SALISBURY playwright and author Barney Norris has ventured into the world of filmmaking and is sharing his first short film with Salisbury audiences.

Needletail is being screened on Wednesday (February 20) at Salisbury Playhouse as part of the eighth Fest West festival. It will be shown alongside other short films from Matty Crawford, Sonia Waracha, Jesse Lawrence, Rebecca Hurwitz and Liz Lister.

The festival, which is a celebration of music, theatre, dance and film from the South West, runs until March 2 at Salisbury Playhouse and Salisbury Arts Centre.

Barney says: “Needletail is a project which Alice Hamilton and I have been working on together for absolutely years now, about four years. We always felt like we would be excited to work in film as well as working in the theatre, and in my case writing books, because it is a medium we both love.”

The project was filmed at Martin Down last summer and has taken six months of editing.

“I’m very proud of it actually. I think it is a lovely first film. I’m very excited to share it with audiences as well,” says Barney.

It is his first tentative steps into the world of filmmaking but Barney hopes to look at opportunities to do more work on screen. As he explains: “Every different art form takes a lot of skill and technique to do and I wanted to be really slow and careful about learning how to work in film. It is a medium I really want to work in as I go forward and I wanted to get it right.

“Having made this I have a new sense of confidence and excitement and the potential of the medium and what it can do, and excitement about the kinds of stories. It is a totally different kind of story you can tell. It’s quite like novel writing but nothing like theatre.”

On the same night, Paines Plough presents Come to Where I’m From with four playwrights including Barney Norris.

It is a national project that invites playwrights to write plays about where they are from.

Barney’s piece will be read by his brother Joz, who is a stand-up comedian. He will be reading it for the first time on stage.

He says: “When you get stuck into the idea of where you’re from, and when it is your brother saying it and not you, that becomes quite potent for me. The place I’m really from is not a geographical place, it’s my family . The way Joz will communicate that is partly just by being there.”

The plays are made available on a free app which makes up a theatrical tapestry of the nation – a playwright’s guide to Great Britain.

For more information about the wiltshirecreative.co.uk