James Graham

Just watched an interesting documentary on playwright James Graham. It is perhaps the first time that I’ve watched or listened to a programme on a playwright and realised that I seem to approach a subject in much the same way as the interviewee (albeit Graham does it whole lot more successfully!). After the recent run of They’ll Get You Now You’re Gone at TouchBase, I was asked by a member of the audience why I had not solely focused on the story of the two older women. The answer: I’ve always been interested in that point of intersection between two worlds. Neither side think their actions harmful nor disrespectful; just engaging in some greater good. One side is not necessarily better than the other, just different.

Although set more than 200 years apart, both A Journey Around My Room and They’ll Get You Now You’re Gone pitch a hungry antagonist agitating for change against a protagonist promoting the status quo. Most times I know which side I’m on but playing devil’s advocate is often fun. Journey is set in the wake of the French Revolution whilst TGYNYG reflects upon the changes in Glasgow during recent decades. Both are about loss and friendship. Both feature hitherto comforting internal worlds where inhabitants fear an encroaching external world. But for all their similarities, Journey is a heart-warming story whilst TGYNYG most certainly is not. This may be because the former is based on source material (the diaries of Xavier de Maistre) whilst the latter emanated from the dark recesses of my mind during a particularly troubling 2017. Moreover, these two plays are separated by my Masters at Glasgow University (I don’t believe I could’ve written TGYNYG without that intensive learning curve).

Hollow, which I wrote before Journey, is not heart-warming at all and does not offer a resolution. Written about the aftermath of the banking crisis, it merely offers the world as it is. The inherent inevitability which propels the narrative is a little bleak; but then so too has been the progression of British society since 2008. It was a hard play to put on as I personally knew the world in which it was set.

As an actor within Stark Theatre, I never actually set out to be a playwright. One of our productions required somebody to do some writing fast and I merely took on the mantle (temporarily, as I then thought). I caught the bug. Subsequently, the MLitt taught me how to utilise my engineering background as a tool for dramaturgy – a framework – to tell a story; and use it as a sort of valve from which energy is controlled for propulsion or relaxation. Playwriting is a lonely activity though. Recently, I have tentatively stepped back into performance in Peter Arnott’s 'The Inquisitor' and just this year, Jill Korn’s Collaboration. It was a relief to be absorbed by a narrative created by someone else. And it was a genuine pleasure to work alongside people with whom I’ve previously worked and again be part of group dynamics.

Stark has been on a break. We never broke up or called it a day. We just decided to do something else for a while…