0:01

BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm

0:03

Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert

0:05

Island Discs podcast. Every week I ask

0:08

my guests to choose the eight tracks,

0:10

book and luxury they'd want to take

0:12

with them if they were cast away

0:14

to a desert island. This

0:16

is an extended version of the original

0:19

Radio 4 broadcast and, for rights reasons,

0:21

the music is shorter than the original

0:23

broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening. My

0:49

castaway this week is the award-winning

0:51

playwright and screenwriter James Graham. He's

0:53

one of the most successful dramatists

0:55

in Britain today, carving out a

0:57

reputation for state of the nation

0:59

shows that offer profound insights into

1:01

contemporary history. If that sounds

1:04

a bit dry, it isn't. His

1:06

skill at finding history's human heart and

1:08

pinpointing its pivotal moments with plenty of

1:10

laughs along the way has generated hit

1:12

after hit. They include This

1:15

House, about the minority Labour government of the

1:17

1970s, Inc, the

1:19

story of Rupert Murdoch's takeover of the

1:21

sun, and Dear England, which spotlights how

1:24

Gareth Southgate changed the culture of English

1:26

football. His television work is

1:28

equally impressive. He grew up in Nottinghamshire

1:31

and in 2022 put his hometown on

1:33

screen in the much acclaimed BBC drama

1:35

Sherwood, which addressed the deep divisions he

1:37

saw in the wake of the miners'

1:39

strike. It taught him to see both

1:41

sides of a debate and to look

1:43

for the humanity in those with whom

1:46

he disagreed. He says, people may

1:48

think I'm too nice to be a political

1:50

playwright and that I don't go for people's

1:52

scalps. I try to empathise and

1:54

understand them. I just think it's the easiest

1:56

thing in the world to be cynical. It's

1:59

lazy. It's unfair. It's really boring.

2:01

James Gray and welcome to Desert Island

2:03

Discs. Hi, thank you for having me. It's

2:05

such a pleasure. Now let's start with

2:07

our empathy, James, because it isn't always

2:10

prioritised in our polarised world. How

2:12

do you ensure you can achieve it in

2:14

your work? By just asking

2:16

the question, why is this person behaving

2:19

the way they are? And I've put some pretty controversial

2:22

and difficult people on stage and screen,

2:24

whether that's Rip at Murdock or Dermot

2:26

Cummings. And I think there's

2:28

just no point in reconfirming to an audience

2:30

what they already think and feel. And the

2:32

black and whiteness of storytelling is just never

2:34

interested me. I think both people would also

2:36

have public institutions, whether it's newspapers or the

2:39

radio or the House of Parliament. There's

2:41

so many paradoxes and contradictions, and that's what

2:43

makes drama so alive. And it's uniquely drama,

2:45

I think, that has the space and the time to enjoy

2:48

those contradictions and those paradoxes. And

2:51

you're also incredibly good at finding

2:53

those small things that can tell

2:55

a really big story or unlock

2:57

a kind of profound truth. I

3:00

wonder how you do that. You're

3:02

intrigued by looking for those moments,

3:04

those events, those little stories

3:06

that actually have a lot more to say. I

3:09

think it's probably my sort of nerdy, geeky interest in these

3:11

worlds, and also my bewilderment, I guess,

3:13

that I get invited into by simply

3:15

writing a letter to the whips in

3:18

the House of Parliament or the producers of Who

3:20

Wants to Be a Millionaire. It's the greatest joy

3:22

to be invited into a process, a system, an

3:24

institution where they will unpack it for you and

3:26

make you understand in a Swiss watch

3:28

kind of way how it ticks. You

3:31

know, my recent play was about the England football team,

3:33

and I got to go meet Gareth Southgate and his

3:35

team, and that was a real joy. But

3:37

my first questions are never about sort of the grand

3:40

philosophical, what is it to win a tournament? I'm always like,

3:42

where'd you get your lunch from? How'd you organise your office?

3:44

What time do you come in? Do you park your car

3:46

or do you come on it? Like, it

3:48

is the minutiae and the detail that I

3:50

actually think reveals a greater truth about

3:52

these systems and these institutions that govern us

3:55

in our public realm. Tell

3:57

me about your own experiences of theatre.

4:00

special day for you opening nights and

4:02

the hours preceding the curtain going up

4:05

how does it feel talking through a typical day? My

4:08

favourite moment is the hour before the

4:10

first preview when a new

4:12

play a new story that no one has ever seen

4:14

before is about to be put in front

4:16

of an audience and I always try to protect

4:18

that time with my team like the director and the designers you

4:21

go in and have a quick bite to eat around the corner

4:23

and you just take a moment I normally

4:25

have a little whiskey and next to me and you try

4:28

to be present in that that moment because you

4:30

only share something for the first time once which is an

4:32

obvious thing to say but from that moment on in a

4:35

couple of hours time it will always have existed and it will always

4:37

be that thing and that pre

4:39

going over the top moment with your team

4:41

is really special. It's

4:44

time to get started with your music then James, this

4:46

number one what are we gonna hear? Sure

4:48

I've got I'm so insecure about my music

4:50

choices I think if you asked me what

4:52

I'm most insecure about in the world it

4:55

would be talking about my personal life and

4:57

my taste in music. Okay so this is

4:59

gonna be a tricky show. I'm in existential

5:01

crisis right here but thankfully it's lovely. Why?

5:03

Why are you insecure about your music? Honestly

5:05

if you shuffled my playlist you're just as

5:07

likely to get like the Emmerdale theme tune

5:09

as you are the Ariana Grande latest chag

5:11

but we are where we are and and

5:14

yeah I thought this I had to have

5:16

pulp in my list there's something about that

5:18

band and that music in the late 90s

5:20

which kind of made sense for me it

5:22

sounded like what it was to

5:24

grow up in a post-industrial town

5:27

the lyrics around

5:29

small houses and wood chip on the wall

5:31

and the fountain down the road I just

5:34

it really encapsulated the being with your mates

5:36

and drinking and trying to

5:38

look forward to the future so I was gonna pick common

5:40

people one of my favorite songs but my

5:43

contemporary friend and writer Jack Thorne

5:45

picked that so I refused because

5:47

my nemesis so

5:49

instead I picked what I think is all just one of

5:52

the most joyful pop tracks of the

5:54

late 1990s which is Disco 2000 I'm

6:01

always on the

6:03

wall, when I

6:05

came round home, you didn't

6:08

know it was me at

6:10

all. I'm

6:15

always on

6:17

the wall, when

6:19

I came round home, you didn't

6:21

know it was

6:23

me at all.

