Interview: Writer Alex Unwin talks about how political speechwriting compares with playwriting, how he turned a biography into a play, and the theatrical experience that sparked the idea.

Your background is writing speeches for political leaders; what sparked your interest in writing plays, and how does that style of writing compare?

Writing has always been a very big part of my life. My first entry into it was journalism when I was at university. I left university and went into government and speechwriting for various political leaders.

And I've really got the co-founder of Kick It Anywhere and the producer of Brixton Calling [John Dinneen] to thank for getting me into playwriting.

I loved the theatre; it was a big part of my life growing up. I used to come down from where I lived in the Midlands to London for matinees with my parents.

But it was only when I was living in Brixton during the lockdown with John, who is a writer himself, and he said: 'We've got to do something with all of this time that we've got, why don't we write a play together?

And we've been writing together for five or six years now.

It's very different [to speechwriting] in a lot of ways, but I do think there are some core similarities that have been very useful when applied to playwriting.

There's something about the fact that when you are writing for someone who is performing the words, whether it's a politician presenting to an audience or an actor who's in the theatre.

You can't avoid the scrutiny of listening to someone read words that you've written and really hearing every single word and the rhythm of the sentence, and things that work and things that don't work.

Doing that first in a political speech writing context has been very helpful, as I've started transferring it to theatre.

Your play Brixton Calling is inspired by Simon Parkes' memoir Live at the Brixton Academy. How did you come across the book, and decide to turn it into a play? 

In the same way that theatre was a big part of my life growing up, music was as well. My dad used to be an amateur DJ, so when we were crisscrossing the country, going to various sporting events or football matches, we'd always be listening to music.

He introduced me to The Clash and The Jam and that era of music.

Video transcript: It's always a huge treat to see Imelda Staunton on stage, and Mrs. Warren's Profession at the Garrick Theatre was no different.

Here she's acting alongside her real daughter, Bessie Carter. They play mother and daughter in the play, and the two of them just sparked whenever they were on the stage, it just lit up.

Now this is the story of a woman who comes from poor background and has made her money through prostitution and running a brothel.

And it was interesting to see how the attitudes towards women earning their money this way versus the men is viewed very differently.

With contemporary eyes, you think how much has changed in terms of the attitudes towards women, how they make a living and what is acceptable and what isn't acceptable.

Freya James and Ed McVey in Candy at White Bear Theatre

Love is a drug, we are told, but what about love when you are on drugs? Adapted from Luke Davies's semi-autobiographical novel (which has also been a film), this is Candy's second stage outing, having debuted at the Old Red Lion last year.  

That production had three actors; this has become a two-hander with Freya James playing Candy and Ed McVey playing Dan, as well as a few other characters.

Candy is an art student in Sydney and meets Dan. They fall in love, and Candy wants to experience what Dan experiences, which includes taking heroin. It takes only a little persuasion for Dan to show her the ropes, and the path is set. 

Their love is a constant, unlike their resolve to get clean as they rollercoaster towards increasing dependence and a need for bigger hits to reach the same highs. 

Candy (the play) is a heart-shaped, drug-addiction story compared to other famous narratives such as Trainspotting, but it isn't without its grim and dark moments.

To make money to pay for drugs, Candy turns to prostitution, and pregnancy doesn't prove to be the motivator to stop the couple had anticipated.

Dan's contribution to the relationship is his love and the promise that he will grow and sell weed to support them. Candy certainly seems to have got the rum deal. 

Ruthless, Arches Lane Theatre, Emily Swain as Ruth Madoff. Photo by Roger Steinmann

What was it like for Ruth Madoff (Emily Swain), wife of a jailed fraudster billionaire Bernie? This is the premise of Roger Steinmann's play Ruthless.

Did she know what he was doing, looking the other way while enjoying an ultra-luxurious lifestyle? Or was she an innocent victim, kept in the dark and subsequently hounded, lonely and lost when his crimes were uncovered?

The play starts with 'Ruthie' as her husband called her, getting ready for a family dinner, except no one comes when she calls. Her husband is in prison, and both her sons have died; one from cancer, and the other took his own life. 

She imagines she's in a relationship with the young pizza delivery man, even packing a suitcase to go away with him. He runs for the hills. She is harassed by victims of her husband's fraud and reporters, seeing them off with a gun. She drinks and smokes. She makes or ignores phone calls. 

No one knows her husband like her, she claims, while also saying he lied to her. She laments her lost life yet expresses a preference for the ethical and ordinary. She is a mass of contradictions.

Video transcript: I really enjoyed 1536 at the Almeida Theatre.

