweet piece,” says the South Yorkshire writer-director, whose world premiere is running at Hull Truck Theatre at the outset of a spring and summer tour.

The play had not begun as a follow-up. Nevertheless, he took the “wizard’s advice” of John Godber to acknowledge that the central character’s voice was similar to before, this time in a play rooted in Nick’s mother dying at 54 and his subsequent decision to move back to Yorkshire from his nascent acting career in London to teach his father how to cook.

“I effectively became my dad’s dad,” recalls Nick, who was 27 at the time.

“I was very naïve. It was hardly like I was trained. I’d just learned from my mum, and I thought, ‘If I can get that enjoyment across…”

…Did it work well? “Did it hell!”

The character of Dave in Me And Me Dad is not merely a theatrical version of Nick. “There’s more ‘sparkiness’ to him, I’ve created someone that is both me and not me; he’s based partly on my sister’s fractious relationship with my dad,” says Nick. “My mum’s parting gift was for them to get on… though that has slightly eroded because they’re too similar.”

Me And Me And Dad reflects on what Nick has learned from his relationship with his father since his mother died.

“I’ve realised my job is to love him… whatever he eats,” he says. “There isn’t a massive quest in the play, but it’s a journey, both to learn to live with loss and to learn to live with people as they are.”

Will there be a third play to complete the trilogy? “It was never intended that way. There isn’t a natural arc because there isn’t anything else interesting that’s happened to me,” says an unduly modest Nick, who is Hull Truck’s associate director.

“These two ideas for plays came to me when Damian Cruden [York Theatre Royal’s artistic director] asked me if I had any thoughts about what I wanted to write about next after The Derby McQueen Affair.

“Neil Simon wrote three wonderful plays about his life as a young man – Brighton Beach Memoirs, Biloxi Blues and Broadway Bound – but I’m just a silly old f**t from Doncaster, so there’s that thing of ‘Why would anyone be interested in my life?’.

“But you would hope that in every relationship you’re looking for love and understanding, so that the subject matter then becomes universal in a play.”

• Me And Me Dad runs at Hull Truck Theatre until March 20. Box office: 01482 323638.