James Graham

Presenter0:01

BBC Sounds, Music Radio Podcasts. Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs Podcast. Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. This is an extended version of the original Radio 4 broadcast and, for rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:48

My castaway this week is the award-winning playwright and screenwriter James Graham. He's one of the most successful dramatists in Britain today, carving out a reputation for state-of-the-nation shows that offer profound insights into contemporary history. If that sounds a bit dry, it isn't. His skill at finding history's human heart and pinpointing its pivotal moments with plenty of laughs along the way has generated hit after hit. They include This House about the minority Labour government of the 1970s, Inc., the story of Rupert Murdoch's takeover of the sun, and Dear England, which spotlights how Gareth Southgate changed the culture of English football. His television work is equally impressive. He grew up in Nottinghamshire and in 2022 put his hometown on screen in the much-acclaimed BBC drama Sherwood, which addressed the deep divisions he saw in the wake of the miners' strike. It taught him to see both sides of a debate and to look for the humanity in those with whom he disagreed. He says, People may think I'm too nice to be a political playwright, and that I don't go for people's scalps. I try to empathise and understand them. I just think it's the easiest thing in the world to be cynical. It's lazy, it's unfair, it's really boring. James Graham, welcome to Desert Island Discs.

James Graham2:03

Hi, thank you for having me.

Presenter2:05

It's such a pleasure. Now let's start with that empathy, James, because it isn't always prioritized in our polarized world. How do you ensure you can achieve it in your work?

James Graham2:15

By just asking the question, why is this person behaving the way they are? And I've put some pretty controversial and difficult people on stage and screen, whether that's Rupert Murdoch or Dominic Cummings. And I think there's just no point in reconfirming to an audience what they already think and feel. And the black and whiteness of storytelling has just never interested me. I think both people, but also our public institutions, whether it's newspapers or the radio or the Houses of Parliament, there are so many paradoxes and contradictions. And that's what makes drama so alive. And it's uniquely drama, I think, that has the space and the time to enjoy those contradictions and those paradoxes.

Presenter2:51

And you're also incredibly good at finding that those small things that can tell a really big story or unlock a kind of profound truth. I wonder how you do that. You're intrigued by looking for those moments, those events, those little stories that actually have a lot more to say.

James Graham3:09

I think it's probably my sort of nerdy geeky interest in these worlds and also my bewilderment, I guess, that I get invited into by simply writing a letter to the whips in the Houses of Parliament or the producers of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. It's the greatest joy to be invited into a process, a system, an institution where they will unpack it for you and make you understand in a Swiss watch kind of way how it ticks. You know, my recent play was about the England football team and I got to go and meet Gareth Southgate and his team and that was a real, real joy. But my first questions are never about sort of the grand philosophical, what is it to win a tournament? I'm always like, where did you get your lunch from? How did you organise your office? What time did you come in? Do you park your car? Did you come on a like? It is the minutiae and the detail that I actually think reveals a greater truth about these systems and these institutions that govern us in our public realm.

Speaker 33:42

Uh

Presenter3:56

Tell me about your own experiences of theatre. I know it's a very special day for you, opening nights and the hours preceding the curtain going up. How does it feel? Talk me through a typical day.

James Graham4:02

And the

James Graham4:07

My favourite moment is the hour before the first preview when a new play, a new story that no one has ever seen before is about to be put in front of an audience. And I always try to protect that time with my team, like the director and the designers. You go and have a quick bite to eat around the corner and you just take a moment. I normally have a little whiskey next to me and you try to be present in that moment because you only share something for the first time once, which is an obvious thing to say. But from that moment on, in a couple of hours' time, it will always have existed and it will always be that thing. And that pre-going over the top moment with your team is really special.

Presenter4:43

It's time to get started with your music then, James. Disc number one. What are we going to hear?

James Graham4:48

Sure. I've got I'm so insecure about my music choices. I think if you asked me what I'm most insecure about in the world, it would be talking about my personal life and my taste in music.

Presenter4:57

Okay, so this is going to be a tricky show.

James Graham4:58

This is going to be a tricky show. I'm in an existential crisis right here, but thankfully it's lovely.

Presenter5:03

Why? Why are you insecure about your music?