6:44

I was in the town of Sherwood, because

6:46

in the mine of Sherwood, a lot of

6:48

the Nuitigim Shemonas

6:57

were beneath us in the south. They

7:00

went back to work, the majority of Yorkshire

7:02

miners over the border stayed out of work.

7:05

So in these borderland villages where I grew up,

7:08

there were sort of split people in the same village were going back

7:10

to work or staying out on strike and that was obviously very painful

7:13

and it meant that there was a scene of a

7:15

lot of the violence in the 80s when the police

7:17

came up to police the strike and it took

7:20

me a long time to understand the

7:22

repercussions and the reverberations of that trauma.

7:25

I think it taught me that ideological

7:28

extremes or political

7:30

certainties can be incredibly dangerous

7:32

and can be incredibly wounding.

7:35

I know enough brothers who

7:37

would will still cross the street from

7:39

one another today or friendships

7:42

that were broken because of that inability

7:44

and I'm not judging them but that

7:46

inability to recognise how complicated and unfair

7:48

the imposition of that choice was placed

7:50

upon people. time?

8:00

Well actually when my parents divorced they did this incredibly

8:03

generous thing at the time which was they bought houses

8:05

on the same street so there were only two houses

8:07

between us so I could go and see my dad

8:10

whenever me and my twin sister wanted to and my

8:12

brother could come and see my mum so

8:14

there was an attempt to keep us all sort of together

8:16

as a family unit but I loved

8:18

my own company more than I

8:20

loved hanging out with my brother or

8:22

sister or my friends. I really liked being on my

8:25

own in my room and I wrote

8:27

I began writing short stories from a really early

8:30

age my mum got me an electric typewriter which

8:32

I just adored. How old were you when you

8:34

got that? Probably like five or six and I

8:36

really really read that time in my own

8:38

head to make sense of the world but

8:41

yeah I was very I was very relaxed

8:43

growing up in terms of what the future

8:45

held. It was actually sort of

8:47

the present day that made me frightened like going

8:49

to school and the people around

8:52

me I was really introverted

8:54

and found socialising quite difficult.

8:57

So you lived with your sister with your mum what

8:59

did you do for a living? Where did she

9:01

work? So my work ethic I

9:04

think definitely comes from my mum when I was growing

9:06

up she was a barmaid

9:09

in most of the local pubs around the

9:11

village including the working men's pub.

9:13

But I mean my memory up

9:15

until my teenage years was at one

9:17

point she had three jobs she worked

9:20

as a school receptionist in the day in the

9:22

evening she would then go to the local warehouse

9:25

so when the mines closed logistics

9:27

and warehouses pretty much took over as the

9:29

main employer in the area and then at

9:31

the weekend she would work in the local corner shop

9:33

which is one of my first jobs as well and

9:36

my dad he worked for Nottingham city council that was

9:38

his first job when he was 18 and he stayed

9:40

there all his life. And

9:42

how was it dividing your time between your parents?

9:44

I loved them both individually but my my mum was

9:47

sort of a more a

9:49

raucous extroverted character her family full

9:51

of sisters that you know drink

9:53

and parties and going out was

9:55

a big part of that world

9:58

and I guess I would say that my dad

10:00

was a bit softer and quieter, he was

10:02

the only son. We would

10:05

go train spotting for example and that

10:07

was like sport but quiet sport. And

10:09

he introduced me to a lot of sort of classical

10:11

music as well which I

10:14

really values and I would sit quietly in

10:16

his house with my headphones on listening to

10:19

electronic 80s versions of opera and stuff trying

10:21

to get my head around and I think

10:24

there was something again about that kind of

10:26

aspirational working class desire to introduce me and

10:28

introduce us to culture and

10:30

books and history and politics. So

10:33

they all supported those interests? Yeah and still

10:35

do like I wish I could say going

10:38

my story with like a Billy Elliot story where I

10:40

had to rail against them and they were going don't

10:42

be a playwright get a proper job that has just

10:44

never been the case and both of them are

10:47

so happy for me and

10:49

I'm so grateful for that. Alright James it's time

10:51

for us to go to the music, what are we going

10:53

to hear next? Well as an example of

10:56

my father's sort of musical taste that was

10:58

the soundtrack of my youth I have picked

11:00

Glenn Miller which I guess

11:03

it felt like the men in my

11:05

family always sort of had this kind of war time

11:08

vibe like my granddad and my dad

11:10

and my brother playing big

11:12

band music and the

11:14

history of war so this featured a lot in

11:16

our house and I guess also Chattanooga

11:19

Choo Choo which is the track I've picked is

11:21

also about trains and for

11:24

some reason trains have always been huge

11:26

in our family my mum she grew

11:28

up in a train station with her sisters and brother

11:31

and my granddad was the train so the

11:33

station master in a little train station

11:35

in Eastwood in New Jameshire and

11:37

my dad was always taking me and my brother

11:39

on train journeys, train spotting but the problem was

11:41

I had such a delicate constitution as a

11:43

kid I would always get through in the sick and

11:46

he would have to carry his little bags around

11:48

to capture that and I remember this one time

11:50

we had a little journey I

11:52

made it all the way up to Scotland on trains all

11:55

the way to Montrose having not managed to throw up and

11:57

he was so proud of me he was reporting to Montrose

11:59

station again me a little hug and a shake and that

12:01

made me throw up all over the table as

12:03

we arrived into the station so I think

12:05

my delicate constitution extends to Glen Millar it's

12:08

music but it's soft and gentle. Hacksuff.

12:11

Pardon me boy, is

12:13

that the Chattanooga Juju? Yes,

12:15

yes, right, 29. Boy

12:20

you can give me a chance Can

12:25

you afford to board Chattanooga

12:27

Juju? I

12:30

got my food Hacksuff,

12:40

the U.S.

