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Interviews
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Simon Burt - The New Chekhov? Philip Fisher interviews the young playwright of whom Mike Bradwell says, "He has the ability to become one of our great writers." When you first meet Simon Burt, the initial impression is of a shy, unassuming young man, not a playwright who is already building a big reputation on the back of two plays dissecting the pubbing and clubbing culture in the North of England. After an hour's chat over a half pint of bitter that soon became a pint, it is clear that Burt is far closer to his thoughtful sensitive characters than the raucous drunks. Having seen his plays, one wonders if things are different after a night on the tiles and whether he is really a closet Dylan Thomas or John Osborne in the making. Mike Bradwell at the Bush can be proud of discovering this 27 year-old from Wakefield at such an early stage in his career. His main strengths are extremely realistic dialogue with perfect speech rhythms; and the creation of believable characters. It is most unusual for such a young man to be able to write perfect parts that are not all mid-twenties male clones of himself. Burt has written well for both men and women of his father's generation in Got To Be Happy and teenage girls that launched his professional career in Untouchable. Simon Burt was brought up in Yorkshire and by the time that he left school, he had decided that he would like a career in theatre. After a degree course in drama at Loughborough University, he was still undecided as to where to go next. He wrote a few comedy sketches and at the age of 21, he was lucky enough to have one accepted by the BBC radio show, Week Ending. Ironically, after 25 years on air, the show was mothballed before his sketch could be broadcast. While not sounding particularly bitter, he does point out that he is still awaiting payment from the BBC. After this near brush with fame, he filled in his time with a couple of happy years working in bars in and around Wakefield. This was a comfortable existence with free beer (and toast) on tap and a complete break from writing. Luckily for all of us, a friend of his joined the Royal Court Young Writers' Programme and when he was describing this to Burt, the prospect of tickets for every Royal Court production was too much for a young man to resist. He therefore moved down to London, started work in a pub here and joined up. This was an odd and sometimes chastening experience, since there was no proper critical debate until the point at which the reviewing panel saw the plays and inevitably ripped them to shreds. The upshot of this time was that he wrote two plays that weren't terribly good and saw everything produced at the Royal Court. It did, though, lead to an opportunity to read scripts for the Royal Court Young Writers' Festival. Having read forty submissions, Burt says, "I realised how bad unsolicited plays can be". He did pick out one gem, Local by Arzhang Pezhman which went on to be produced in the Autumn 2000 Festival. His commitment to Local, a play that he describes as "way above all the others - it had characters, issues - a lot in it, though it did have its problems" is demonstrated by his willingness to travel down to London from Yorkshire especially to see a performance. Having finished this work, Burt suddenly found himself aged 25, living in Yorkshire and without any kind of career prospects. This was a kind of turning point. There were two choices. He could have ended up as a man working, probably bitterly, in pubs for the next 40 years. This would have been exactly like his character Charley in Got To Be Happy who knows that he has missed out on life. The other far more palatable alternative was to have one last go at becoming a playwright. He chose the latter route, as he puts it he thought, "Sod it, I'll write a play, and I wrote Untouchable over the next ten days". The difference between this and his earlier work was that now he just wrote to please himself. He sent the play to a number of theatres. Several liked it but the fastest to respond was the Bush. Mike Bradwell's literary assistant, Jenny Worton loved it and they invited the budding playwright to London to talk it through. Bradwell was immediately struck by Burt's prodigious skill, "Simon Burt sent us Untouchable through the post and it was immediately recognised as a work of promise by Jenny Worton who was our Literary Assistant at the time. I thought it remarkable that a young male writer could write so perceptively about teenage girls. We worked with Simon on the play eventually producing it as part of our Naked Talent Season in November 2002". It took a further year to come into production under the direction of Natasha Betteridge, seemingly a perfect partner. Burt enthusiastically recalls "We had the best time doing the play, particularly casting the two young ladies". One of the reasons why Untouchable was so successful was that Samantha Robinson and Pooja Shah (about to star in EastEnders) not only acted the parts well but got on like a house on fire. As Burt says, "they work so well together, they went for the whole Method thing, they even had sleepovers in each other's houses. You could really believe that they were lifelong buddies". Untouchable was produced as part of the Bush's Naked Talent season in 2002. Its playwright had made such a good impression that his name was put forward to become the Pearson Playwright in Residence at the Bush through 2003. The interview took place the morning after the press night of Untouchable. This meant that Burt and Nicola Wilson, the Bush's Literary Manager who was acting as his advocate, weren't as fresh as might normally have been the case. In any event, they persuaded a panel of luminaries that included John Mortimer, Michael Billington and Sue Townsend that Burt was the man for a post that had previously been occupied by amongst others, Conor McPherson, whose career at the Bush long predated his mega-success, The Weir. A further piece of good fortune was that Burt's second play, Got To Be Happy, fitted nicely into a programming gap and was produced at the Bush only about three months after Untouchable. This is a play described by Rachel Halliburton in the Evening Standard as "a searingly poetic production about love in a bar kitchen. This is the kind of play that the Bush excels at - a naturalistic depiction of working-class life that makes onlookers feel like fascinated flies on a wall. Quite superb". It ably demonstrated that Burt could write remarkably convincing parts for actors over twice his age. As Bradwell confirms, "Got to be Happy more than confirmed Simon's promise. This time he had written perceptively about a relationship between a couple in their late 50s". Burt does, though, admit that writing the part of the middle-aged Connie was not as easy as the others. Got to be Happy was also an interesting production as his director was Owen Lewis, a man almost exactly the same age and whom Burt enthusiastically describes as "like an excited little puppy - this torrent of energy". It must be almost unique to have a major London theatre put a play written and directed by 27 year-olds into its normal programme. The young creative team worked well together and they would love to have further opportunities to do so in future. Burt is currently trying to find a home for his third play, set during World War Two, that he says is emphatically not a "Bush play". He has even managed to move its setting away from his native Wakefield, although only as far as Sheffield. It is pleasing that this young man is steeped in theatre tradition and when asked about theatrical influences he comes up instantly with a single name, Arthur Miller. He loves the theatrical experience and says that he learns so much every time he goes to see a play. The best of these that he has seen recently is Girl, watching by Jyll Bradley at the Birmingham Rep, "the kind of play that I would like to have written". Perhaps unusually in the 21st century, Burt sees his future as exclusively in staged drama. "I'm very, very happy working in theatre, I really like hanging out in theatres with actors, TV would be completely different". A testament to the bright future that Simon Burt has ahead is provided by the man who discovered him, Mike Bradwell when he says "I think Simon has the ability to become one of our great writers. He reminds me of the young Robert Holman and he also reminds me of Chekhov and you can't say fairer than that......"
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