James Graham5:05

Honestly, if you shuffled my playlist, you're just as likely to get like the Emma Dale theme tune as you are the Ariana Grande latest chunk. But we are where we are. And yeah, I thought this, I had to have pulp in my list. There's something about that band and that music in the late 90s, which kind of made sense for me. It sounded like what it was to grow up in a post-industrial town. The lyrics around small houses and wood chip on the wall and the fountain down the road. I just, it really encapsulated the being with your mates and drinking and trying to look forward to the future. So I was going to pick Common People, one of my favourite songs, but my contemporary friend and writer Jack Thorne picked that. So I refuse because he's my nemesis. He's not. So instead, I've picked what I think is just one of the most joyful pop tracks of the late 1990s, which is Disco 2000.

Speaker 35:48

He's not.

Speaker 35:57

The house was very small.

Speaker 36:04

When I came round to call, you didn't notice me at all.

Speaker 36:13

And that's it.

Speaker 36:14

Tell me up in the year 2000. Won't it be strange when we're on fully ground?

Speaker 36:23

To a club by the fountain

Presenter6:27

Pulp and Disco two thousand. So James Graham, you were born in Kirkby and Ashfield in Nottinghamshire. I know you're a twin. We've got a twin sister and a big brother. How much of your political awakening came from the time and place you were growing up?

Speaker 16:34

Yeah.

James Graham6:34

Go to insist.

James Graham6:42

We weren't a hugely political family, but I guess the town we grew up in was defined by the fact that it was a mining village. It's the community that I was so fortunate enough to put on television in Sherwood, because in the miner strike, a lot of the Nottinghamshire miners beneath us in the south, they went back to work. The majority of Yorkshire miners over the border, they stayed out of work. And so in these borderland villages where I grew up, they were sort of split. People in the same village were going back to work or staying out on strike, and that was obviously very painful. And it meant that that was the scene of a lot of the violence in the 80s when the police came up to police the strike. And it took me a long time to understand the repercussions and the reverberations of that trauma. I think it taught me that ideological extremes or political certainties can be incredibly dangerous and can be incredibly wounding. I know enough brothers who will still cross the street from one another today or friendships that were broken because of that inability. And I'm not judging them, but that inability to recognise how complicated and unfair the imposition of that choice was placed upon people.

Presenter7:53

Your parents, Anne and Peter, divorced when you and your twin sister were six. Your bigger brother was eight. Can you remember how you felt about it at the time?

James Graham8:00

Well actually when my parents divorced they did this incredibly generous thing at the time which was they bought houses on the same street. So there were only two houses between us so I could go and see my dad whenever me and my twin sister wanted to and my brother could come and see my my mum. So there was there was an attempt to keep us all sort of together as a family unit. But I loved my own company more than I loved hanging out with my brother or sister or my friends. I I really liked being on my own in my room and

James Graham8:27

I I wrote I began writing short stories from a really early age. My mum got me an electric typewriter, which I just adored.

Presenter8:32

How old were you when you got that?

James Graham8:34

probably like five or six and I really, really valued that time in my own head to make sense of the world. But yeah, I was very I d I wasn't in I I was very relaxed growing up uh in terms of what the future held. It was actually the sort of the present day that made me frightened, like going to school and and the people around me. I was I was yeah, really um introverted and found socializing quite quite difficult.

Presenter8:57

So you lived with your sister, with your mum?

James Graham8:59

Mm.

Presenter8:59

What did what did she do for a living? When how where did she work?

James Graham9:02

So my work ethic I think definitely comes from my mum. When I was growing up she was a barmaid in most of the local pubs around the village and including the working men's pub. But I mean my memory of her up until my teenage years was at one point she had three jobs. She worked as a school receptionist in the day. In the evening she would then go to the local warehouse. So when the mines closed logistics and warehouses pretty much took over as the main employer in the area. And then at the weekend she would work in the local corner shop, which is one of my first jobs as well. And my dad, he worked for Nottingham City Council. That was his first job when he was 18 and he stayed there all his life.

Speaker 19:25

So when the

Presenter9:41

And how was it dividing your time between your parents?

James Graham9:44

I love them both individually, but my mum was sort of a more a raucous, extroverted character. Her family full of sisters that, you know, drink and parties and going out was a big part of that world. And I guess I would say that life with my dad was a bit softer and quieter. He was the only son. We would go train spotting, for example. And that was like sport, but quiet sport. And he introduced me to a lot of sort of classical music as well, which I really valued. And I would sit quietly in his house with my headphones on, listening to like electronic 80s versions of opera and stuff, trying to get my head around. And I think there was something again about that kind of aspirational working class desire to introduce me and introduce us to culture and books and history and politics that I.

Presenter10:31

In history

Presenter10:33

So they always supported those interests.

James Graham10:33

It will be supported.