It's a play about three women, all at various stages of relationships. One's unrequited. One is in a relationship they shouldn't be in, and one is about to get married.

And it follows them at a time when Anne Boleyn has just been arrested for treason by Henry VIII.

And the news is arriving to them about what's going on with that in dribs and drabs. And it's really interesting to see how that affects the people that they live with, the people in the town where they live.

Story: Luka (Jack Lowden) is an alcoholic, and his sponsor James (Martin Freeman), is helping him through the 12 steps. They start building up trust and a rapport, but is that enough for when they reach the fifth step, which is about confessing to things you've done wrong?

Video transcript:

I wanted to see The Fifth Step at Soho Place, having seen it up in Dundee for, well, three reasons.

One, I loved the play the first time around.

Two, it's got a slightly different cast. Sean Gilder is replaced by Martin Freeman. Jack Lowden is still still in it.

And three, it's being performed in the round. So it's it's a different performance space. The audience is all around. So I was very curious as to how it's going to translate.

The play is still as funny and as witty as it was when I saw it up in Dundee. It's not as dark as David Ireland's other plays, but there is a sharpness to the to the humour.

Outpatient, Park Theatre, written and performed by Harriet Madeley. Photo: Abi Mowbray

REVIEW: What would you do if you thought you'd been diagnosed with a life-limiting illness and you should probably already be dead?

Outpatient, written and performed by Harriet Madeley and a hit at the Edinburgh fringe, bursts onto the Park Theatre's Park90 stage for a London run - figuratively and literally.

Based partially on her real experience, Harriet Madeley plays Olive, a self-obsessed entertainment journalist who has questions about dying.

And, as no one likes to talk about dying, she decides she's going to interview terminally ill people for an article that will make her name as a journalist. 

Taking advantage of a hospital appointment about constipation, she sneaks into the palliative care ward to try and interview people. 

However, what she finds out about dying isn't quite what she bargained for as she's diagnosed with chronic liver disease, primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC).

L-R Rosa Robson and Olivia Forrest in Little Deaths, Theatre503. Photo: Johan Persson

Following a hit run at the Edinburgh Fringe Amy Powell Yeates' play Little Death arrives in London telling the story of a firm friends Debs (Rosa Robson) and Charlie (Olivia Forrest).

It's one of those friendships that starts at school, an intense friendship where they claim to know each other better than they know themselves - although there is just one intimate red line they can't cross. But can it survive life and adulthood?

We initially find Debs and Charlie in 1998, grieving and angry at hearing the news that Gerri has left the Spice Girls. The play then time-jumps at regular intervals, the date projected on the back wall, charting the journey of their friendship and connection as they grow up and their lives change.

The fun and fallouts of childhood become teen boy crushes, bras and periods. Plans for uni are formed but life happens around them influencing decisions and feelings in ways that perhaps weren't foreseen.

There is plenty of silliness and some bickering, but the solidity of their early friendship shows in the care they take over each other. They have each other's backs. To start with, at least.

Video transcript:

Krapp's Last Tape, starring Gary Oldman, at the York Theatre Royal, is a tiny, 50-minute play.

Was it worth spending two hours on the train to get up there?

Well, it's the story of a man looking back over his life, and he's doing this by listening to recordings that he made of him talking about his life when he was younger.

And it's a very reflective piece. It's a piece that is a real test for the actor that's playing the role.

There isn't a massive amount of dialogue. Obviously, they're acting alongside tape recording, so it's a lot of reactions, and it would be easy to overreact and do a lot, move around, move and do stuff. 

Victoria Smurfit and Callum Scott Howells in Ghosts, Lyric Hammersmith. Photo: Helen Murray

Gary Owen's new version of Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts gives the play a contemporary setting, in a rural west country seaside location where low cloud ironically blocks the view from the large panoramic windows of Helena Alving's (Victoria Smurfit) minimalist lounge.

Story details have also been given a modern twist.

The orphanage Helena is building to honour her late husband in Ibsen's play is now a children's hospital. Jacob (Deka Walmsley) wants his daughter, Reggie (Patricia Allison) to leave Helena's employment and help him set up a holiday home renovation business rather than open a hotel for retired sailors. And syphilis becomes depression and anxiety.

Pastor Manders becomes Anderson (Rhashan Stone), a lawyer working for the charitable trust which will run the hospital. He's also an old flame of Helena's from before she married. Oswald or 'Oz' her son (Callum Scott Howells) is an actor rather than an artist whose career is currently on a down.

The script is contemporary and, particularly in the first half, witty with plenty of humorous lines. 

However, it is the relationships where this version of Ghosts feels the most 'now'.