welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. imagine a writer with a blank piece of paper. on the face of it, they're free to take their imagination in any direction they choose, tell any story they like. but it's not that simple. they need money, a commission. they need to win an audience, and for that, they must constantly adapt to changing tastes and technologies. my guest is one of the uk's leading playwrights and screenwriters, lucy prebble. she's had huge hits and one notable broadway miss. for a writer, how daunting can that blank piece of paper be? lucy prebble, welcome to hardtalk. hello, stephen. thanks for having me. it is a great pleasure to have you here. now, you are very busy right now, because a play that you originally wrote in 2012 and put on in 2012 has been revived at the national theatre in london in just the last few days. and it's got me wondering, as you have been heavily involved with the revival, how have you sort of seen the evolution of your own writing and what interests you? have you changed in the decade? yes, i think i have. i mean, it's so interesting to go back to something you wrote just over ten years ago. as you say, 2012 was the first production of it. it's a play called the effect, and it follows... it follows two triallists taking part in a clinical trial for a new antidepressant and two doctors running it. and the triallists basically start to fall in love, but don't know whether they are actually falling in love or if it's an effect of the new antidepressant that they're trialling. and of course, when i wrote it originally, i felt very close to these young sort of romeo and juliet 20—somethings feeling excited and romantic for the first time. and now, i feel much closer to the sort of ao—something, older doctors who are, you know, dealing with their past and what that means and, you know, just being a bit more adult and older and, hopefully, wiser. do you feel as in love with the theatre now as you did then? i do feel more in love with the theatre in some ways than i did then. back when i wrote the effect originally, i was working quite a lot more in theatre, and then i went away to do television for quite a long time. i've been working on a show i do with billie piper called i hate suzie and, of course, succession. you say, "of course succession," because it's been such a massive global hit and many people watching and listening will know it, but for those who don't, in essence, it's the story of a media mogul and his family based in new york. and many would say reminding them, somewhat, of rupert murdoch and his particular family. you might say that. i couldn't possibly comment. but nonetheless, that is interesting because it's been a huge success. you were an instrumental writer, part of the team in it. and ijust wondered whether that has taken you in a new direction. i think it's improved my writing. it's very difficult to work on a show like succession as a writer and executive producer with the other writers and producers i work with and the actors, of course, and not become a better writer. i've been doing it, i was doing it for six years, involved very heavily in every season. and you work with actors of that quality, but also writers of that quality and you learn so, so much about what to put in, what to leave out often as well. and so i think i've come back to theatre both hopefully better equipped, you know, knowing how to edit something and how to work with actors, but also missing that very special family relationship that you get in theatre that you don't get in screen. well, that's interesting because i actually thought from reading some of the things you've said about your own creative process in the past, that it worked the other way. that you found writing for theatre quite a lonely experience, much lonelier than the collaboration that comes with sitting in a writers�* room — for example, during the creation of succession — where you're playing off six or seven other people. yeah. actually, you're right, but it reverses itself. so the writers�* room for a tv show like succession is extremely familial and supportive and lovely. but when you shoot something, what happens is it�*s a very shattered experience. you�*re probably filming it out of order, if you�*re doing a big tv show. so you might be filming something from right at the end of the season just because you�*ve got the location to do it. and also, the actors sometimes, if they�*re not in the same scenes, they may not even meet each other because everyone�*s just brought to set when they�*re needed. whereas, yeah, writing a play, hugely lonely experience, just you and the screen, just, you know, banging your head against it. but when you rehearse, it�*s you and the actors in the room every day together. so it�*s sort of the other way round. you said once that you found writing, and i think this was mostly your writing for the theatre, excruciating. it seems to me odd — you know, and we talk to artists, creatives on this show — it always seems to me odd that you would expose yourself time and again to something that you find excruciating. i mean, yeah, you and my therapist. imean, yeah! it�*s, it�*s a... it�*s a very strange thing. erm... do you still find it excruciating? you�*ve been doing it for two decades. i know, i mean, i�*ve got to admit that, yeah, often i do. it�*s the level of... it�*s partly that, it�*s partly the loneliness that you often have, but it is also something to do with the self—disclosure, the exposure and vulnerability of it. you know, if you write something decent, someone once said to me, "there should be a drop of blood on every page." and i think what i took from that is