James Graham10:35

Yeah, and still do. Like I I wish I could sit here going my story was like a Billy Elliott story where I had to rail against them. They were going, Don't be a playwright, get a proper job. That has just never been the case and both of them

James Graham10:46

are so um sort of happy for me and I'm I'm so grateful for that.

Presenter10:50

All right, James, it's time for us to go to the music. What are we going to hear next?

James Graham10:54

Well, as an example of my father's sort of musical taste that was the soundtrack of my youth, I have picked Glenn Miller, which I guess it felt like the men in my family always sort of had this kind of wartime vibe, like my granddad and my dad and my brother, planes and big band music and history the history of war. So this featured a lot in our house. And I guess also Chattanooga Choo-Choo, which is the track I've picked, is also about trains. And for some reason, trains have always just been huge in our family. My mum, she grew up in a train station with her sisters and brother. My granddad was the train the station master.

Speaker 311:33

Okay.

James Graham11:34

In a little train station in Eastwood in Nottinghamshire. And my dad would always take me and my brother on train journeys, train spotting. The problem was, I had such a delicate constitution as a kid, I would always get travel sick, and he would have to carry these little bags around to capture that. And I remember this one time we had a little journey. I made it all the way up to Scotland on trains, all the way to Montrose, having not managed to throw up. And he was so proud of me as we pulled into Montrose station. He gave me a little hug and a shake, and that made me throw up all over the table as we arrived into the station. So I think my delicate constitution extends to Glen Miller. It's music, but it's soft and gentle and accessible.

Speaker 312:03

That's where you arrive.

Speaker 112:04

Uh

Speaker 312:11

Pardon me boy, is that the chantin' loop? Gaju Ju? Yes, yes! Track 29!

Speaker 312:19

Boy, you can give me a shine.

Speaker 312:24

Can you afford to board a chat and look at you?

Speaker 312:30

I got my fare.

Speaker 312:32

And just a trifle to spare.

Speaker 312:36

You leave the Pennsylvania station about a quarter to four.

Presenter12:41

Chattanooga Chuchu, Glenn Miller and His Orchestra. James Graham, as we've heard, you loved writing stories on your typewriter when you were a little boy. What else were you getting up to?

James Graham12:52

We were like a a T V family. We used to love sitting in front of the T V every evening, dinner on our laps, and watching dramas and soaps. I loved soaps growing up.

Presenter13:01

What did you love about them? What was the magic of it?

James Graham13:01

What did you

James Graham13:03

I guess if you're sort of a quieter shy kid, there's something about the scale of the drama of everyday life with people arguing in pubs or breaking up or playing crashes in Emmerdale or murders in Coronation Street. I guess just the escapism and the size of everyday life and hobbies were like a big thing. I think in terms of a... we kind of imagined ourselves probably as like aspirational working class, like wanted to do things with our free time and we were all given sort of instruments or I ended up going ice skating, which was an unusual choice for a young boy in a tough mining town. But for some reason, gliding around on the ice, I got really excited about it. And actually, it wasn't, technically, I wasn't sort of doing the flips and the spins. It was actually the show ice dancing where you put on a costume and dance to a piece of pop music or musical theater. It was that side of it that I really enjoyed. And it's not original, but I guess there was something about the permission that gives you to show off, to like to make people laugh, to unleash yourself and wave your arms and be silly that I think I really struggled with in normal life. And I, yeah, so I did, I remember doing loads of different parts. I was dressed up as one of the girls in ABBA, and there was an absolute bizarre moment when I think it was my mum who came up with the concept where she came up with this idea of the stripping vicar. I was only about 10 years old, but the routine we came up with was I came onto the ice wearing a little cassock and to really holy music and I dance around the ice for like a minute. And then James Brown, I feel good, kicked in and I whipped off my Velcro cassock and I had like stockings and spanks and a corset on.

Speaker 314:39

Yeah.

Speaker 314:40

Force it on.

James Graham14:41

And I would like writhe across the ice as like a 10-year-old boy, like spanking myself and wiggling my hips. And like parents were genuinely mortified and shocked. And I could always see my mum laughing and loving it. And we took that on tour, like around the country. People would see me turn up and they'd be like, oh no, the stripping vicars here. We've lost. I get all these plastic trophies for it. And I would never, like, I could never quite make sense of the little boy who really struggled to be in class or to be in school and around people who could do that.

Speaker 314:43

Like a ten-year-old boy like spanking myself and

Presenter15:10

And when you were at primary school, you got your first acting role in a production of Oliver. You were the lead.