13:01

What would you love about the drama of everyday life? There's

13:07

something about the scale of the drama

13:09

of everyday life with

13:11

people arguing in pubs or breaking up or playing

13:14

crashes in Emmerdale or murders in Coronation Street I

13:16

guess just the escapism and the size of everyday life and

13:19

hobbies were like a big thing I think in terms of I

13:22

imagined myself probably as like an aspirational working

13:24

class like wanted to do things with our

13:26

free time and we were all given sort

13:28

of instruments or I ended up

13:31

going ice skating which was an unusual choice

13:33

for a young boy in a half mining

13:35

town but for some reason gliding around on

13:37

the ice I got really excited about it

13:39

and actually wasn't technically I wasn't sort of

13:41

doing the flips and the spins it

13:43

was actually the show Ice Dancing where

13:46

you put on a costume and dance to a

13:48

piece of pop music or musical theatre it

13:50

was that side of it that I really enjoyed and

13:53

it's not original but I guess there was

13:55

something about the permission

13:57

that gives you to show

13:59

off to make people laugh, to

14:02

unleash yourself and wave your arms and be silly

14:04

that I think I really

14:06

struggled with in normal life. And

14:09

yeah, so I remember doing loads of different parts. I

14:11

was dressed up as one of the girls in ABBA

14:13

and there was an absolute bizarre moment when I think it

14:16

was my mum who came up with the concept where

14:18

she came up with this idea of the stripping vicar.

14:20

I was only about 10 years old,

14:23

but the routine we came up with was I

14:25

came onto the ice wearing a little cassock and

14:29

to really holy music and I danced

14:31

around the ice for like a minute.

14:33

And then James Brown, I feel good, kicked

14:35

in and I whipped off my velcro to

14:37

cassock and I had like stockings and spank

14:39

and a corset on. And

14:42

I would like ride across the ice as I

14:44

could tell you about a boy like spanking myself

14:46

and wiggling my hips and like parents were genuinely

14:48

mortified and shocked and I could always see my

14:50

mum laughing and loving it. And

14:52

we took that on tour like around the country. People

14:54

would see me turn up and they'd go, oh no,

14:56

the stripping vicar's here, we've lost. I

14:59

get all these plastic trophies for it and I would

15:02

never like it. I could never quite make sense of the

15:04

little boy who really struggled to be in class or to

15:06

be in school and around people who

15:08

could do that. And when you

15:11

were at primary school, you got your first acting role

15:13

in a production of Oliver. You were the lead. I

15:15

know, hey, I wasn't mucking about. But I also

15:18

was very aware that the reason why I got

15:20

Oliver was because I was just this tiny scruffy

15:22

wave of a boy and I looked like an

15:24

orphan and I couldn't sing and I really wanted

15:26

to. And they really wanted me to,

15:28

but I just couldn't do it. So very sadly I got

15:31

the part. But every time a song came on in the production,

15:33

a different lad had to come on stage and sing

15:35

for me and I just had to go and sit on the side

15:37

of the stage and watch him sing.

15:39

And obviously the audience obviously knew that was

15:41

because I was terrible at singing. Oh no,

15:43

what did that do for your nascent

15:45

creative expression? Humbled me

15:47

and I actually felt more sorry for the other

15:50

boy who probably should have been Oliver because he

15:52

had this angelic voice. But yeah, look, I mean,

15:54

what I really remember the most about stepping into

15:56

the waters of school plays was the

15:58

complete thrill for me. of seeing a community

16:00

of your neighbours come together

16:03

in a space and

16:05

share something. And the fact that you

16:08

were part of that and that you were making

16:10

your parents laugh by being a cute little orphan or

16:12

that you were telling a story and shared

16:14

storytelling just immediately imprinted itself in

16:17

my brain as being one of

16:19

the most valuable things we can do as a society.

