James Graham Plays 2 Read online

  James Graham

  Plays: 2

  This House: ‘It recreates, with startling vividness, the madness of life in the Westminster village during five action-filled years . . . Above all, the play unlocks a whole era.’

  Guardian

  The Angry Brigade: ‘Graham is a funny writer on serious topics, and the script has his usual mix of ambition and levity. There’s a thriller-ish hunt for the criminals in the first half, while the second gallops through direct action, pop-culture parodies, political theory and messy relationships. Small personal moments manage to be both bathetic and heart-wrenching.’ Independent

  The Vote: Graham . . . not only catches an entertaining sense of the here and now . . . but more poignantly evokes the tide of history that turns us all, if we act on our prerogative, into bit-players in an epic drama.’

  Daily Telegraph

  Monster Raving Loony: ‘James Graham’s plays mine political history in order to comment on the current state of the nation . . . [But] instead of straight biography, we get a bonkers essay in nostalgia . . . This is an intriguing look at the mechanisms of democracy . . . It’s packed with smart ideas about the theatricality of politics and makes an attractive case for Sutch’s enduring significance.’

  Evening Standard

  James Graham won the Catherine Johnson Award for the Best Play 2007 for Eden’s Empire. His previous plays include Albert’s Boy (recipient of a Pearson Playwriting Bursary), Little Madam (Finborough), Tory Boyz (Soho Theatre), A History of Falling Things (Clwyd Theatr Cymru), The Man (Finborough), The Whisky Taster (Bush), Sons of York (Finborough), Bassett (National Theatre Connections), This House (National Theatre), which won Best Play at the Evening Standard Awards, The Angry Brigade (Paines Plough/Theatre Royal Plymouth), The Vote (Donmar Warehouse) and Monster Raving Loony (Theatre Royal Plymouth/Soho Theatre). Other work includes Finding Neverland – a musical with music and lyrics by Gary Barlow, Coalition for Channel 4 and the screenplay for the film x + y.

  Contents

  Select Chronology

  Introduction

  THIS HOUSE

  THE ANGRY BRIGADE

  THE VOTE

  MONSTER RAVING LOONY

  By the same author

  Albert’s Boy

  The Angry Brigade

  Bassett (in National Theatre Connections 2011)

  Eden’s Empire

  A History of Falling Things

  This House

  The Man

  Tory Boyz

  The Whisky Taster

  Graham Plays: 1

  (A History of Falling Things, Tory Boyz, The Man, The Whisky Taster, Sons of York)

  James Graham Chronology

  2005 Albert’s Boy (Finborough Theatre, London: recipient of a Pearson Playwriting Bursary)

  2006 Eden’s Empire (Catherine Johnson Award for Best Play)

  2007 Little Madam (Finborough Theatre, London)

  2008 Tory Boyz (Soho Theatre)

  Sons of York (Finborough Theatre, London)

  2009 A History of Falling Things (Clwyd Theatr Cymrum, Wales)

  2010 The Whisky Taster (Bush Theatre, London)

  The Man (Finborough Theatre, London)

  Huck (Chipping Norton Theatre and national tour)

  Relish (National Youth Theatre)

  2011 The Tour Guide (Edinburgh Fringe Festival)

  Bassett (National Theatre Connections)

  2012 This House (Cottesloe, National Theatre, London: Evening Standard Award for Best Play)

  2014 The Angry Brigade (Theatre Royal Plymouth/ Paines Plough)

  2015 The Vote created with Josie Rourke (Donmar Warehouse)

  2016 Monster Raving Loony (Theatre Royal Plymouth/ Soho Theatre)

  Introduction

  Prior to writing This House for the National Theatre in 2012, I’d spent five revelatory years at the little Finborough in Earl’s Court, London, writing overly large and populated plays for that tiny room above a pub. There was a play about the 1950s Suez Canal Crisis, one set during the 1970s Winter of Discontent, one about a 12-year-old Margaret Thatcher going on an adventure with imaginary friends.