James Graham15:15

I know, hey, I wasn't mucking about, but I also was very aware that the reason why I got Oliver was because I was just this tiny, scruffy, waif of a boy and I looked like an orphan and I couldn't sing and I really wanted to and they really wanted me to, but I just couldn't do it. So very sadly, I got the part. But every time a song came on in the production, a different lad had to come on stage and sing for me. And I just had to go and sit on the side of the stage and watch him sing. And obviously the audience obviously knew that was because I was terrible at singing.

Presenter15:39

And obviously the audio

Presenter15:42

Oh no What did that do for your nascent creative expression?

James Graham15:47

Humbled me, and I actually felt more sorry for the other boy who probably should have been Oliver because he had this angelic voice. But yeah, look, I mean, what I really remember the most about stepping into the waters of school plays was the complete thrill for me of seeing a community of your neighbours come together in a space and share something. And the fact that you were part of that, and that you were making your parents laugh by being a cute little orphan, or that you were telling a story. And shared storytelling just immediately imprinted itself in my brain as being one of the most valuable things we can do as a society.

Presenter16:22

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

James Graham16:25

So as I got slightly older and moved to secondary school, I tried to find like my tribe and my gang. And somehow I slipped into the world of grungy band people, even though that was not sort of the music I felt comfortable with and sort of grew up with. But I just loved being in that group. And frankly, whenever, you know, in a mix of Rage Against the Machine and Metallico and Korn, whenever they would play a song that you know, I could hum along to and had a nice little tune to it. I really valued that stuff and I would always request that stuff. So I picked Foo Fighters, who I did actually really love growing up. And this is probably the least cool Foo Fighters track. It's the love song he felt like he had to write. But whenever this came on, I was very, very happy because it was something I could sing along to myself. And this is Up in Arms.

Speaker 317:17

And you, my dear, are still my friend.

Speaker 317:27

It's true the two of us our back is one.

Presenter17:43

Foo Fighters and Up in Arms. James Graeme, as you've mentioned, you were a shy kid at school, but you were a very able student, and I think it was history that caught your imagination. Why?

James Graham17:55

I guess the storytelling of it, like it's the it's the it's the purest example of week by week turning up to class and being told a story that you don't know how it's going to end. Like I really didn't. So we'd be doing the French Revolution and you'd get to the point where the guillotine's about to come down on Marie Antoinette and the bell would go and I literally wouldn't know, does she make it? And I think by default my love of that, my love of returning to far away or recent history to make sense of the now has accidentally made me quite political, but it all came really from a love of storytelling.

Presenter18:26

So it started with the stories and and your love of drama then continued at secondary school?

James Graham18:31

Yeah, so having absolutely smashed Oliver in primary school, I knew I really wanted to do more school plays, but again, struggled with my confidence. And it was the head of the drama department, Martin Humphrey, who was just one of those teachers who would go above and beyond and like stay late, work all weekend to allow us to help us put on plays and musicals and shows. And he just was determined to put me on stage. And I guess I thought maybe acting would be a thing. I didn't really know if writing would be a career. And again, whereas the rest of my life was sitting quietly at the back of the class, I remember the moments when I would get such bizarre confidence to be able to march on stage and play big roles like Makuchio in Romeo and Juliet and Robert Sideway in Our Country's Good, Tim Blake Wurtenbaker, who was the big sort of showy off, eccentric actor character. And I'd see the lads in the football team kind of laughing in the audience and validating me. And I loved that.

Presenter19:28

So, what was going on in terms of your own identity and how you felt at that point, and how you felt about who you were?

James Graham19:36

Yeah, I mean definitely I knew I was very sensitive and I was lucky that I had a lot of nice friends but I would I would still confuse myself about often when I was invited like to hang out on the street corner or to go up to the wreck with my friends I would sometimes pretend I wasn't feeling very well because the comfort of just being on my own just made me feel people often talk about sort of authenticity don't they and and being yourself and I think that's that's such a that's so easy if you're a confident extrovert it's actually you have to work really hard on being yourself if you're not but it wasn't like traumatic I was just I was sort of really at peace with the fact that I was just that kid I was just that boy and how lucky it was to have found in that particular community a form and outlet in the form of theatre and art and drama

Speaker 120:13

Or just I would

Speaker 120:16

Just that.

Presenter20:26

You went on, James, to study drama at Hull University, and you have said since Hull made me who I am. Why is it so special?