16:22

It's time for your next piece of music. What have you got for

16:24

us? So as I got slightly

16:27

older and moved to secondary school, I tried

16:29

to find my tribe and my gang. And

16:32

somehow I slipped into the world of

16:34

grungy band people, even though

16:36

that was not the music I felt comfortable

16:38

with and grew up with. But

16:41

I just loved being in that group. And

16:44

frankly, whenever, in a

16:47

mix of ways against the machine, Metallica and

16:49

Korn, whenever they would play a

16:51

song that I could hum along to and had

16:53

a nice little tune to it, I really valued

16:55

that stuff and I would always request that stuff. So

16:58

I picked Foo Fighters, who I did

17:00

actually really love growing up. And this

17:02

is probably the least cool Foo Fighters

17:04

track. It's the love song. He felt like

17:06

he had to write. But whenever this came on,

17:08

I was very, very happy because it was something

17:10

I had to think about myself. And this is

17:12

Ockenheims. Foo

17:44

Fighters and Ockenheims. James

17:46

Graham, as you've mentioned, you were a shy

17:48

kid at school, but you were a very

17:50

able student. And I think it was history

17:52

that caught your imagination. Why? I guess

17:55

the storytelling of it. It's the purest

17:57

example of week by week turning

18:00

up to class and being told a

18:02

story that you don't know how it's going to end. Like I

18:04

really didn't so we'd be doing the French Revolution and you get

18:06

to the point where the guillotine's about to

18:08

come down on Marie Antoinette and

18:10

the bell would go and I literally wouldn't

18:12

know does she make it and I think by

18:14

default my love of that, my love of

18:16

returning to far away

18:18

or recent history to make sense of

18:20

the now has accidentally made

18:23

me quite political but it all came really from

18:25

a love of storytelling. So it started with the

18:27

stories and your love of drama then continued

18:29

at secondary school? Yes, so

18:31

having absolutely smashed Oliver in primary school

18:34

I knew I really wanted to do

18:36

more school plays but again struggled with

18:39

my confidence and it was the head

18:41

of the drama department Martin Humphrey who

18:43

was just one of those teachers who

18:45

would go above and beyond and like

18:47

stay late, work all weekend to allow

18:49

us to help us put on plays

18:51

and musicals and shows and he just

18:53

was determined to put me on stage

18:55

and I guess I thought

18:57

maybe acting would be a thing I didn't really

18:59

know if writing would be a career and

19:02

again whereas the rest of my life was sitting quietly at the

19:04

back of the class. I remember

19:06

the moments when I would get such bizarre

19:08

confidence to be able to march on stage

19:11

and play big roles like Mercutio in

19:13

Romeo and Juliet and Robert Sideway in

19:16

Our Country's Good, Tim Blake in Jamaica

19:18

who was the big sort of showy,

19:20

life eccentric, actor character and I'd see

19:23

the lads and the football team kind of laughing in

19:25

the audience and validating me and I loved

19:28

that. So what was going on in terms of your

19:30

own identity and how you felt at that point and

19:32

how you felt about who you were? Yeah,

19:37

I mean definitely I knew I was very

19:39

sensitive and I was looking at, I had

19:41

a lot of nice friends but

19:43

I would still confuse myself about

19:46

often when I was invited to hang out on the street

19:48

corner or to get up for the rec with my friends

19:51

I would sometimes pretend I wasn't feeling very well

19:53

because the comfort of just being on my own

19:55

just made me feel, people

19:58

offered to be on my

20:00

own. talk about sort of authenticity don't they

20:02

and being yourself and I think that's such

20:04

a it's so easy if you're a confident

20:07

extrovert it's actually you have to work really

20:09

hard on being yourself if you're

20:11

not but it wasn't like traumatic I was just I

20:13

was sort of really at peace with the fact that

20:15

I was just that kid I was just that boy

20:17

and how lucky it was to

20:20

have found in that

20:22

particular community a form an outlet in the

20:24

form of theatre and art and drama. You

20:27

went on James to study drama at

20:29

Hull University and you have said since

20:31

Hull made me who I am why

20:33

does it feel special? I'm

20:35

sure part of it is because it was Hull

20:37

and I absolutely love that city it's not that

20:40

dissimilar from really the character of

20:42

the place where we grew up in Nottinghamshire

20:44

which is it doesn't take itself seriously it's

20:46

very no-nonsense gallows humour and

20:48

the kind of culture and the kind of

20:50

art populist from a working-class tradition from an

20:53

industrial place and eventually

20:55

I would start to write and put on plays

20:57

in front of my colleagues and my peers as

20:59

well and again the the we'll get onto this

21:02

I think but one of the great screenwriters

21:05

in British history, Anthony

21:07

Mungalla, he's there. Yeah well tell me

21:10

about that and you met him. He

21:12

did yeah he just I think morning's

21:14

Oscar for English patient and we

21:16

had about an hour together and I think in

21:18

education the most valuable thing anyone can do is

21:22

personify the possibility of something like normally you

21:24

just don't the world of

21:26

our entertainment Hollywood film you feel so

21:28

removed and so distant and meeting

21:31

someone in the flesh who had done that

21:33

from the buildings and the rooms that I

21:35

was set in was just so thrilling. While

21:38

you're at University you wrote your first play Call

21:40

Not Dull it was about the minor strike what

21:42

were you hoping to capture in the story? I

21:46

wanted to capture my community and almost go

21:48

on a an intellectual and

21:50

creative exercise to see if I could replicate

21:53

the voice of the people I grew up with by

21:55

writing dialogue that sounds like what they would say and

21:58

wrote that put it on took

22:00

it to Edinburgh, first time I sort of got reviewed,

22:02

first time I left the newsagent holding a newspaper with

22:04

my name in it and couldn't believe in it. And

22:06

I think it was a three star

22:09

review that everyone was really going, I'm so

22:11

sorry, you're okay. And I was like, you look amazing, they're

22:13

writing about me. Yeah,

22:15

I started to really get a sense of, God,

22:17

this is what I wanna do. I think we're

22:20

gonna hear your next disc, James, it is your

22:22

fourth choice today. And this

22:24

connects actually with whole in the sense that the

22:26

soundtracks to movies has been a love of my

22:28

life for a long time. And I

22:31

actually write often to the Hans

22:33

Zimmer's and the match actors of this

22:35

world just because they're so emotive and

22:37

they catch the sweeping scale of stories.

22:40

This particular track is from the current

22:42

of Mr. Ripley, which was an Antimingela

22:44

film. And this is by Gabrielle Yared,

22:46

who's a Lebanese born composer. He did

22:49

most of Antimingela's music, I've

22:51

watched films. And this is

22:53

from the end of the film, I think, where

22:56

the main character, Tom Ripley,

22:58

is someone who hides himself away

23:01

from the world, believes that he's gonna

23:03

be hidden forever. What

24:05

do you remember about that time? I

24:19

loved it. It was like a really tough job. I'd turn

24:21

up at 8 o'clock in the morning and

24:23

sometimes you'd go through to 2 or 3 the next morning

24:25

because you had to be the first person there and the

24:27

last person to leave. There

24:30

was really special moments I used to enjoy

24:32

wandering around the building at midnight, the last

24:34

person there sitting on the stage

24:36

of this Victorian theatre. I know

24:38

it sounds really fappy but imagining my

24:40

plays on there one day, which did

24:42

happen. I remember the attrition in particular

24:45

of seeing how hard people had to

24:47

work and none more so than Panto.

24:50

My Panto that year had the

24:52

extraordinary Danny LaRue as

24:54

the dame. He would come in and go,

24:56

hello James, hello darling. He was just from

24:58

a different world and he would never leave

25:00

the building without shaking my hand and slipping

25:02

a tenor in there as he left. I

25:05

remember organising his Christmas dinner because he was staying and knitting him

25:07

at the time. He was on his own and I organised

25:09

his Marks and Spencers chicken. Also what being

25:11

on the stage door allowed me to do

25:14

was the show goes up at 7.30 basically.

25:16

You're on your own. I would be

25:19

writing my plays, the hum and the

25:21

sounds and the noise of theatre behind

25:23

me. I started writing full

25:25

length plays and putting them in little envelopes

25:27

and sending them off to that London and

25:29

hoping that someone would read them and eventually

25:31

one of them did. It talks about being

25:34

a shy introverted child but there must have been

25:36

a part of you that said at that

25:38

stage, I'm good at this, I might be

25:40

able to do this. What I

25:42

was really confident about and always committed to was

25:44

that I was never going to write the kinds

25:46

of other plays that younger writers were doing at

25:49

that time. I don't say

25:51

that mostly, I say it as

25:53

a lesson that I learnt which is that

25:55

as I came down to London and became

25:57

enmeshed in the new writing scene down here.