that you can�*t get away, if you want something to be really good, you can�*t get away with writing in a sort of general, slightly superficial, fun way, although those things work and people do like them. but if you want to do something brilliant, there has to be a drop of blood on every page. and i guess what that means, as pretentious as it might sound, is you�*ve got to really dig quite deeply. you�*ve got to share things, even if they�*re versions of the truth and not the actual truth that feel quite vulnerable. and getting up every day and doing that and then having a bunch of people eventually tell you whether they think it�*s any good or not — and they will tell you quite loudly — is, you know, it�*s a very specific experience. and that�*s... it may be churlish of me to frame it this way, because i�*ve already referred to all the successes you�*ve had, but i wonder what you learned from one massive failure you had? sure. because you took enron, which was a play about a massive financial scam, which came during the sort of tech boom of the late 1990s and early 2000s. it preceded the financial crash. you wrote a play about it. it was a very powerful play, which did extraordinarily well in london. you took it to broadway, a hugely expensive production. yeah. and within a month, it closed. yeah. it was maybe one of the biggest losses of money on broadway... well, it�*s certainly in the top few. so, if you drip blood into your creative process, how damaging, how hurtful was that? imean... how hurtful was it? it�*s a really great question. it felt... the word that comes to mind more than hurt is shame. you feel very ashamed. really? yeah. because, you know, for a while, the eyes of a certain industry are on you, you know? and you feel like everybody�*s watching you fail. and there is a very human feeling of shame to that. also, the shame of losing people like investors�* money and, you know... of course, the huge irony is that that production ended up repeating exactly the journey of enron. this hugely hyped thing turned up on the great white way in broadway with lots of people�*s money in it and just collapsed, very much like the energy company. and i tell you, if i didn�*t know the feeling of the show i was making till then, i did afterwards, you know. and so it was a very... yeah, it... look, success makes you attractive, but failure makes you funny and it also makes you worth spending time with. like, the best stories in theatre and in all of show business come from the great failures. they start off, people go, "oh, i was in this awful show once." or, "0h..." you know, and that�*s... and it�*s character and all of that, but, yeah, it wasn�*t a great feeling, but it was meaningful, you know. we�*ve talked to quite a number of directors and actors on hardtalk, people who love that branch of the sort of show business, entertainment industry. what i haven�*t done is spoken to somebody who has done so well in theatre and in tv, but who�*s also embraced the world of gaming and actually used your writing skill, i believe, in writing sort of screenplays and storylines for games. yeah. why does that attract you? i love games. i�*ve always loved games. when i was... i was born in 1980, and basically that�*s probably the very, very beginning of video gaming in a popular sense or in a...available to the public sense. so it�*s an art form that�*s grown up with me in my lifetime, and ijust, ijust adore it. i love how interactive it is. i love how responsive it is. i love how emotional the possibilities of it are. there�*s so many independent games out there that are doing things that are genuinely, massively exciting in a way that other forms just aren�*t. they aren�*t... so you don�*t find it constricting, you know, one—dimensional in artistic terms? absolutely not. you know, frankly, the cliche stereotype view would be that there�*s too much predictability about sort of going through a game where there�*s jeopardy and you survive the jeopardy and you go on to the nextjeopardy and you come through that one, too. have you watched any movies lately? i mean, yeah, i�*m with you, but i don�*t think that�*s completely confined to gaming. and i also think if one seeks out the very independent, maybe even what you�*d call artier games that are available, people can be creating them in their own households and then uploading them to formats like steam and so on. so, you know, there�*s also this kind of, this really exciting creativity, straight from creator to gamer, which i find really exciting. but, look, don�*t get me wrong, the big, what they call aaa games, the ones that you kind of think of, do have a kind of slightly banal insistence on a kind of particular kind of violence and a particular kind of obstacle—overcoming. but like i said, you would say that about hollywood as well. indeed. and i�*m sure you saw the success of the last of us. oh, i loved the last of us. which was a hugely successful game and became a hugely successful tv streaming storyline. yeah. there�*s money in this. i mean, i think in 2020, i looked at the figures, $160 billion generated by the gaming industry, compared with 41 billion in movies. absolutely. be honest with me — is that part of the attraction? for a talented writer like you, is that where you�*re heading? i actually... i actually have thought recently about returning to working in gaming, but mostly, honestly, because it�*s so formally interesting to me. it doesn�*t feel to me like it�*s reached anywhere near the limits of its creative ability and capacity, cos it�*s such a young art form compared to television or screen. so that is honestly why i�*m so fascinated by it. but, yeah, of course, they... if