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 its 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, its so interesting to go back to something you wrote just over ten years ago. As you say, 2012 was the first production of it. Its 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 dont know whether they are actually falling in love or if its an effect of the new antidepressant that theyre trialling. And of course, when i wrote it originally, i felt very close to these young sort of Romeo And J
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 its 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, its so interesting to go back to something you wrote just over ten years ago. As you say, 2012 was the first production of it. Its 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 dont know whether they are actually falling in love or if its an effect of the new antidepressant that theyre 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 r
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 its 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, its so interesting to go back to something you wrote just over ten years ago. As you say, 2012 was the first production of it. Its 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 dont know whether they are actually falling in love or if its an effect of the new antidepressant that theyre 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
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
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