James Graham20:35

I'm sure part of it is because it was Hull, and I absolutely love that city. It's not that dissimilar from really the character of the place where we grew up in Nottinghamshire, which is it doesn't take itself seriously. It's very no-nonsense, gallows humour, and the kind of culture and the kind of art populists from a working-class tradition, from an industrial base. And eventually, I would start to write and put on plays in front of my colleagues and my peers as well. And again, the we'll get onto this, I think, but one of the great screenwriters in British modern British history, Anthony McGella, he was there.

Presenter21:08

He was there. Yeah, well tell me about that. So and and you you met him?

James Graham21:12

He did, yeah. He'd just um I think won his Oscar for English Patron and we had about an hour together and I think in education the most valuable thing anyone can do is personify the possibility of something. Like normally you just don't the world of art, entertainment, Hollywood film, it feels so removed and so distant and meeting someone in the flesh who had done that from the buildings and the rooms that I was sat in was just so thrilling.

Speaker 321:27

Hmm.

Presenter21:38

While you were at university, you wrote your first play, Coal Not Dole. It was about the miners' strike. What were you hoping to capture in the story?

James Graham21:45

I wanted to capture my community and almost go on an intellectual and creative exercise to see if I could replicate the voice of the people I grew up with by writing dialogue that sounds like what they would say. And wrote that, put it on, took it to Edinburgh. First time I sort of got reviewed, first time I left the news agent holding a newspaper with my name in it and couldn't believe in it. And I think it was a three-star review that everyone was really going, I'm so sorry, you're okay. And I was like, yeah, it's amazing. They're writing about me. Yeah, I started to really get a sense of, God, this is what I want to do.

Presenter22:12

That's amazing!

Presenter22:19

I think we're better here. Your next disc, James. It is your fourth choice today.

James Graham22:23

And this connects actually with Hull in the sense that the soundtracks to movies has been a love of my life for a long time. And I actually write often to the Hans Zimmers and the Max Richters of this world just because they're so emotive and they capture the sweeping scale of stories. And this particular track is from the talented Mr. Ripley, which it was an Anthony Mingella film. And this is by Gabrielle Yarred, who's a Lebanese-born composer. He did most of Anthony Mingella's music for his films. And this is from the end of the film, I think, where the main character, Tom Ripley, who's someone who hides himself away from the world, believes that he's going to be hidden forever.

Speaker 122:44

Mingala

Presenter24:05

Syncope, from the soundtrack to the talented mister Ripley, composed by Gabrielle Yarad. James Graham, after you graduated you got a job as a stage doorkeeper at the Theatre Royal in Nottingham. What do you remember about that time?

James Graham24:19

I loved it. It was like a really tough job. I'd turn up at eight o'clock in the morning, and sometimes you'd go through to two or three the next morning because you had to be the first person there and the last person to leave. And there were really special moments I used to enjoy wandering around the building at midnight, the last person there sitting on the stage of this Victorian theatre and just like, I know it sounds really sappy, but imagining my plays on there one day, which did happen. And I remember the attrition in particular of seeing how hard people had to work, and none more so than Panto. Like my Panto that year had the extraordinary Danny LaRue as the dame. He would come in and go, hello, James, hello, darling. And he was just like from a different world. And he would never leave the building without shaking my hand and slipping a tenor in there as he left.

Speaker 325:03

He laughed.

James Graham25:04

I remember organising his Christmas dinner'cause he was staying in Nottingham at the time and he was on his own and I organise his Marks and Spencer's chicken. And also what being on the stage door allowed me to do once the show goes up at 7.30 basically you're on your own and I would be writing my plays, the hum and the sounds and the noise of theatre behind me. I started writing full-length plays and putting them in little envelopes and sending them off to that London and hoping that someone would read them and eventually one of them did.

Presenter25:33

It talks about being a shy, introverted child, but there must have been a part of you that said at that stage, I'm good at this, I might be able to do this.

James Graham25:41

What I was really confident about and always committed to was I was never going to write the kinds of other plays that younger writers were doing at that time. And I don't say that boastfully like, oh, I'm so original. I say it as a lesson that I learned, which is that as I came down to London and became enmeshed in the new writing scene down here, the expectation from a lot of the theatres were for what a 20, 21 year old should write about. And often it was understandably sort of relationships and sex and violence. And it came from the tradition of in-your-face theatre in the late 90s. And I mean, one of my first plays was about the Suez Ganel crisis. And basically, nobody was here for it. Nobody wanted it. And I just refused to kind of pivot because I just knew that's what really excited me. And I was so fortunate to find an advocate in the Finbrough Theatre, which is like a tiny little theatre, 50 seaters above a Port Bennell's court, where you have to pretty much sort of paint and build your own sets. And I spent like five years there, like working in call centres and bars in the day and then writing plays there in the evening about big sort of historic sweeps, Albert Einstein, Anthony Eden. I wrote a play about Margaret Thatcher.