they pay well, that is not the case for some other areas of our industry. and, of course, that features. one has to live. but, yeah... yeah, iloved... i loved the last of us. i think the game is a work of art that�*s really extraordinary. let me ask you about some of the hurdles you�*ve had to overcome in your career. i know that you�*ve had to deal with sexism — because you�*ve written about it — and misogyny, and you wrote extremely candidly about what happened when you took on a job which, reluctantly, you did take on, collaborating a little bit with harvey weinstein... oh, yeah. ..some years back. and in late 2017, you wrote about the whole experience, but with a lot of nuance. you didn�*t characterise weinstein as an all—out monster. you characterise the way he approached you as a bit complicated and your reactions to him as a bit complicated. yeah. now, because we�*re in 2023, do you think things have changed a great deal from even then, which was when you wrote that piece, six years ago? yes. there�*s no doubt that certain things have changed in the industry, by which i mean... ..there is definitely a greater concern about... how do i put it? both opportunities in the industry and them being more equal than they have been before and representation in the industry. now, the question as to whether those things come from an honest attempt to try and change things or whether they come from a superficial idea that we should be doing this and be seen to be doing this is up for debate. whether that matters is also up for debate. if people are doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, does it really matter? so, yeah, there�*s definitely been a change in leadership roles and in powerful roles. i think for a very long time, when you look at the very top, when you look at who has the massive amount of money and the massive amount of power, that has always been white men. and that is difficult to see beyond right now, even with changes. but what i�*ll say is that what�*s on screen does feel different to me. and some of the people running shows, directing shows — creative voices — do feel different to me. and when you say, "what�*s on screen feels different to me," you can be part of that, you are part of that, because you have written the most fascinating women characters. i�*m thinking of shiv in succession, who... i believe you were quite involved in developing her character... yeah. ..and also the billie piper character in i hate suzie, who is a very complex woman... yeah. ..likeable, but also deeply unlikeable... 0h, a nightmare! an absolute nightmare, yeah! so is that important to you, that...? you know, male leads for forever have been complex men and we understand their backstories and there�*s a lot of sort of nuance in there. do you insist now that the women you write have just as much right to nuance and complexity? 0h, of course, absolutely. and, yeah, iam really proud of that. i love writing characters like shiv and suzie pickles, who�*s played by billie piper. but also there�*s a need for it, because there�*s a lot more television than there ever has been before and we need to sort of expand what we�*re doing within that... is the audience ready for it? yeah, i hope so. i think they�*re quite hungry for it. as you said, there�*s been quite a lot of a dissection of a certain kind of masculinity for a long time — brilliantly, with some of the greatest works of art of all time — and i think we�*rejust about at a point where we can start to dissect the idea of femininity as much, with as much nuance, criticism, celebration, as all of those things as well. and that�*s what makes good art, notjust sort of, you know... ..putting women on screen, but having them just be lovely and undramatic, that doesn�*t help anybody. and i hate suzie was an extremely female—centric production, wasn�*t it? yeah. imean... at every level — acting, producing, directing, the whole thing. totally. it was a really rare experience because we had heads of department... all of our heads of department were women. so you had a really interesting set, which was... i�*d never been on a set like that before. normally, when you work on a television set or a film set, what it feels like is a faintly military exercise in which you�*re sort of invited to observe, whereas it had a very different vibe to have that many women in charge. and it was... yeah, it was a really interesting experience. i�*m going to quote you now a couple of important men in the arts world who are talking a lot these days about cancel culture and the degree to which they feel that — and we can talk about what it really means — but they use the phrase. and they say cancel culture, to quote will gompertz, who�*s director of the barbican, artistic director of the barbican arts centre in london, "the number one challenge "facing the arts today," he says. he says, "the purpose of the arts is to question, challenge, "reflect and enlighten. great art reveals a truth, "and debate and disagreement about that truth "has to be the function of art. "but such is the rallying power of social media today "that debate is being stifled by self—censorship." do you agree? no, i don�*t agree with that. i don�*t... i�*m not in the business of self—censorship. and... do you fear some people — creatives — are? they worry so much now about what might be a vitriolic response from people on social media, you know, efforts to describe their work as toxic? well, i would guess that�*s part and parcel of creating work is thinking through how it might be received and deciding how much you care about that. i think that�*s probably always been the case of creating work, and it is very painful to be