To my closest friends it’s a piece of vertiginous tomfoolery. To me it’s an affair of towering gravitas. I refer, of course, to my jealously-guarded hopes of becoming a free-running champion.

For those of you unacquainted with the modern marvels of free running, Parkour enthusiasts are those nimble will-o-wisps that bound through our cityscapes, clambering water-towers, conquering construction sites, pin-balling off cement-marooned trees to hang from mezzanines and generally encouraging your significant other to say things like ‘Oooh, hasn’t he got ripply arms?! I’d love to go out with someone like that. You know, someone with actual muscle definition. Actually, you know what would be nice, darling: if you started exercising above your fingertips, beyond the personal gym that is your MacBook.’ But I digress.

The natural habitat of these fine athletes has of late been the South Bank. The other day I was admiring their foot and handiwork —hoping their master would note my potential, beckon enigmatically, and invite me over to work on my decidedly un-ripply arms— when I noticed a group of unruly Lambeth youths mimicking them. They were hauling themselves up the electrician’s ladder on Waterloo bridge, vaulting over the fraying tightrope of a low-wire clown, offering to toss themselves into the Thames for the bargain price of a pound.

Somebody, I magnanimously concluded, should say something. I stood up, assumed my socio-conscious playwright face, and walked straight past them to write this blog. Never say I don’t contribute to the welfare of my community.

So. If the mantra of free runners is to treat the city as a playground, why shouldn’t we encourage more of this in our theatres? They may not be called playhouses anymore but a few of them retain the noble intentions of amusement. What if we found an off-west end theatre that did have enough space to allow these dizzying displays of neo-Olympian athleticism? What if we had a Rooftop Theatre?

Moving to London, the idea first occurred to me via the scientifically dubious medium of a dream. This involved myself and childhood friends (RAF navigator, marine biologist, semi-professional dog-napper) inheriting an old sausage factory in the midst of derelict Wapping and transforming it into a (ceiling) cracking venue.

Well, there may not be an old sausage factory waiting for us out there. But there is a fantastic jigsaw of pub roofs in Farringdon. There’s an unused swathe of station roof by Waterloo. There’s a lovely little nook above a 99p store in Clapham. And what play to better demonstrate the versatility of our giddy venture than an actobatic, contemporary reworking of Henry V, with plummeting channels between France and England for the battle scenes. ‘Once more into the breach’ and all that. Especially if the breach in question happened to be a thirty foot drop to the streets below. 

Okay, so it’s a recipe for apoplectic insurers. But perhaps we could draft in a few unruly Lambeth youths willing to shake some spears and waive their Equity pensions.