Presenter26:49

I want to ask about one of your later plays actually, Tory Boys. That was about Ted Heath's hidden sexuality. And I know that you wrote it during a time when you were exploring your own relationships, your identity. Did you learn anything about yourself while you were writing that play?

James Graham27:05

Yeah, I mean, I think, I mean, my certainly my relationship history has been varied and flexible and a bit like my growing up in North Nottinghamshire, which never sort of went down on one side or the other. I was basically I've always, up until recently, struggled a lot with sort of relationships and the level of, I guess, commitment and vulnerability and intimacy that a healthy one requires. And I don't think that's completely divorced from my professional life and my writing life and where I sit there. You know, I've had relationships with women and men and I found a great comfort and peace in that and not needing to define for anyone at any particular or given point where I am or what I'm doing or how I'm and

Speaker 327:48

Yeah.

James Graham27:51

Being in a theatre community where it's less binary and you can not pin your colours to any particular mast and it's that's progressive and tolerant, that's been um a real uh value to me. And I've tried to yeah, Tory Boy certainly was a a way of putting on stage all the bizarre contradictions and nuances of the young experience, I think, when you're trying to when you're emerging politically and sexually and emotionally.

Presenter28:19

Let's go to the music. What's next?

James Graham28:22

This is the Queen, that is Kylie Minogue, and she was one of my first ever albums I remember getting on Christmas Day. And I've had a love affair with Kylie ever since. And actually, this track I only discovered because Russell T. Davies put it in a television drama. And Russell is the perfect example for me of someone who manages to smash into big, serious social studies or political state of the nations just a huge amount of pop culture references and particularly British pop culture references. And this was one of the first times I heard this banger of a track, which is Your Disco Needs You.

Speaker 328:57

But be seeking someone willing to travel.

Speaker 329:04

You're lost in conversation

Speaker 329:08

You say that scrabble. Happy nest will never last. Darkness comes to kick your ass. So let's dance to all of this more.

Presenter29:28

Kylie Minogue and Your Disco Needs You. James Graham, in twenty twelve, your play This House premiered at the National Theatre and it was a huge breakthrough for you. Nominated for an Olivier Award, did you have any sense that it was going to be the kind of hit that it was? It changed everything for you.

James Graham29:46

I knew instinctively that the proposition on paper was really great, and I can't take credit for that. That's just the real world delivered to me this story of this hung parliament. I found it a completely compelling and seductive world. And I hired an office in Soho because I thought that's what proper grown-up playwrights should probably do. And it was in this like garret in a loft above a sex clip show. I got to know the girls down there on the door quite well, and I would sit there trying to make sense of the 1970s and adored it.

Speaker 130:06

Uh

James Graham30:18

So even though I knew I had potential, I didn't necessarily know if it was going to connect because I think the conventional wisdom at the time.

Speaker 130:22

Yeah.

Presenter30:22

Because that in the

James Graham30:24

Was that there wasn't a huge appetite for plays about politics on stage?

Presenter30:30

I wonder what that's like for you, you know, when you're taking that personal view of recent history, do you get nervous about telling real people's stories?

James Graham30:38

I do, and I should do, because it's their story, and I really feel that responsibility. And I would worry if I stopped feeling that. And to be honest, it is the part of my job that I do sometimes find a bit overwhelming. It's the lying awake at three in the morning kind of anxiety when I worry about. I just don't want to ever upset people, is the truth, but I do really believe in putting real stories on stage and screen as a way of making sense of them. And sometimes these are quite public figures.

Speaker 130:54

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 330:54

Uh

Speaker 130:54

Yeah.

James Graham31:12

whether you know, the the um the coughing major in quiz or someone like that, what a great treat to go and spend time with the producer of who wants to be a millionaire or the victims of that scandal. And um but no, I do and I do take that really seriously about real people and and I think the only thing I can

Speaker 331:25

Mm-hmm.

James Graham31:28

sort of says my tactic is you have to go in and go early and go hard and be really honest about w that you're doing it and and allow them to express their anxieties and their doubts and their concerns. It's my duty to sit in those living rooms and listen to that and then adapt my work to make sure that I'm telling the truth of their experience, but that they feel okay on the journey of it.

