Playwrights in Lockdown: Season 2

Why am I calling them seasons? Search me. But it feels manageable to drop these interviews in batches of six and, hey, why not call them seasons.

As I explained before, I’ve been interviewing playwrights from our respective quarantines and posting the results on YouTube. I’ve been really cheered by the positive response to the first season and here’s season 2.

The internet connections were a bit flakier this week so have necessitated a bit more editing but I’ve been getting used to iMovie, which really does make this stuff very simple. I’ve generally not tried to hide the edits; they are what they are. The format is kind of similar for all the interviews; there’s a series of questions about their particular processes, from having the idea to doing the final rewrites. I’m hoping that standardisation might help make comparisons across the videos. In the conversation with the wonderful James Graham, we started talking about fonts, so that has now become a standard question (and one, I might say, that the playwrights approach with a level of seriousness that I adore).

There are some great interviews here. Laura Wade on structure is great; Lucy Prebble is hilarious on rewriting; James Graham is brilliant on the first draft. But they’re all good I think.

Here are my season 2ers.

• James Graham https://youtu.be/qqrqyvXTs44

• Laura Wade https://youtu.be/I00CgsoiyTo

• Roy Williams https://youtu.be/k7RvstYDu60

• Simon Stephens https://youtu.be/D0ZMp_a62sI

• Chris Goode https://youtu.be/3ajhwWwP4E0

• Lucy Prebble https://youtu.be/CpWWVQ6rE48

Enjoy!