  As a twenty-something wannabe writer I’m sure I didn’t deliberately set out to write historical plays, believing probably that’s what ‘grown-up’ playwrights did, once you’d earned your stripes. It just so happened that the researching of one event would normally throw up another story I thought was cool. Cool to me, anyway. And that would become the next idea.

  This was the roll-up-your-sleeves world of fringe theatre where the bigger the play you wrote, the more work you had to do to raise money yourself, source props and costumes, build and paint the sets, and sell tickets. And it was during the research for the Thatcher show, Little Madam, that I first heard a story that moved, surprised and horrified me.

  #spoileralert – if you don’t want the intricacies of 1970s parliament unveiled here then maybe read the play first.

  How did Margaret Thatcher get into power in 1979 and change the course of our national history? The election, yes, but why was the election called? A Vote of No Confidence in James Callaghan’s Labour administration. But what’s that? (This is me skipping from book to book, by the way, slightly before the days when you’d have easy access to the internet at home and Wikipedia was properly a thing. Imagine?)

  A Vote of No Confidence is Parliament’s way of forcing a government out of office if over half of the House want you gone. The opposition called one in March 1979, and Labour lost. They had to go to the polls in forced and unfavourable circumstances, and 18 years of Conservative power ensued.

  I knew most of that. I didn’t know the Commons vote that changed history was won by only one. One single MP’s vote, out of over six hundred cast. Surely it wasn’t possible, I thought, for there to be a story surrounding where that ‘one’ missing vote came from . . .?

  Doctor Alfred Broughton, the Member for Batley and Morley, and his absence from Parliament due to illness – that one Labour vote the government needed to survive – first inspired a radio play; How You Feeling, Alf? (I know, a very whimsical radio-drama-like title). But the more I learned about the lead up to that incredible night of No Confidence, often dubbed one of the most dramatic nights in the House of Commons history by those who chart such things, the more I couldn’t believe what I found. A hung parliament where chaos ensued, actual blood was split, and an ancient system came under its greatest strain; the closest it has ever come to collapse.

  When the first hung parliament since that one arrived in May 2010, and the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition became a new and bizarre reality, it gave me the impetus to knock on the door of the National Theatre and just ‘see’. I had imagined in the weeks that followed the election there might be a line of national treasures lining up outside Nicholas Hytner’s office with way more experience than me, pitching their own response to events, and I consequently felt not a little presumptuous doing so. I was underestimating the openness, kindness, patience and thirst for a risk by Nick, the literary manager Sebastian Born, and his associate Ben Power in being willing to give me a shot.

  The problem was it started off being impossible to research this play.

  I knew I wanted it to be set in the offices of the whips. I had no desire to portray the view of the leaders at the top, I wanted the dirty, mucky, grubby world of those turning the wheels in the engine room. But parliamentary whips have a code of conduct whereby they reveal nothing, publish nothing, give no interviews, take their secrets – and they are the ones with Parliament’s secrets – with them to their graves.

  When Gyles Brandreth famously broke ranks and published a book, Breaking the Code, shining a light on some of the dark goings on amongst the whips in the 1990
s, he received a note on the day of publication that contained only a ‘black spot’ on a card – a symbol that he had betrayed an ancient tradition, and was banished.

  Some facts, anecdotes and stories could be pieced together through archives – Jack Weatherill’s collection of scribbles and notes held in a dusty room in Canterbury (including a particularly revelatory bit of arithmetic jotted down hastily on the night of the confidence vote) – though nothing beats face-to-face interviews.