Presenter31:49

So what is it like, James, when you actually meet someone who you've just put on stage in theatrical form? And what's the conversation like?

James Graham31:59

Well obviously you feel like hugely presumptuous. They've come to see your play, you've just presented them on stage and then you're speaking to them afterwards in the bar and it can be a great thrill because obviously they've just seen themselves as represented by an actor and they're sort of in the thrill of that. But obviously sometimes it can be quite intense and awkward. So I've met politicians who are in this house after that in the play Inc., which was about Rupert Murdoch taking over the Sun newspaper in the late 60s. He did come and see it, I remember, and I met him in the West End Theatre afterwards. I remember being very intimidated and scared in the build-up to that meeting. In the end, as often happens, it's actually quite vanilla. Like you hope it'd come away with like a really good dinner party anecdote. He said this to me and actually I think he was a particularly studied case in not giving anything away. He met the actors, asked some questions about my research and then left. So it's not always the key moment actually that you would expect it to be.

Presenter32:56

And I love that you're willing to take it on even when and maybe because it's difficult. You know, with something like Sherwood, this is based on two real-life murders that happened in your hometown, near your hometown, twenty years ago, went out on BBC One. And even though you knew that the community around you would have their own feelings about it, you very much felt like you were the right person to do it, the only person to do it.

James Graham33:18

I guess so, yeah. I mean, the tragedies that the drama depicts happened only like a couple of streets away from where I grew up, and I knew a lot of the individuals involved. And I hope I didn't impose the project upon the people. I did go up and chat to the victims and people in the community to see if they were okay with it. And it was a mix. Like some people said, I think it's time that we talked about this, not just the killings themselves, but also the wounds that that reopened up. Essentially, these killings, even though they had nothing at all to do with the divisions of the minor strike, them happening reopened them and it was very painful. And some people believed it was time, and some people really didn't. They thought, you know, the phrase I heard sometimes was, can't you let sleeping dogs lie? And you have to hear that, but stay true to the principle that guides me always, which is that ultimately at the end, once it's out and once people are seeing it, that they will, we all will as a community value the opportunity to cathartically walk through that stuff again through hopefully an empathetic, gentle, kind way. But it's I don't pretend to know the rules of it and it is very difficult, but I just know the principle is sound and that there's that we have to.

James Graham34:32

We have to look at these difficult stories and we have to put them on stage and screen.

Presenter34:36

It's time to go to the music, James. What's next?

James Graham34:39

My love affair with David Berry knows no bounds and it sounds like Britain when he talks about market squares and dance halls and workers going on strike and yet somehow there's a fantastical otherness to his galactic characters and the wonder and the fantasy and the magic he gave to mundane post-war British life and I guess also decades before sexual fluidity and everything else became cool. He spoke openly about his own ambiguity and as I've wandered through that journey myself, someone who constantly reinvents themselves and defies definition in such a humane and exciting and electric way is everything I want in an artist. And I really struggled to pick one like Five Years was in This House, Under Pressure was in Labour of Love in the West End. But I wanted to go more towards the end of his life and this song to me expresses the gift that I think he left us with. This was recorded just a couple of years before he died and this is Where Are We Now?

Speaker 335:43

As long as they're so

Speaker 335:49

As long as that son

Speaker 335:55

As long as death reign.

Speaker 336:01

As long as that's rain

Speaker 336:07

As long as that's fine

Presenter36:12

David Bowie and Where Are We Now? James Graham, the word prolific really doesn't do justice to your output. There was a point where it seemed like you were writing a play and TV script every single year, and in 2017, you actually had two plays, Ink and Labour of Love, in the West End in theatres 100 metres apart at the same time. What did that feel like?

James Graham36:33

That was a um you know, you spend a lot of time in in subsidized theatres or regional theatres and but you can't pretend there isn't like a real glamour and excitement to to being in with all those those lights in the centre of London. And um yeah, it was also obviously very very convenient. I could walk between rehearsals and get a coffee on the way. And yeah, yeah, it was nice.

Presenter36:48

Yeah.

Presenter36:51

This is

Presenter36:53

I love the fact that the distance allowed you to do more works, because this is very you.

James Graham36:57

Yes.

Presenter36:57

I mean, the term workaholic is thrown around quite a lot, but I think you've had an actual diagnosis, haven't you?

James Graham37:03

Yes, I I knew that I I knew something wasn't quite right in sort of my late twenties.

