Following the success of "Hello?" (with reviews calling the play "35 minutes of tense drama" and "frighteningly direct . . . it will haunt you for a long time afterwards.") IRDP produced another of Smith's plays. "The Kissing Game" enjoyed a four-week run at the Tristan Bates Actors Centre, and following a relocation to Manchester to read Drama at Manchester University, Smith continued to have work produced: he was runner up in the 1997 Manchester Student Playwriting Competition before winning outright in 1998 with the play "A Night on the Tiles". This was followed by a play set in and around Northampton during the Battle of Naseby.