  Possibly because time had passed since the 1974–79 parliament, as had many of the characters responsible, there was a gradual relaxation towards me following an infinite amount of letter writing and phone calling. Joe Ashton, the former Labour MP for Bassetlaw and author of his own inspired-by-whips office play, was one of the first to invite me up to his Sheffield home.This led on to lunch with Bruce Grocott, formerly the member for Lichfield and Tamworth in Portcullis House. Which then followed an accidental passing in the corridor of the inimitable Ann Taylor, formerly of Bolton West who was to become one of the most important contributors to the show. Sir George Young, in the 70s a young junior Tory whip – Leader of the Commons when I met him. None of this was through anything other than just asking, and then asking those I asked to ask more people to help me. And I’m very grateful.

  All of which led me to the living room in Wakefield of Walter Harrison – the most formidable Westminster figure that you’ve probably never heard of, but a legend in the corridors of power. Believed to be the most intimidating whip ever to have occupied the role, Tony Blair once confirmed that Harrison was the only man he’d ever been afraid of, and sat opposite him even in his 90s I can see why. But there was a mischievous sparkle and unmistakable warmth to him that vitally informed the role I wrote for him.

  In an increasingly polarized, angry and polemical political climate defined by its disunity and factionalism, both here and across the world, his deep and complicated friendship with Jack Weatherill, his Tory counterpart, which – following that fateful night of the confidence vote that the whole play leads up to – lasted long into retirement, deeply affected me, and grew to become something of the spine of the show.

  I don’t think you’re ever particularly conscious of trends growing in your plays as you go along, but both This House and The Vote bear out, I suppose, my geeky interest in processes – how things happen. Leaving the audience to answer the ‘why’.

  The 2015 general election that followed the hung outcome in 2010 was unique in that, following the Fixed Term Parliament Act, it was possible for the first time ever to know years in advance the exact date of the polling day, rather than it being the prerogative and the whim of the sitting Prime Minister. Which meant, uniquely, it was possible to plan in advance for something that night . . .

  I was rehearsing a show about surveillance called Privacy with Josie Rourke at the Donmar Warehouse in spring 2014 when she began looking ahead. Josie has an infectious passion for theatre that responds inventively and urgently to current affairs, but for as wide and popular an audience as possible. It was during a lunch break with the exceptional casting director Alastair Coomer (who coincidentally cast This House before moving to join Josie at the Donmar) that we began talking about how you might create an ‘event’ live on election night – a theatrical response, rather than leaving it entirely to the pundits on television to make sense of events.

  What about setting a play in a polling station, with a conveyor belt of actors passing through the space playing voters? What about setting the play at the exact date and time that it was being staged – say the final 90 minutes of polling during the actual final 90 minutes of polling? What if actually you could broadcast it from the theatre live into people’s homes during the last 90 minutes of polling, leading up to the exit poll announcement at 10pm and the declaration of the next government?

  There were a lot of ‘ifs’ without knowing how possible any of it was – but through Josie’s determination, belief and ingenuity, we found ourselves a year later with a cast of over 40 actors including Mark Gatiss, Catherine Tate, Nina Sosanya and Judi Dench, with Channel 4 as our broadcasting partner, beaming our play live on election night into people’s homes.

  There were many unique challenges (‘opportunities’, I kept trying to call them, to myself, often at 3am in the morning during the most intense working period of my life) to this project. Writing while you cast and casting while you write – the quick script turnaround meaning characters would change from day to day depending on who was available and vice versa (and Alastair Coomer alongside Josie Rourke did a forensic job of exactly matching the gender and ethic make-up of the Lambeth constituency to the cast. This was a play about representation and democracy after all). Other challenges – how do you move the actors through the tiny Donmar Warehouse backstage area, and how do you film it? But the biggest issue was ‘time’. A play can run over and it matters not a bit, but this show, this show had to come down on the bongs of 10pm exactly. The television broadcast wouldn’t wait; there was an exit poll to declare. And because we had set the play in real time – no scene breaks, no cuts – it was like setting some balls rolling at 8.30pm when the red light on the cameras came on and hoping they crossed the line at the exact right point 90 minutes later.

