James Graham: Writing Politics for the Stage

The acclaimed playwright James Graham and I are in conversation discussing Writing Politics for the Stage at the Bloomsbury Institute on 31 October at 6.00pm. The conversation begins at 6.30 and will last 90 minutes, including plenty of time for audience questions and contributions.

Tickets and further information here:

• https://www.eventbrite.co.uk

James has established himself as a leading playwright whose focus is almost exclusively postwar British politics. His hit This House that opened at the Cottesloe and transferred to the West End was a dramatisation of the Lib-Lab coalition of the late 1970s. Despite what may have seemed like unpromising subject matter, it was funny, gripping, and beautifully observed in its presentation of political behaviour. Since then he's written about the Angry Brigade of the early seventies, the history of the Monster Raving Loony Party, scripted a brilliant dramatisation of the 2010 negotiations that led to the Tory-Lib Dem coalition, offered an election-night drama for the Donmar, also televised, in The Vote, and most recently has written Ink, the story of Murdoch's takeover of The Sun in the late 1960s and, just about to open next door to it on St Martin's Lane, Labour of Love, a comedy about the last two decades of Labour Party history. And if that's not enough his play Quiz, inspired by the 'coughing Major' scandal at Who Wants to be a Millionaire, is about to open at Chichester. It'll be a delight to discuss politics, playwriting and whether the two can mix with James. Do come along.

Beginning Platform

I'm chairing another panel at the National Theatre, this one will be on David Eldridge's new play, Beginning, and I'll be talking to David and to the show's director, Polly Findlay. A new David Eldridge play is always a major event in my theatre calendar and I've admired Polly Findlay's directing for a long time, so I'm really looking forward to the conversation. I realise I first encountered both of their work at the same place, The Bush Theatre, where I saw David's debut play Serving it Up in 1996 and Eigengrau directed by Polly in 2010.

The platform is on Thursday, 19 October at 6.00pm. The platform will last 45 minutes (you know the drill). Tickets can be booked HERE.

UPDATE: It happened and it was smashing and you can listen to it on Audioboom HERE.

Discovering Literature: 20th Century

The British Library on Euston Road has some of the most fascinating archival and manuscript collections anywhere in the world. They've tended to be rather modest about this,  but now, wisely in my view, they've decided to make a bit more of a song and dance about it. They've put together a collection of articles, heavily illustrated with material from their collections, showcasing some of their 20th century literature and drama holdings. You can explore that website here. 

I was one of the many people asked to write pieces to place the work in context. I've written two articles for them, one on Terence Rattigan's The Deep Blue Sea and the other on John Osborne's Look Back in Anger. Both articles are beautifully illustrated with generous images from the manuscript and typescript holdings, production images and more.

Mosquitoes Platform

I'm chairing a platform at the National Theatre on the new show Mosquitoes about which I wrote a couple of weeks ago. It will be with the show's writer, Lucy Kirkwood, and its director, Rufus Norris, who is, of course, also the artistic director of the National Theatre.

I'm looking forward to hearing how Lucy wrote the play, what drew Rufus to it, how it developed through rehearsals, and much more.

The platform is on Thursday 7 September in the Doorman Theatre at 6pm and you can book tickets here:

• https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/lucy-kirkwood-and-rufus-norris-mosquitoes

Bill Gaskill Symposium

In May this year, I was on the opening panel of a day celebrating and examining the life and work of the director William Gaskill. Bill was one of the first directors at the Royal Court when it became the home of the English Stage Company in 1956. He then became Artistic Director in the mid-1960s. He was an extraordinary director, whose productions were political and beautiful in equal measure; he was one of the most committed Brechtians in British theatre; he was one of the early directors at the new National Theatre in the early 1960s; he directed many great new plays, forming a particularly close partnership with Edward Bond for the whole of Bond's great period of writing between the mid-60s and mid-70s.

I was on the panel with Irving Wardle, who wrote The Theatres of George Devine, a truly essential book about the founding artistic director of the English Stage Company, that gives you a sense of the deep roots of that apparently brand-new theatre. The session was chaired by the wonderful playwright, Colin Teevan, and there were contributions from Peter Gill, speaking from the floor.

The panel was recorded and you can listen to it here:

• http://backdoorbroadcasting.net/2017/05/welcome-to-a-life-in-the-theatre/

SMERSH pod

The very funny John Rain has been running SMERSH Pod, a podcast in which he explores his preposterous love for the James Bond movies, by interviewing a series of guests about each of the Bond movies in turn. 

This week it was the turn of The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and I was his lucky guest. You can listen to us discuss Q's pig hands, 007-branded condoms, the mystery of Stromberg's plan, and the world premiere of my Kenneth Connor impression. And you can do it here:

• https://soundcloud.com/smershpod/10-the-spy-who-loved-me

Though I would also urge you to subscribe and listen to them all. They're very, very funny.