26:00

the expectation from a lot of the theatres that were for what a

26:03

20, 21 year old should write

26:05

about and often it was understandably sort of relationships and

26:07

sex and violence and it came from the tradition of

26:09

in your face theatre in the late 90s and I

26:11

mean I mean

26:13

one of my first plays was about

26:15

the series canal crisis and like

26:18

nobody basically nobody was here for it and nobody

26:20

wanted it and I just refused to kind of

26:22

pivot because I just knew that's what really excited

26:24

me and I was so fortunate

26:26

to find an advocate in the Finbury theatre

26:28

which is like a tiny little theatre 50

26:30

seaters above a pub in Elscort where

26:33

you have to pretty much sort of paint and build your

26:35

own sets and and I spent

26:37

like five years there working in call centres

26:39

and bars in the day and then writing

26:42

plays there in the evening about big

26:44

sort of historic sweeps out Albert Einstein,

26:46

Anthony Eden, I wrote a play about

26:48

Margaret Thatcher. I want to

26:50

ask about one of your later plays actually

26:52

Tory Boys that was about Ted Heath's hidden

26:54

sexuality and I know that you wrote it

26:57

during a time when you were exploring your

26:59

own relationships, your identity, did you

27:01

learn anything about yourself while you were writing

27:03

that play? Yeah

27:05

I mean I think I mean my relationship history

27:08

has been varied and and

27:10

flexible and a bit like

27:12

my growing up in North Nottingham she was never sort

27:14

of went down on one side or

27:17

the other I was and basically I've always up

27:20

until recently struggled a lot

27:22

with sort of relationships and

27:24

the level of I guess commitment

27:26

and vulnerability and intimacy that a

27:29

healthy one requires and I

27:31

don't think that's completely divorced from my professional life,

27:33

from my writing life and where I sit there

27:36

you know I've had relationships with women and

27:38

men and and I found

27:40

a great comfort and

27:43

peace in that and not needing to define

27:45

for anyone at any particular or

27:48

given point where I am or what

27:50

I'm doing or how I'm and being

27:53

in a theatre community where

27:55

it's less binary and you can not

27:59

be in your to any particular mass and it's

28:01

progressive and tolerant, that's been a real

28:03

value to me. And I've tried to,

28:05

yeah, Tory Boy certainly was a way

28:08

of putting on stage all

28:10

the bizarre contradictions and nuances of

28:13

the young experience, I think, when you're trying

28:15

to, when you're emerging politically and sexually

28:17

and emotionally. Let's

28:19

go to the music. What's next? This

28:23

is the Queen, that is Kylie Minogue. And

28:25

she was one of my first ever albums

28:28

I remember getting on Christmas day. And

28:30

I've had a love affair with Kylie ever

28:32

since. And actually this track I only discovered

28:35

because Russell T. Davies put it

28:37

in a television drama. And Russell is the

28:39

perfect example for me of someone who manages

28:41

to smash into big serious

28:43

social studies or political state of

28:45

the nations. Just a

28:47

huge amount of pop culture references and

28:50

particularly British pop culture references. And

28:52

this was one of the first time I heard this

28:54

banger of a track, which is your discount. I've

28:59

received a long time, I think

29:02

you've travelled. It

29:05

seems that summer season

29:07

has never felt a

29:10

way. That

29:21

just be for me major, No

29:25

pro se i lose it to the think theNow I'll be in

29:27

the sky Kylie Minogue and

29:29

Your Disco Needs You. James

29:31

Grahame in 2012, your play This House

29:34

premiered at the National Theatre and it

29:36

was a huge breakthrough for you. Nominated

29:39

for an Olivier Award, did you have any sense

29:41

that it was going to be the kind

29:43

of hit that it was? It changed everything for you.

29:46

I knew instinctively that the proposition

29:48

on paper was really great and

29:51

I can't take credit for that, that's just the real

29:53

world delivered to me and I can't tell you the

29:55

story of this Hung Parliament. I

29:58

found it a completely compelling and... productive

30:00

world and I hired an office

30:03

in... So I thought that's what proper grown-up playwrights

30:05

would probably do. And it was

30:07

in this like garret in a loft above a

30:09

sex clip show. I got to know

30:11

the girls down there on the door quite well and I would

30:13

sit there trying to make sense of the other 1970s and adored

30:15

it. And

30:18

so even though I knew I had potential, I didn't

30:20

necessarily know if it was going to connect because I

30:22

think the conventional wisdom at the time was

30:25

that there wasn't a huge appetite

30:27

for plays about politics on stage.

30:30

I wonder what that's like for you. You

30:32

know, when you're taking that personal view of

30:34

recent history, do you get nervous about telling

30:36

real people stories? I

30:38

do and I should do because it's their

30:41

story and I really feel that responsibility and

30:44

I would worry if I stopped feeling that. And

30:47

to be honest, it is a part of my

30:50

job that I do sometimes find a bit overwhelming.

30:53

It's the lying awake at three in the

30:55

morning kind of anxiety when I worry about...

30:59

I just don't want to ever upset people is

31:01

the truth. But I do really believe in putting

31:05

real stories on stage and screen as

31:07

a way of making sense of them. And

31:09

sometimes these are quite public figures, whether

31:12

the coughing major in quiz or someone like

31:15

that were a great treat to go and spend time with the producer if

31:17

he wants to be a millionaire or

31:19

the victims of that scandal. No,

31:21

I do and I do take that

31:23

really seriously about real people. And

31:26

I think the only thing I can sort of

31:28

say is my tactic is you have to go in and

31:30

go early and go hard and be really honest about that

31:33

you're doing it and allow them to

31:35

express their anxieties and their doubts and their

31:37

concerns. It's my duty to sit

31:40

in those living rooms and listen to

31:42

that and then adapt my work to make sure

31:44

that I'm telling the truth of their experience, but

31:46

that they feel OK on the journey of it.

31:49

So what is it like, James,

31:51

when you actually meet someone who

31:53

you've just put on stage in

31:55

theatrical form and what's the conversation

31:57

like? Well, obviously you feel...

