Interview: Writer Alex Unwin on turning Simon Parkes' Brixton Academy memoir into a play
07/06/2025
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.