  During two weeks of previews we all became a little obsessed about time, as well as the other elements you’re continually focused on. Preview One came down around 10.04.19, Preview Five came down around 9.59.28. We invited the audience in the theatre into the game of it, with a clock on the wall ticking towards its inevitable conclusion.

  I’ve never been more impressed with an acting company who got behind the challenge like it was a dragon to slay. And though it sounds like one of those theatrical legends that verges on a lie – I swear to you, we never hit 10pm exactly during any preview, but come election night, with the cameras rolling, I’ll never forget standing at the back of the circle with Josie Rourke, iPhone in hand, as the last line was said and seeing 9.59 flick to 10.00 exactly on the first bong of Big Ben. And yes, it’s possible that both Josie and I burst into tears. Possibly through exhaustion after the last four weeks of madness, possibly out of pride for an acting company that collectively managed to essentially and effortlessly control time like wizards.

  We rushed backstage and I stood on the spiral staircase in front of the company to read aloud the exit poll. A Conservative majority. I don’t think any of us expected that . . .

  Since that particular moment, politics has become kind of crazy; the challenge for theatre seems almost to be how to match it in terms of drama. How to reflect the national mood, if that is even possible. I’ve always been something of an optimist when it comes to our democratic systems and the people running them – but that optimism and hope becomes more and more tested. The prevalent mood amongst communities and people in this country seems to be an increasingly very simple, ancient one – anger.

  The Angry Brigade was built with director James Grieve and the amazing Paines Plough company in collaboration with the Plymouth Drum, before moving to the Bush Theatre in 2015, also during the general election. I had last been at the Bush five years earlier on The Whisky Taster, also directed by James. Much like The Vote, I guess it was something of an experiment in form. Two separate theatrical styles applied to the two different halves of the play – one dramatizing the police doing the chasing, the other depicting the group of ‘anarchists’ trying to avoid being caught.

  The case of these four counter culture revolutionaries, or anarchists, or extremists, whatever you want to call them depending on wherever it is you stand, is one of those exciting real life stories you come across which when you do you can’t believe you never came across it before. A cell of four young intellectuals (allegedly) setting bombs off across London – the Albert Hall, the Post Office tower – to bring down the Conservative government of the day and establish a new socio-political order leading to, upon their capture, the longest trial in English legal history. The parallels to
today – an increasingly politicized youth in the face of growing generational inequality through austerity; disillusion with established party politics; the constant looming threat of ‘terror, all made it a seemingly resonant time to explore.

  Monster Raving Loony, however, was an appropriately less clear-headed prospect. I knew I wanted to tackle David Sutch – the working-class Harrow boy who affected his own noble title, invented his own party, dressed up in provocatively garish attire in order to stand (and fail) in more elections than anyone else in history. The idea of trying to tell his story through the popular comic styles of the time, reflecting both his – and Britain’s – search for a voice, an identity post-war emerged slower. And by the time we reached workshop stage, I remember the director memorably summing up to the small crowd who came to test it out: ‘We came here to establish if it could be done, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it should.’

  Well – we did; inviting the audience into a communal space (ostensibly a working men’s club, the type I used to go when I was younger while my mum worked behind the bar) by creating a community between them and the live performers.

  This House

  This House had its world premiere at the Cottesloe Theatre on 25 September 2012. The cast and creative team were as follows:

  Labour Whips

  Michael Cocks Vincent Franklin

  Walter Harrison Philip Glenister

  Bob Mellish Phil Daniels

  Joe Harper Richard Ridings

  Ann Taylor Lauren O’Neil

  Tory Whips

  Humphrey Atkins Julian Wadham

  Jack Weatherill Charles Edwards

  Fred Silvester Ed Hughes

  The Members’ Chorus

  Clockmaker/Redditch/Nuneaton/ Peebles/Ensemble Gunnar Cauthery

  Batley/Ensemble Christopher Godwin

  Walsall N/Plymouth Sutton/ Speaker 2/Ensemble Andrew Havill