32:00

like hugely presumptuous. They've come to see your

32:02

play, you just present to them on stage

32:04

and then you're just speaking to them afterwards in the

32:06

bar and it can be a great thrill

32:09

because obviously they've just seen themselves as

32:11

represented by an actor and they're sort of in

32:14

the thrill of that. But obviously sometimes it can

32:16

be quite intense and awkward. So I've met politicians

32:18

who were in this house after that in

32:20

the play, Inc, which was about Rupert Murdoch

32:22

taking over the Sun newspaper in the late 60s. He did

32:25

come and see it, I remember, and I

32:28

met him in the West End Theatre afterwards. I

32:31

remember being very intimidated and scared

32:33

and in the build up of that meeting. In

32:35

the end, as often happens, it's actually quite vanilla,

32:38

like you're hoping to come away with

32:40

like a really good dinner party anecdote. He said this

32:42

to me and actually I think

32:45

he was a particularly studied case in

32:47

not giving anything away. He met

32:49

the actors, asked questions about the

32:51

research in the left. So it's always a key

32:53

moment actually that you would expect it to be.

32:57

And I love that you're willing to take it on even

32:59

when and maybe because it's difficult. You know, with something like

33:01

Sherwood, this is based on two

33:03

real life murders that happened in your

33:05

hometown, near your hometown, 20 years ago,

33:08

went out on BBC One. And even

33:10

though you knew that the community around

33:12

you would have their own feelings about it, you very

33:14

much felt like you were the right person to do

33:16

it, the only person to do it. I

33:19

guess, yeah, I mean, the tragedies that the drama

33:21

depicts happened only like a couple of streets away

33:23

from where I grew up and I know a

33:25

lot of the individuals involved. And

33:29

I hope I didn't impose a project

33:31

upon the people. I did go up and chat

33:34

to the victims and people in the

33:36

community to see if they were OK

33:38

with it. And it was a mix. Some people

33:40

said, I think it's time

33:42

that we talked about this, not just the killings

33:44

themselves, but also the wounds

33:46

that reopened up, essentially these killings, even though

33:49

they had nothing at all to

33:51

do with the divisions of the minor strike. And

33:53

happening, we opened them and it's

33:55

very painful. And some people believed it was

33:57

time. And some people really. didn't

34:00

they thought the another phrase I heard sometimes was

34:03

can't you let sleeping dogs lie and you

34:05

have to you have to hear that but

34:07

stay true to the principle that

34:10

that guides me always which is that ultimately

34:12

at the end when people are seeing it

34:14

that they they will we all will as

34:16

a community value the opportunity

34:18

to politically walk through that stuff again

34:21

through hopefully an empathetic general kind way

34:23

but it's i don't pretend to know

34:25

the rules of it

34:27

and it is very difficult but i just know the

34:29

principle is the sound of the list that we have we

34:32

have to look at these difficult stories and we have to put

34:35

them on station screen it's time to go to

34:37

the music james what's next my

34:39

love affair with david berry knows no bounds

34:41

and it sounds like britain when he talks

34:43

about market squares

34:45

and dance halls and workers

34:48

going on strike and yet somehow

34:50

there's a fantastical otherness to his

34:53

galactic characters and the wonder and the

34:55

fantasy and the magic he gave to

34:58

mundane post-war british life and i guess

35:00

also decades before sexual

35:03

fluidity and everything else became a

35:06

cool he spoke openly about his own ambiguity

35:09

as i've wandered through that journey myself someone

35:11

who constantly reinvents themselves

35:13

and defies definition

35:16

in such a humane and and exciting

35:18

and electric way is everything i

35:20

want in an artist and i really struggled to pick one

35:23

like five years was in this

35:25

house under pressure was in labor of love

35:27

in the west end but i wanted to

35:29

go more towards the end of

35:31

his life and this song

35:33

to me expresses the gift i

35:36

think he he left us with this was recorded just a couple

35:38

of years before he died and

35:40

this is where are we now who

36:13

David Bowie and Where Are We Now? James

36:15

Graham, the word prolific really doesn't do justice

36:17

to your output. There was a point where

36:19

it seemed like you were writing a play

36:21

and TV script every single year and in

36:23

2017 you actually had two plays, Inc and

36:25

Labour of Love, in the West End in

36:29

theatres 100 metres apart at the same

36:31

time. What did that feel like? That

36:34

was a, you know, you spend a lot of

36:36

time in subsidised theatres or regional theatres and you

36:39

can't pretend there isn't like a real glamour

36:41

and excitement to being in with all those

36:43

lights in the centre of London. And

36:45

yeah, it was also actually very convenient I could

36:47

walk between our houses and get

36:50

a coffee on the way and yeah, yeah, it

36:52

was nice. I love the fact that

36:54

the distance allowed you to do more works because this

36:56

is very creative. Yes. I mean

36:58

the term workaholic is thrown around quite a lot

37:00

but I think you've had an actual diagnosis haven't

37:02

you? Yes, I knew

37:04

that I knew something wasn't

37:06

quite right in sort of my late

37:08

twenties. What happened? I

37:10

would go into periods where I would be

37:13

40 minutes late from friends or self-semitage relationships

37:16

as soon as they became intimate

37:18

and important and was just working

37:20

like around the clock continually but

37:22

without really looking after myself. So

37:24

I went to just start to speak to people about it

37:26

but I actually went to see a particular

37:28

woman who probably saved me and

37:31

the first thing she said to me was she was

37:33

listening to me wagging on about feelings

37:36

and she eventually just said, why aren't you

37:38

wearing a coat? And I think it was

37:40

winter, it was really cold outside and I

37:42

had like a really flimsy paper

37:45

thing on basically right from the summer and I just

37:47

hadn't had time at that point to go out

37:49

and buy a winter coat. I said, I pushed

37:51

it aside but she was obsessing about it going,

37:53

you're starting to do okay, why can't you go and

37:56

take a note to buy a nice coat? issue

38:00

it, and that

38:02

was obviously to her symptomatic of an

38:05

inability to sometimes to look after

38:08

myself. So I took

38:10

that on the chin and she said go

38:12

to this particular group which was Work Garlic

38:15

Anonymous. And like you mentioned,

38:17

you hear that phrase a lot like it's

38:20

a habit that

38:22

you have, it's not an actual sickness, but

38:25

it is and I didn't realise that at the time

38:27

and then you go into a meeting and you sit

38:29

down and everyone begins to talk

38:31

about their behaviours and you go oh my god

38:33

yeah I do that, I do that, I do

38:35

that. And actually understanding that it is

38:38

an illness and it is an addiction in no

38:40

way different really from drink

38:42

or drugs or sex or anything else.