Making Hay While The Sun Shines

... because I'm certain no one has ever made that joke before.

I'm speaking at the Hay Literary Festival (25 May-4 June). My session is called Adapting Zola and it's in the BBC Tent at 10am on Saturday 3 June. Here's the blurb in the programme:

Blood, Sex and Money was an ambitious, innovative adaptation on Radio 4 of Emile Zola’s epic saga about the Rougon-Macquart family.  The drama set in 19th-century France mashed up 20 novels into 27 episodes, featured more than a hundred cast members and saw the return to acting after 20 years of Glenda Jackson. Illustrated with clips from the series, adaptor Dan Rebellato and executive producer Sue Roberts reveal the highs and lows of bringing this award-winning epic to our airwaves.

Happily, my producer Polly Thomas will also be on the panel. Hope to see some of you there.

Hay is probably the biggest and best literary festival in Britain so it's a great privilege to be involved. The full programme is here.

Outright Terror reading

As part of the National Youth Theatre's fiftieth anniversary celebrations, they hosted a nationwide celebration of the new plays they have commissioned over the years called 50 Plays in a Day, doing 50 readings of their plays.

The Sheffield Lyceum youth theatre have done a rehearsed reading of my 2005 play Outright Terror Bold and Brilliant. Picture above. I am pretty sure Outright Terror was the first theatrical response to the London Bombings of 7 July 2005. I wrote the play in a couple of weeks after the bombings and it premiered at the Soho Theatre on 31 August. Slightly amazing to see it again. Lovely reading too.

Lyn Gardner Editorial

The Guardian recently announced that they were cancelling Lyn Gardner's annual contract to write 150 articles on their Theatre Blog. This is a terrible pity as Lyn has been one of the most important figures in the theatre ecology, particularly in her championing and publicising regional theatre, performance work, small-scale and experimental work, and festivals, as well as by using the blog to discuss important political and social issues in theatre.

I've written an editorial for Theatre Record on the decision. You can read it here:

• Editorial

But do consider subscribing the Theatre Record. It's the magazine that gathers and preserves the print critics' reviews of British theatre and it's an invaluable resource for theatre students, researchers and theatregoers alike. I should declare that I am a trustee of the magazine, but I don't think it's a brilliant journal because I'm a trustee; I'm a trustee because I think it's a brilliant journal. Go here for more information:

• http://www.theatrerecord.org

Talking Zola

Last summer I was interviewed for Digital Theatre about Émile Zola and his novel and play Thérèse Raquin. I see that it's now up on their site. I am looking sweaty and sunburnt but nonetheless, I loosely make some sense. You have to subscribe to Digital Theatre to see the whole thing but there is a preview here: 

• Talking About Plays: Thérèse Raquin

Skriker Platform

The theatre producers Rift are holding a 1990s Season at Styx in Tottenham. It includes productions of Sarah Kane's Blasted, Anthony Neilson's Normal, and Caryl Churchill's The Skriker, alongside an adaptation of three episodes of the quintessential 90s sitcom Friends (as Mates) and a wealth of screenings, discussions, rehearsed readings, and club nights.

I'm contributing in a small way by being part of a discussion event about Churchill and The Skriker. My fellow panellists are Jen Harvie and Max Stafford Clark. Jen is currently writing about feminist theatre makers and has been working on Churchill. Max, of course, directed the premieres of several of her most important plays, including Cloud 9, Top Girls and Serious Money. So it should be a good discussion.

The panel is on 29 March after the show and you can get tickets for that and the rest of the season HERE.

Zola Award

At the BBC Audio Drama Awards held on Sunday 29 January 2017, Emile Zola: Blood, Sex & Money won the award for Best Adaptation. I was lead writer on the first and third seasons, was one of the key originators of the project at wrote 7 of the 27 episodes.

The judges for this award were Front Row presenter Kirsty Lang, theatre producer Emma Stenning, and the playwright and screenwriter Nick Warburton. The judges said:

The judges for Best Audio Drama adaptation had a hard job this year. We were divided over our top three but all agreed that the winning adaptation was a gripping psychological thriller set in a pulsating, menacing soundscape that made us want to keep listening. Emile Zola: Blood, Sex & Money is an ambitious, innovative adaptation that captures the world of the Rougon-Macquart novels that incisively dissect the world of 19th century France.

The ceremony was hosted by Lenny Henry and this award was presented by Tom Goodman-Hill (who also appeared in my 2010 play for Radio 3 And So Say All Of Us).

Sarah Kane programme essay

I wrote a programme essay for Katie Mitchell's stunning production of Sarah Kane's Cleansed last year. I thought somebody might want to read and now the production's gone, it's pretty much impossible to get hold of the programme, so you can read my essay HERE.

