Kirkwood on Churchill

Caryl Churchill has been given an award for Outstanding Contribution to Writing by the Writers Guild of Great Britain. Lucy Kirkwood (who also won the award for Best Play for the astonishing The Children) was asked to give the speech. To help prepare, we met for a coffee to chat about Caryl Churchill, the conversation soon dissolving into expressions of pure fandom.

Lucy somehow composed herself enough to write a beautifully precise but heartfelt tribute, from one playwright to another, to the breadth and daring of Caryl Churchill's work.

You can read the talk HERE.

Naturalism and Pornography

I'm giving a public lecture with the title ‘The Curtain Will Remain Up: Naturalist Theatre and the Problem of Pornography’. It's part of my book on Naturalist theatre, which is a form of theatre developed in the last third of the nineteenth century which has gone on to become one of the key influences on theatre, film and television, globally, in the twentieth century and beyond. 

Naturalism was founded on the principle that one should represent everything, without flinching, even the most sordid and disgusting aspects of contemporary life. That included such taboos as prostitution, venereal disease, incest, abortion and more. This led some critics to accuse the Naturalists (like Zola and Ibsen) of producing little more than pornography.

The Naturalists denied this, insisting that their attitude to these scandalous topics was like a surgeon dissecting a diseased cadaver. They had no interest except to diagnose the causes of these problems and, in doing so, suggest a cure.

Generally, theatre historians tend to endorse the Naturalists’ position and treat the critics as prudes and conservatives. But the situation may be more complicated than that. In this talk, I'll talk about some of the little-known stories of Naturalist theatre and its enemies, from the obsessive anti-Naturalist Ambroise Macrobe, the mischievous Professor Desjardins, Zola’s secret scenario, and the curious case of the Théâtre Réaliste.

The talk is open to the public and takes place on 7th February 2018, 7:30pm at the Swedenborg Hall, London WC1A 2TH. I am pretty sure it's going to be livestreamed HERE.

Further information HERE.  

Vicky Featherstone Interview

I teach in the Department of Drama, Theatre and Dance at Royal Holloway University of London and we have a real concentration of staff who teach, research and practice in the area of Contemporary British Theatre. We've decided to foreground and strengthen this activity more by establishing a Research Centre in Contemporary British Theatre and we had our launch event yesterday. The centrepiece of that was an interview by me with the amazing Vicky Featherstone, artistic director of the Royal Court, founding director of the National Theatre of Scotland, who also ran Paines Plough at a really pivotal moment in their history.

It was a great interview. Vicky is wonderful clear, straightforward, articulate and forthright and it was great to range across her extraordinary career (from directing the premiere of Sarah Kane's Crave in 1998 to spearheading the theatre industry's response to sexual harassment in theatre just a couple of weeks ago). A Research Centre focusing on British theatre is a striking thing right now given that the word 'British' is so contested, so fraught, so complicated, in the decade which has already brought us the Scottish Referendum, Brexit, cultural anxieties about migration and British values, the current problem of the land border with Ireland, and, just yesterday, the announcement of a Royal Wedding, with all the nationalistic self-regard that brings. Vicky has run several national companies and being able to talk to her about her various engagements with the national (and international) made for a great start to the Research Centre's life.

Absolute Hell - British Theatre after the Blitz

I'm chairing a study day at the National Theatre on 15 May 2-5pm on British theatre in the 1940s to coincide with the new production of Rodney Ackland's extraordinary Absolute Hell. The play premiered in the early 1950s under the title The Pink Room and was denounced by critics and rival producers. 'Binkie' Beaumont called it a libel against this nation and Harold Hobson wrote  a vicious review declaring 'the audience had the impression of being present, if not at the death of talent, at least at its very serious illness'. It was a cruel remark and it killed Ackland's confidence. He pretty well stopped writing for three decades. It was only in the late eighties when a revived and uncensored version of the play - its polymorphous perversity restored - went on at the Orange Tree under the new title Absolute Hell. It was then televised and then came to the National with a lead performance by Judi Dench (who had also taken the part on TV). It's one of the great rediscoveries of that forgotten period.

I'll be talking about that and other gems of the period with invited guests and actors from the Absolute Hell company, who will perform extracts from the plays.

Tickets are £30 with concessions at £20 and a special concessionary rate for students at £7.50. You can book them HERE.

Katie Mitchell Video Essay

Digital Theatre Plus in association with Routledge have started a series of video essays on various topics under the general title 4x45 - i.e. four 45' video talks on a single subject. I was asked to contribute something on Katie Mitchell's work and I was in conversation with Kim Solga, talking about the politics of Katie's work, thinking about how it engages with debates around Naturalism.

You'll need a subscription or a link to a library that has a subscription but you can get the video here:

• Digital Theatre Plus

Dennis Kelly

The University of Lincoln's School of Fine and Performing Arts run an international conference every year or two, each one on a different playwright. So far there have been conferences on Caryl Churchill, Sarah Kane, David Greig, and debbie tucker green. This year it was the wonderful Dennis Kelly's turn to get all the attention and the conference took place on Saturday, 18 November, organised by the excellent Jacqueline Bolton and Nicholas Holden.

