James Sweeney’s play, Make It Count, will have a staged reading at the Bridge House Theatre next month before a full production run at Louth Riverhead Theatre in June.
Make It Count is a studio-scale three-hander – it is an existential comedy-drama about love, control, and second chances, with a powerful pre-interval twist.
Jonas dies unexpectedly and negotiates a second chance to relive the last sixteen years of his life with his wife, Lily.
Armed with knowledge of the future, he attempts to perfect their life—only to discover that control slowly destroys the love he is trying to save.
Guided by the Grim Reaper’s well-meaning but inexperienced husband, the couple become trapped in a time loop where every “improvement” carries unforeseen consequences.
In Act Two, perspective flips, and memory becomes weaponised; throwaway lines return with a vengeance as the comedy edges towards tragedy.
Where: Bridge House Theatre, Penge / Louth Riverside Theatre
When: 10 May, 7.30pm / 18-20 Jun, 7pm
Ticket links: https://thebridgehousetheatre.co.uk/ / https://www.louthriverheadtheatre.com/events/make-it-count-scratch-night-winner
James tells us more about the show.
Make It Count returns to Louth after winning Scratch Night 2025. What gave you the idea to write the show?
The idea actually came from a personal experience. One night, I had a nightmare where I couldn’t breathe. I woke up in a cold sweat, and it terrified my wife. It got me thinking: what if that was it? How cruel it would be for my wife to be left so abruptly.
From there, the concept came together quite quickly: what if you died, came back with all your memories intact, but your partner didn’t know you?
What really struck me was the impossibility of recreating shared memories if only one person remembers them. Imagine a life with no more shared firsts. A relationship is built on those moments. Take them away, and what’s left?
What’s your background as a writer?
I came to writing quite recently, initially through screenwriting. I had an idea for a film called Life Debt and wanted to learn how to turn that into something tangible, so I started writing and loved the process. I could see everything as if it were happening in front of me, and I quickly became hooked.
Last year, I took a course at Louth Riverhead Theatre led by John Hewer, which introduced writing for different forms. His focus was mainly theatre, and that’s where things really clicked for me.
I realised how immediate and powerful it can be to tell a story live in front of an audience, and I especially enjoyed the kind of problem-solving theatre requires.
Your play suggests mistakes might be fixed in the afterlife. Do you think that most people would want a second run at life?
I think most people would instinctively say yes, and then might regret it fairly quickly.
We all have moments we’d change and decisions we regret. What interested me was challenging the idea that a second chance automatically leads to a better outcome.
It’s natural to assume we’d make better choices, but we rarely consider what we might lose along the way.
Our lives are built from thousands of small moments, and changing even one of them can have consequences we never saw coming. That tension between wanting to improve the past and risking the loss of something valuable is a theme I really explore in the play.
I want the audience to wrestle with what it would actually mean to come back with knowledge of the future, rather than just enjoy the fantasy of it.
How would you sell Make It Count to an audience?
If you enjoy films like Groundhog Day, It’s a Wonderful Life or The Family Man, you’ll recognise some of the territory Make It Count operates in. It deals with big ideas like second chances, regret and alternative outcomes, but in a way that’s grounded in character and relationships.
It’s a story about a couple who were already genuinely happy before the ‘intervention’. Quite often in stories like this, something is already going wrong, and the plot becomes about putting it right. In this case, I was more interested in the danger of trying to fix what wasn’t broken.
There’s plenty of humour, drama and emotion. My aim is that people come away feeling they’ve had a really good night out, but leave still turning the story over in their minds and wanting to talk about it afterwards.
Are there any further plans for the show after this summer’s run?
I’m working hard to give the show a life beyond Louth. It’s already been selected for a staged reading at Langham Court Theatre in Canada later this year, which is really exciting.
Alongside that, I’m in conversations with other theatres in the UK and overseas. A lot will depend, of course, on how well this first run in Louth is received.
I’m confident in the team behind it: John Hewer is directing, and he really understands what I’m trying to achieve with the script.
We also have a very strong cast in Brayden Kerr, Laura Thompson and Derek Hodges.
The Scratch Night success proved the concept works in front of a live audience, and knowing how much work we as a team have been putting into it since then, I’m very excited to see what audiences make of it.