Beachy Head Revival

My play Beachy Head, written with Lewis Hetherington and Emma Jowett is being revived in Edinburgh by the Edinburgh Graduate Theatre Group. It's on this week from Wednesday 30 November to Saturday 3rd February. It's at the Assembly Roxy, 2 Roxburgh Place, EH8 9SU. You can book tickets here.

We wrote it for Analogue theatre company as their second production and a follow-up to the very successful Mile End. It was quite a bumpy ride as a creative project though the resulting show is very robust and Lewis, Emma and I did some pretty great dramaturging work before drafting and redrafting it in semi-seclusion in a house somewhere (borrowed from someone's uncle I seem to recall). The show is about suicide, neuroscience, documentary, responsibility and loss. And if that doesn't get you into the theatre, what will?

I won't be able to see it, alas, so if you go tell me how it was.

UPDATE: Here's a review by Thom Dibdin and very good it is too: http://www.alledinburghtheatre.com/beachy-head-grads-2016-review/

Zola Nomination

Our enormous Emile Zola marathon for Radio 4 - all 27 episodes of it - has been nominated for a BBC Audio Drama Award in the Best Adaptation category - and our star Glenda Jackson is up for Best Actress.

This is a lovely bit of recognition of a bold and ambitious bit of drama. I doubt if there is a single radio network in the world other than the BBC that would have said yes to twenty-four hours of adaptations of the novels of Emile Zola. So it's a relief and an honour to see this kind of recognition. I've been to this ceremony once before, for Dead Souls at which, comme d'habitude, we didn't win. Fingers crossed for better this time, but, wouldn't you just know it, it's a very strong shortlist:

Best Adaptation

• Emile Zola: Blood, Sex and Money adapted by Oliver Emanuel, Martin Jameson, Lavinia Murray & Dan Rebellato, producers Gary Brown, Pauline Harris, Nadia Molinari, Polly Thomas, Kirsty Williams
• Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, adapted & directed by Howard Davies, producer Chris Wallis
• Miss Julie by Strindberg, adapted & produced by Roger James Elsgood
• Roald Dahl: Going Solo adapted by Lucy Catherine, producer Helen Perry
• The 56, verbatim edited & adapted by Matt Woodhead & Gemma Wilson, producer Toby Swift
• True West by Sam Shepard, adapted by John Peacock, producer Celia de Wolff
• Unmade Movies: Hitchcock’s The Blind Man by Alfred Hitchcock & Ernest Lehman, adapted by Mark Gatiss, producers Laurence Bowen & Peter Ettedgui

The ceremony, hosted by Lenny Henry, is on Sunday 29 January 2017. Full details of nominations in all categories here.

Increased Static

My play Static is being revived by students at the University of Staffordshire, directed by Ian Smith. The show will be performed in town at the Exchange, Stoke on Trent, on 12 December, and then the Performance Centre, Stoke on Trent, 16 & 17 (matinee and evening). Tickets available here: https://www.ticketsource.co.uk

Intelligence

So I have a stage premiere this month in Madrid. Intelligence is being given a short run by a fringe company at the Instituto Lope de Vega 11-13 November. It's in a double-bill called Spies along with a new play by Victor Gibson called Surveillance. Victor is also directing the double bill.

It's a stage premiere, but not exactly a premiere. It's a staging of my 2013 radio play, Here part of my Negative Signs of Progress trilogy. They've apparently restored some passages that we cut for the radio version. It struck me at the time that the play would probably work well as a stage play; it's two actors, one room, real time and relies on psychological twists and tensions. So I guess the Spanish English-speaking community are going to be the first to find out whether that's true.

To encourage student groups, there's an education pack, which you can read here.

Rattigan Interview

And the National Theatre have put up the first half of their two-part introduction to the work of Terence Rattigan. I was interviewed for it back in late June (weirdly, straight after the Sarah Kane interview), but there are some great interviews with Lindsay Posner, Paul Miller, Philip Franks, and Angus Jackson who have all directed fantastic productions of Rattigan plays. This one covers French Without Tears, The Winslow Boy, and The Browning Version. You can watch it by clicking the link above.

Zola interview

To coincide with the beginning of the third and final Zola season, the BBC have put up a brief interview with me on their website. It was conducted by Polly Thomas at the end of our recording of Crash (episode 3.1) and it covers our approach to the books, the nature of Zola's ideas and how we tried to convey them and also the impact of the books in our adaptation.

She's back!

“I am the opposite of forgetting. Memory is all I have. I am the history. I am the archive. Listen while I tell my last story, the fires started and the lives ended, and the hells my family made.”

— Adelaide Fouque