38:44

It's a pattern of behaviour that is slowly sort of killing

38:47

you and people spoke of the people they'd

38:49

lost due to it. I think

38:52

the moment I realised I had a problem

38:54

was I did not lie to my

38:57

family, my friends about stupid

39:00

things that didn't even need lying about, like

39:02

they would go you look

39:04

tired what time did you get up today to work and I

39:06

would say oh I know eight and

39:08

I say to myself I know I got a bit of

39:10

five, that's really weird why'd I say

39:12

that? Or I wouldn't have eaten for

39:15

a couple of days, like a whole day. And I

39:18

think that's when I knew it was an actual problem

39:21

and then I was seeing out

39:23

from that realising that that also

39:25

fed into my issues around relationships

39:27

and intimacy because I was all

39:29

of my self-esteem, all of my validation, all

39:32

of my happiness and joy was coming from

39:34

work and I didn't allow myself to believe

39:36

that it was space for anything else. It's

39:39

complicated as well because you obviously love

39:41

your work. I know that's why it's really hard

39:43

so the dilemma I've always

39:46

had and the dilemma I'm still in sitting here

39:48

today is that I know I

39:50

have an unhealthy relationship with it and that my balance

39:52

is way off but it gives me such joy, it

39:55

gives me such value and happiness

39:58

to get up in the morning and write or to

40:00

be in a rehearsal room with a company of actors or to

40:02

go on set. And I don't know

40:04

how to split the two. I don't know

40:06

how to, well I do. It

40:08

must be possible to balance

40:10

your work and your love with other

40:12

things. And I'm aware of it. I

40:14

have amazing friends and family who I've

40:16

sort of come out to and said

40:19

I have this problem and who

40:21

check in on me and check in, okay. I

40:23

don't know if I'll ever get it completely right. And

40:26

this will sound really stupid, but

40:29

even like you mentioned, the two plays on at the

40:31

same time, like 90% of me was just like really

40:34

happy and proud of that. There

40:36

was like 10% of me that going, that's part of your, you

40:38

look up at the lights and go, that's part of your illness, isn't it? That's

40:41

ridiculous James. Nobody needs two plays. The manifestation, it's

40:43

too many. And everyone's going, that's so amazing. Which

40:45

actually then feeds into your cycle of self validation

40:47

and you go, well why don't I have three

40:49

plays out at the same time? Why don't I

40:51

have four? And you just have to, yeah. So

40:53

I'm aware of it. But it's

40:56

tough because I'm kind of just, I'm so lucky

40:58

and I just love it so much. Working progress

41:00

then. Indeed. Let's have some more

41:02

music James. It's your seventh choice today.

41:04

What is it? I got to write

41:07

a musical recently with Elton John, who you

41:09

may have heard of. I mean

41:11

familiar with, and Jake Shears. And Jake Shears who did

41:13

the lyrics out and did the music. And I wrote

41:15

the script, the book, and this was called

41:17

Tammy Faye. And we opened it at the Armada Theatre in London,

41:20

setting the world of televangelism in the 1980s.

41:23

And this extraordinary woman,

41:25

Tammy Faye Baker, who came from that

41:27

world of the Christian

41:29

evangelical right. And yet she

41:32

was this huge empath who basically

41:35

welcomed in at the time the

41:37

gay community into her television shows. And

41:39

she invited famously a pastor who

41:42

had been diagnosed HIV positive. She invited him onto

41:44

the show at the time when that was

41:46

a complete no-no. So she pushed up

41:48

against the prejudices of the church because

41:51

her whole, her faith was about

41:53

love and acceptance and tolerance. And so even though

41:55

this hasn't been released yet because

41:57

we're building up to our Broadway show later this year. actually

42:03

won another and

42:06

this is called If You Came to See Me Cry. If

42:39

You Came to See Me Cry from

42:41

Tammy Faye, the musical composed by Sir

42:43

Elton John with lyrics by Jake Shears

42:46

performed by Casey Braben and best of

42:48

luck with taking that to Broadway J's

42:50

Cream. So the Tammy

42:52

Faye show and many others of yours, I mean

42:54

Quiz for example, interestingly, they

42:56

do all seem to examine these questions

42:59

around contemporary morality. What does it mean

43:01

to be good, to do the right

43:03

thing? Are those questions that you

43:06

spend a lot of time with yourself, your own personal

43:08

life? I'm not imagining, I hope,

43:10

a brilliant glorious past when

43:12

everyone behaved decently with one another, but I do think

43:14

we're living through an incredibly dangerous

43:16

and troubled time, in the

43:18

sense that there is new currency to

43:21

division and long term division for short

43:24

term gain in our politics and

43:26

you can feel some of that being embedded

43:28

into the fabric of some of the institutions that

43:31

I love to put an examine on stage and

43:33

screen. And are you an

43:35

optimist? Are you hopeful today? Totally,

43:38

yeah. I can't

43:40

actually think when I just wrote

43:43

a story that had an unhappy

43:45

ending and I don't think that's

43:47

imposing artificial optimism

43:50

onto stories that don't naturally have them,

43:52

but I think a bit like David

43:54

Berry who infused his own

43:57

work with such hope and belief in people and they were at the end of

43:59

the day. they're innate goodness. But yeah,

44:01

I can't let go of that for my own characters even

44:03

in sort of difficult and troubled

44:06

times. Where do you go when you need

44:08

to up your reserves of hope and optimism?