It was a great day with some terrific papers from people like Chris Megson, Aloysia Rousseau, Deborah Prudhon, Basil Chiasson, Catriona Fallow, Lucy Tyler, Marissia Fragkou, Trish Reid and many more. I gave a paper discussing the way in which Kelly's characters speak, sometimes to a kind of excess. It is a follow-on, in a way, from a comment I made in an essay a few years ago where I described the way characters in plays by Simon Stephens, Duncan Macmillan, Mike Bartlett and others offer abundant and affirmative statements, apparently without nuance or subtext. I called it 'radical naivety' and at the time suggested it was part of a deliberate withdrawal from authorial textual presence.

Photo: Catriona Fallow (I think)

The idea has been picked up a few times and I've wanted to return to it for a while and this seemed like a good opportunity because while this happens in Dennis Kelly's work, it does so in a way that's very different from the way it manifests in Stephens' writing. My paper was an attempt to refine further the definition of 'radical naivety', using the work of philosopher Paul Grice and in doing so show the variations in the form. From there I offer a suggestion of the way it models two different attitudes to the relationship between the individual and society, a certain kind of response to the complicated political times we find ourselves in. What I like about Paul Grice's attempt to model ordinary conversation is that it allows us to pay close attention to language and the subtleties of how it produces meaning without getting lost in purely textual scholarship or lit. crit. Not that there's anything wrong with lit. crit. as such but literary-critical analyses of plays often forget that they are to be performed as speaking speed and many of the tools that are appropriate to the novel, say, or certain kinds of poetry just don't apply here. The paper is called 'On Radical Naivety: Dennis Kelly and Verbal Style'.

Also Dennis Kelly came to the conference and I interviewed him, which was, of course, a great pleasure (see picture). Dennis is a wonderfully witty, irreverent, thoughtful and precise speaker about his work and the interview was a very enjoyable session, with many memorable asides adorning the serious reflections on writing, theatre and violence.

Commission

I can't tell you how excited I am to say that I've been commissioned by BBC Radio to do something that I've wanted to do for 25 years, a new translation and version of a play that is considered one of the solid-gold classics of European theatre on the continent but is rarely if ever done here. I'm being a tiresome tease, because I'm not going to say exactly what play it is. Let's just say it's probably the best play you've never heard of. (Unless you have heard of it.)

I'll be reunited with the wonderful Polly Thomas as producer and Eloise Whitmore as sound designer. It won't be on till 2018, but I'm sure I'll reveal what I'm up to before then...

The photo is a clue.

Platforms and Talks

I've got various public events coming up which might interest someone or other, so I thought I'd gather them all hear:

• 5 October, 6.00pm: Platform about The Real Thing by Tom Stoppard at the Rose Theatre, Kingston. I'm in conversation with the theatre's executive producer, Jerry Gunn.
• 11 October, 4.00pm: I'm giving a paper at the University of Surrey at its Institute of Performance entitled '"My Mind's a Sponge": Naturalism and the Problem of Authorship.'
• 19 October, 6.00: I'm interviewing David Eldridge and Polly Findlay about David's new play, directed by Polly, Beginning at the National's Dorfman Theatre. Tickets here.
• 28 October, 5.00pm: 'Talk Show' is a post-show discussion series at the Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh, and I'm joining the panel to discuss their revival of Bridget Boland's Cockpit. Tickets here.
• 31 October, 6.00pm: James Graham and I are discussing 'Writing Politics for the Stage' at the Bloomsbury Institute. Tickets here.
• 18 November 10.30am-5.30pm: At some point that morning, I'm giving a paper 'On Radical Naivety: Dennis Kelly and Verbal Style' at a conference on Dennis Kelly at the University of Lincoln. I'll also interview Dennis towards the end of the day.
• 27 November, 6.30pm: We're launching a Centre for Contemporary British Theatre at Royal Holloway, and as part of the launch event, I will be in conversation with Vicky Featherstone, artistic director of the Royal Court, and first artistic director of the National Theatre of Scotland. Tickets here.
• 7 February 7.30pm: I'm giving a talk to the Society for Theatre Research: 'The Curtain Will Remain Up: Naturalist Theatre & The Problem of Pornography' at the Swedenborg Hall. More information here.

and since the National Theatre's new season has been announced, I can also say that, coinciding with the revival of Ackland's Absolute Hell, I'm chairing this:

• 15 May 2018, 2-5pm, I'm hosting Absolute Hell - British Theatre after the Blitz, a study-day at the Cottesloe Room, next to the National's Dorfman Theatre, talking about Ackland but also British theatre during and after the second world war.

If anything else comes up before the end of the calendar year, I'll add it here.

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).