Lucy Kirkwood Archives - The Play Podcast

Lucy Kirkwood

by Douglas Schatz | Mar 1, 2022 | Contributor

Lucy Kirkwood

Lucy Kirkwood is a playwright and screenwriter. Her plays include the acclaimed Chimerica, which dramatized in stunning visual stagecraft the relationship between China and America through the iconic photograph of the Tiananmen Square protests. The play won an Olivier award for best play in 2014, and was expanded into a four-part TV drama by Lucy herself.

Her next play, The Children, produced at the Royal Court in 2016 and directed by James MacDonald, is a thought-provoking and moving story of love and friendship set in an apocalyptic world following an unspecified environmental disaster, which unexpectedly has echoes of the pandemic we are living through.

Lucy’s play Mosquitoes starring Olivia Coleman and Olivia Williams was staged by the National Theatre in 2017. Mosquitoes combines a family drama with the science of particle physics, and is typical of the ambition, variety and emotional power of Lucy’s work, which explores large ideas and themes through moving personal stories.

In addition to her TV adaptation of Chimerica, Lucy’s screenwriting credits include The Smoke for Sky TV in 2008,and most recently the four-part series Adult Material, which followed a woman’s life in the adult film industry.

Photo by Christian Sinbaldi –
The Guardian

Podcast Episode(s)

019 - The Welkin, by Lucy Kirkwood

Recommended Play(s)

Lucy recommended Disappeared by Phyllis Nagy.

019 – The Welkin, by Lucy Kirkwood

by Douglas Schatz | Jan 28, 2021 | Podcast Episodes

The Welkin at the National Theatre 2020
Photo: Brinkhoff-Moegenburg

019 – The Welkin, by Lucy Kirkwood

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It is 1759 in East Anglia. A child has been murdered and a young woman has been convicted to hang for the crime. She ‘pleads her belly’ and a jury of matrons must determine if she is truly with child and thus may escape the gallows. Lucy Kirkwood’s powerful play The Welkin, is an historical thriller and a tense courtroom drama, as well as a vivid representation of the real burdens that women carry in a patriarchal world of any age. It also reminds us how what we believe informs how we exercise our social responsibilities. The play is not simply a recreation of the past, but a timeless testament to women’s resilience. I am delighted to be joined by the playwright herself to explore her rich and resonant new play.

The Welkin premiered at the National Theatre in London in January 2020 with a fabulously strong female cast that included Maxine Peake, Haydn Gwynne, Ria Zmitrovicz, among many others, and was directed by James MacDonald. The play’s run was sadly cut short by the first Covid lockdown in March 2020. We look forward to its revival on stages around the world when theatre returns.

Lucy Kirkwood

Lucy Kirkwood is a playwright and screenwriter. Her plays include her acclaimed Chimerica, which dramatized in stunning visual stagecraft the relationship between China and America through the iconic photograph of the Tiananmen Square protests. The play won an Olivier award for best play in 2014, and was expanded into a four-part TV drama by Lucy herself.

Recommended Play

Lucy recommended Disappeared by Phyllis Nagy.

Photo: Christian Sinibaldi – The Guardian

We have footnotes for this episode …

The Footnotes to our episode on The Welkin include more on symbols in the sky, the life of the wife of a poet, and the apt sound of the butter churn.

Footnotes for Patrons

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067 – Red Pitch by Tyrell Williams

Sep 27, 2023 | Podcast Episodes

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Tyrell William’s award-winning, debut play Red Pitch is set on an inner-city football pitch in South London. It is a coming-of-age story, with teenage boys fighting to believe in their dreams, and to find a way up, and perhaps out, of their changing community. The play premiered at the Bush Theatre in London in February 2002, winning several awards, and is currently enjoying a sell-out revival at the Bush.

Tyrell Williams, and the show’s director, Daniel Bailey, join me to explore this joyful and poignant new play.

Photo by Helen Murray.

066 – The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh

Aug 23, 2023 | Podcast Episodes

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Martin McDonagh’s 2004 play The Pillowman is an unsettling mix of gruesome fairy tales, child abuse, and murder, overlaid with McDonagh’s signature black humour. McDonagh’s blend of extreme violence and ironic comedy divides opinion, although the popularity of the current revival of the play in London’s West End is testimony to its enduring fascination.

I am joined in this episode by Professor Eamonn Jordan, to help us come to terms with the impact and intent of McDonagh’s work.

065 – Accidental Death of an Anarchist, by Dario Fo and Franca Rame

Jul 31, 2023 | Podcast Episodes

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Accidental Death of an Anarchist by Dario Fo and Franca Rame is both an hilarious farce and a biting satire. Written in 1970 as an “act of intervention” in response to the unexplained death of a prisoner in police custody in Milan, it became a huge global hit.

An acclaimed new adaptation that updates the setting and scandal to modern-day Britain is currently playing at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, and I’m delighted to be joined by its writer, Tom Basden, and the director, Daniel Raggett, to talk about their adaptation and the enduring relevance of Fo’s original.