44:10

The theatre. I find it incredible still

44:13

that we, in the age of Netflix

44:15

and everything else, that we still do this

44:18

quite bizarre thing. I always think of aliens,

44:20

visitors, the planet, the theatre

44:22

with things that would most confuse them. Like why

44:24

do you... So what, you all go into a

44:26

dark room and pretend that something is real when

44:28

you know it's not, for what value? And

44:31

we do do it. And I find

44:33

every play has an innate sort

44:36

of hope to it, even if it's a

44:38

really traumatic story or a really

44:40

difficult, upsetting tale of injustice of

44:42

which, God knows, there are many. The

44:44

act of gathering around it and telling it gives

44:47

me hope because if we can do that, then

44:49

maybe we can find solutions. I'm

44:51

going to be casting you away to a

44:53

completely new scene. You'll have to create a

44:55

new world on the desert island. How do

44:57

you feel about life as a castaway? Okay

45:02

with it. Like, honestly, I could do with the rest. I

45:04

could do with the sleep. And

45:06

I will you be with the rest, though? Be honest, James. I'll

45:09

take a morning off. Once I've crash landed, I'll

45:11

take a morning off and then I'll start working

45:13

on some stuff. But no, I mean, yeah. And

45:15

I guess also the joy of the desert island

45:18

is always the possibility that you're going

45:20

to be saved the next day or the day after

45:22

or the day after. I'm sure that will keep me

45:24

going. You've got to stay hopeful. Yeah. Well,

45:27

we'd love to hear one last track from you before you go.

45:29

Your final choice today, what's it going to be? I

45:31

spend a lot of time thinking about political

45:33

songs and protest songs from Bob Dylan

45:36

onwards. And I guess this

45:38

one in particular is about Rufus Wainwright. I

45:40

really value it because even though it

45:42

is politically charged, it was written

45:44

about America during the time of

45:46

the war on terror. It still somehow yet

45:49

manages to be a popular,

45:52

soaring, theatrical, arty,

45:55

moving, melodically satisfying,

45:57

soft song. bumped

46:00

into Rufus at a opening

46:05

night recently. I was too scared to say

46:07

anything to him. I stood next to him at the bar. The

46:09

only gift I gave him was that they were about to close

46:11

the bar and after I got my drink, I indicated that he

46:13

should be served. So I gave him a

46:15

glass of champagne. I was too scared to say, I'm going

46:18

to put you on desert island discs. But

46:20

he said, anyway, and this is going

46:22

to a town. I'm

46:31

going to a place that

46:33

has already been disgraced.

46:39

I'm going to see some folks

46:41

who have already been let down.

46:44

I'm so tired

46:46

of America. This

46:54

is Wainwright and going to a town. So

46:56

James Graham, I'm going to send you away to the

46:58

island now. I'll give you the Bible, the complete works

47:01

of Shakespeare and you can take one other book, whatever

47:03

your fancy, with you. What will it be?

47:06

I've really wrestled, but actually I've just gone with

47:09

A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawkin. Never

47:12

read it. And this would be a

47:14

good opportunity to bank that in my brain. There's

47:16

something about time passing, which I've always

47:19

had a bit of an anxiety about, about getting older. And

47:21

there's something about not thinking of the time

47:24

on the island as being wasted because time

47:26

is relative, as Hawkin told us. And I think

47:29

keeping that in my head would be good for

47:31

my mental health and knowing that the time on

47:33

the island is not a waste of time. Oh,

47:35

it's going to be the perfect book for you. It's yours.

47:38

You could also have a luxury item, would

47:40

you like? I'd love to have like a keg

47:42

of whisky. Like a single malt

47:44

Scottish whisky. And whisky for you is

47:46

a creative inspiration. I mean, you've written a play

47:48

about whisky. I've written a play about whisky, which

47:51

meant I had to do, unfortunately, a lot of

47:53

research, which was tax deductible. Yes, like a keg

47:55

of whisky is actually a living, breathing thing. It

47:58

ages and evolves every year. and

48:00

it's alive, it's like basically having a pet, but

48:02

that I can drink. And I

48:05

think knowing that every single year the

48:07

whisky will be tasting different and will

48:09

be maturing and developing characteristics, that means

48:11

that, again, it'll help me pass

48:13

the time knowing that the whisky's growing while I'm

48:15

growing. Finally, which one track of the eight that

48:17

you've shared with us today, James, would you rush

48:19

to save from the waves if you needed to?

48:22

I'm definitely going to need David Burrow with me

48:24

on the island and there is something about that

48:26

particular track. I love the

48:28

lyrics at the end. Essentially he sings, as

48:30

long as there's sun, as long as there's rain, as

48:32

long as there's fire, as long as there's me, as

48:34

long as there's you. And I just

48:36

love that about him. And I think his parting gift

48:38

to all of us as Bowie fans was that

48:41

sense of hope and optimism about the human spirit.

48:43

This island, that second's going to be great. Thanks,

48:45

come on. James Graham,

48:48

thank you very much for letting us hear your desert

48:50

island discs. Thanks so much. Hello,

49:13

I hope you enjoyed my conversation with

49:16

James and I hope he savours every

49:18

mouthful of his whisky. We've cast away

49:20

many screenwriters and playwrights, including David Hare,

49:22

Tom Stoppard and Kaye Mellor. James's friend

49:24

Jack Thorne is in our archive too.

49:26

You can find these episodes in our

49:29

desert island discs program archive and through

49:31

BBC Souns. The studio manager for

49:33

today's programme was Duncan Hannans. The

49:35

assistant producer was Christine Pavlosky and

49:37

the producer was Paula McGinley. The

49:40

series editor is John Goudie. Next

49:42

time my guest will be Jenny Seeley,

49:45

the artistic director of Grey Eye Theatre

49:47

Company. I do hope you'll join us. Hello,

49:56

Russell Kane here. I used to love

49:58

British history. Be proud. What of it?

50:01

Henry VIII, Queen Victoria, massive fan

50:03

of stand-up comedians, obviously, Bill Hicks,

50:05

Richard Pryor, that has become much

50:07

more challenging, for I am the

50:09

host of BBC Radio 4's Evil

50:11

Genius, the show where we take

50:13

heroes and villains from history and try to work

50:15

out whether they're evil or genius.

50:17

Do not catch up on BBC Sounds

50:19

by searching Evil Genius if you don't

50:21

want to see your heroes destroyed, but

50:23

if like me, you quite enjoy it,

50:25

have a little search. Listen to Evil

50:27

Genius with me, Russell Kane, go to

50:29

BBC Sounds and have your world destroyed.