criticised or insulted. i think, as you said earlier, i... i�*m very sceptical and suspicious of phrases that become catchall terms for things because they�*re so useful — politically and culturally — in media. so when we think of a term like "cancel culture", and i can think of lots of other examples of it, you have to sort of be specific about what you�*re talking about. if you�*re talking about somebody not creating a piece of work because they fear people might not like it, yeah, welcome to the club. that�*s how i spend the vast majority of my working life, too, is going, "i�*m really worried about writing this "cos i think people might not like it." yeah, i mean, that�*s the cost of doing business, i�*m afraid. but, i mean, it doesn�*t stop you, does it? well, no, clearly not. i mean, i get... i get bad reviews... i can�*t know what you haven�*t written. good point. that�*s true, good point, but what i... the things i haven�*t written, i haven�*t written partly because, yeah, i don�*t think they�*d be good enough, and i think that�*s a good reason not to write... that�*s a great reason not to do it, but it�*s a different reason from... for example, just for an example... yeah. ..you know, we all know what�*s happened tojk rowling as she�*s entered the debate, the transgender debate. we know what�*s happened to her, you know... what, she�*s still an absolutely multi—multi—millionaire with loads of fans? yeah. yeah, disaster. yeah, but she�*s had the actors who performed in the movies of the harry potter series disown her and all sorts of other things, which, you know, clearly, as an artist, she�*s found upsetting. it�*s not to say her books don�*t still sell by the million, but she�*s...she�*s clearly gone into territory which has then been difficult. and ijust wonder, when you look at that sort of thing, would you think to yourself, you know, "i don�*t want to even... whatever my view. — your personal views on the transgender issues — "..i just don�*t want to write a play about that, "it would just be too difficult — "you know, too many minefields"? i mean, then don�*t write a play about it. and that�*s your choice. imean, ijust... ifind it extraordinary that a generation — and it is particularly, often, generational — who are so happy to accuse young people and the culture in general of being fragile and of being unresilient have such a hard time when people say that the things that they have deliberately politically come out about and discussed with passion and even vitriol, they then have to hear consequential reactions to that. i just... ifind it extraordinary and quite boring. and so, yeah, i think cancel culture is really an idea that has emerged because it�*s alliterative and easy to talk about without nuance. and i think that i�*m interested in specific examples of human beings trying to treat each other well. and i think they�*re mostly fine... just one more example. the critic and sort of culture commentator kate copstick, she�*s particularly interested in comedy. now, i mean, actually, a lot of what you write is funny, but you don�*t do... thank you. ..outright sort of comedy. but she says, "at this year�*s edinburgh fringe..." and the fringe is a sort of artistic sort of firmament that goes on in edinburgh every year. she says, "i�*ve never known the fringe be so censorious." that word censorious — do you feel an intolerance, a censoriousness, in the arts today that might not have been there ten years ago? i understand what people mean when they say that. i think the idea that they might say something wrong or do something wrong, i can understand the human need... and, actually, it�*s often coming from a good place, which is, "i don�*t want to upset people..." and then being slightly angry that they might upset people when they know they�*re a good person. those are all really understandable emotional things that human beings feel. i don�*t know about what is and isn�*t censorious in comedy. what i do know is that the very, very funny things often do take quite difficult subjects and use them. so when a joke is really, really funny, it can deal with really quite challenging, difficult subjects. i can think of... i can think of ten comedians off the top of my head who do that regularly at very high level. i think there is an issue, if it isn�*t nuanced and funny enough and specific enough, it can be seen as a little bit sort of lazy or pejorative. but i think the challenge there is to take subject matter that feels challenging and be extremely funny. right. that conquers all in the end? in comedy, it does. one last challenge for you, and this is relevant to what�*s happening in the united states with the screenwriters�* strike. yeah. partly, it�*s about money and the dynamic of power in their industry, but it�*s also about their fears of artificial intelligence and the degree to which the big studios and others may already be working on projects to get a! to do the work of writers and actors. you�*re a writer. how worried are you? yeah, i�*m pretty worried. i�*ll be honest with you, i�*ve certainly... i�*ve played around with the very basic ai things that are available, the chatgpts, and i think... and, of course, what�*s actually happening right now is far more sophisticated than that. i do think it is worrying. it is a cost—saving exercise. and i do believe they are already doing things like cutting trailers quietly with al... have you tried... have you tried, "write something in the style of lucy prebble"? i have exactly done that, which is slightly shameful... and what comes out? you know, something which is...quite depressing! stuff where you recognise what it�*s drawing from. it isn�*t necessarily of a high quality, but... i don�*t know whether to be insulted by that or enthused by that. it�*s complicated. but i�*m reading them and i�*m thinking, "0k, so you are drawing on material "that�*s available from me," so there is a copyright issue also there that�*s rarely discussed. but also... yeah, but also it may not be sophisticated yet, but it will be...it will be, one day, really sophisticated, and i am worried about that. the only thing... the only thing that doesn�*t concern me is i do think that what studios and streamers don�*t realise is that audiences will respond to that change. there�*s something about art that means that human beings are more affected the more effort they know has gone into something. for example, if i were to show you, like, a statue of rodin�*s the kiss, knowing how it was sculpted, over what time and who did it, you�*d be more moved by that than if it was just cut out with a laser by a computer, even if it�*s exactly the same sculpture. and that�*s true of humans generally. so i think one of the things they don�*t necessarily realise is if a! was generating content in the way they wanted it to, it would actually be less emotionally valuable to people, as long as they knew al was creating it, of course. we have to end there. thank you so much for being on hardtalk. thank you, stephen. pa rt part two of the weekend is looking pretty similar to yesterday with sunshine and showers, but i don�*t think the show as will be quite as heavy or as widespread as what we had yesterday. heavy or as widespread as what we had yesterday-— heavy or as widespread as what we had yesterday. again, eastern parts ofthe had yesterday. again, eastern parts of the uk will _ had yesterday. again, eastern parts of the uk will see _ had yesterday. again, eastern parts of the uk will see some _ had yesterday. again, eastern parts of the uk will see some of - had yesterday. again, eastern parts of the uk will see some of the - of the uk will see some of the heaviest of the thunderstorms and showers today, whereas further west, we have this web of rent bringing patchy rain to northern ireland, and in between, some good spells of sunshine. —— this wave of rain. 0utbreaks sunshine. —— this wave of rain. outbreaks of rain across northern ireland with sunny skies later. parts of the west will see some sunshine, and most of the heavy showers will be affecting eastern scotland and eastern parts of england. again, some torrential downpour in places, with top temperatures of 21 or 22 degrees, with high teens further north and west. so put reading and leeds festival, i think the better chance of staying dry will be across reading, and the leeds festival could pick up some showers, that may be on the heavy side. the same for notting hill carnival, where i think today there is a greater risk of showers, whereas tomorrow could stay largely dry with sunny spells. as we move through the evening and overnight, the showers mostly by the showers mostly paid away, and that weather front is a weakening creature, which spreads across central and eastern england, with just a band of patchy cloud on it. quite a band of patchy cloud on it. i took all night to come again, particularly out of town, under those clear skies, single digits likely for many others. now come up on monday, which of course, is a bank on a day for most of us, it is looking like it�*ll be a fairly good day i think. quite a bit clouds may bubble up, and we could see the odd light shower here and we could see the odd light shower here and there. those places should stay high teens top temperatures of 21 degrees, and the high teens further north. the winds will be light as well. so as we go into tuesday, things change, and we pushing into the north of the uk, the stronger winds. blustery showers, and for scotland, some of the showers might be quite heavy. elsewhere, some sunny spells, but this with print will be spreading across england and wales, bringing a band of showers. but it will be combined, confined to eastern areas. it's combined, confined to eastern areas. it�*s quite a bit of sunshine developing behind it i think. top temperatures around 22 degrees, but cooler than that further north, where it will be quite blustery. 0nce where it will be quite blustery. once is not to bat at the stage, thanks to a ridge of high pressure, but turning more and set up a thursday and friday. it could be quite wet in places, particularly across england and wales. —— turning more unsettled. live from london, this is bbc news. russian investigators say genetic testing confirms wagner leader yevgeny prigozhin was killed in a plane crash on wednesday. according to their results, the identities of all ten dead were established.— identities of all ten dead were established. , _, , ., established. they correspond to the list stated in — established. they correspond to the list stated in the _ established. they correspond to the list stated in the flight _ established. they correspond to the list stated in the flight sheet. - three us marines are killed after a military aircraft crashes during training drills off the coast of australia. zimbabwe election winner president emmerson mnangagwa rejects criticism from international observers as the opposition declares the vote a gigantic fraud. hello. i�*m vishala sri—pathma. we start this hour with some breaking news. authorities in russia have confirmed the head of the wagner paramilitary group, yevgenny prigozhin, died in a plane which crashed north west of moscow on wednesday. they confirmed the identities of the bodies recovered corresponded with the flight�*s passenger list, which had named mr prigozhin. the mercenary leader had led an aborted mutiny