Presenter37:08

What happened?

James Graham37:10

I would go into periods where I would be far too isolated from friends or self-sabotage relationships as soon as they became intimate and important, and was just working like around the clock continually, but without really looking after myself. So I went to just start to speak to people about it. But I actually went to see a particular woman who probably saved me. And the first thing she said to me was she was listening to me wanging on about feelings. And she eventually just said, Why aren't you wearing a coat? And it was, I think it was winter, it was really cold outside, and I had like a really flimsy.

James Graham37:44

Paper thing on basically, right from the summer. And I just hadn't had time at that point to go out and buy a winter coat. And so I brushed it aside, but she was like obsessing about it, going, White, like you're starting to do okay. Like, why can't you go and take an hour to buy a nice coat? I was getting really frustrated with it, like, that's not the issue, it's not my. And that was obviously to her symptomatic of an inability to sometimes to look after myself. So I took that on the chin, and she said, go to this particular group, which was Workaholics Anonymous. And like you, I mentioned.

James Graham38:18

You hear that phrase a lot, like it's a

Presenter38:20

No, it's the thing people say.

James Graham38:22

Yeah, it's a habit that you have. It's not an actual sickness, but it is. And I didn't realize that at the time. And then you go into a meeting and you sit down and everyone begins to.

James Graham38:31

talk about their behaviors and you go, Oh my god, yeah, I do that, I do that, I do that and actually understanding that it is a it is an illness and it is addiction in no way different really from drink or drugs or sex or anything else. It's a pattern of behaviour that is slowly sort of killing you and people spoke of the people they lost due to it. I think the moment I realized I had a problem was I'd started to lie to my family and my friends about

Speaker 338:34

Did I

Speaker 338:35

Mm.

James Graham38:59

stupid things that didn't even need lying about. Like they would go, You look tired, what time did you get up today to work? and I would say, Oh, you know, eight and I'd say to myself, But I know I got up at five, that's really weird. Why did I why did I say that? Or I wouldn't have eaten for a l a c like a whole day.

James Graham39:18

And I think that's when I knew it was a natural problem. And then I was singing out from that, realizing that that also fed into my issues around relationships and intimacy, because I was all of my self-esteem, all of my validation, all of my happiness and joy was coming from work. And I didn't allow myself to believe that there was space for anything else.

Presenter39:39

It's complicated as well because you obviously love your work.

James Graham39:42

I know, that's why it's really hard. So the dilemma I've always had and the dilemma I'm still in sitting here today is that I know I have an unhealthy relationship with it and that my balance is way off. But I it gives me such joy. It gives me such value and happiness.

James Graham39:58

to get up in the morning and write or to be in a rehearsal room with a company of actors or to go on set and I don't know how to split the two. I don't know how to well I do. It must be possible to balance your work and your love with with other things and I'm aware of it. I have amazing friends and family who I've sort of come out to and said I have this problem and who check in on me and check that I'm okay. I don't know if I'll ever get it completely right.

James Graham40:26

And this will sound really stupid, but even like you mentioned, the two plays on it at the same time, like 90% of me was just like really happy and proud of that. There was like 10% of me that going, that's part of your you know, you look up at the lights and you go, that's part of your illness, isn't it? Like, that's ridiculous, James. Nobody needs to be aware of that. And everyone's going, that's so amazing, which actually then feeds into your cycle of self-validation. And you go, well, wa why don't I have three plays on at the same time? Why don't I have four?

Presenter40:42

A manifestation is too many.

James Graham40:53

You just have to, yeah. So I'm aware of it and it's um but it's tough because God, I just I'm so lucky and I just love it so much.

Presenter40:55

It's um

Presenter40:59

Work in progress then.

James Graham41:00

Indeed.

Presenter41:01

Let's have some more music. James, it's uh your seventh choice today. What is it?

James Graham41:05

I got to write a musical recently with Elton John, who you may have heard of.

Presenter41:10

I mean familiar with and Jake Shears.

James Graham41:11

Anne Jake Shears. Anne Jake Shears, who did the lyrics, Alton did the music, and I wrote the script of the book. And this was called Tammy Faye, and we opened it at the Almeida Theatre in London, set in the world of televangelism in the 1980s, and this extraordinary woman, Tammy Faye Baker, who came from that world of the Christian evangelical right. And yet she was this huge empath who basically welcomed in at the time the gay community into her television shows. And she invited famously a pastor who had been diagnosed HIV positive. She invited him onto the show at a time when that was a complete no-no. So she pushed up against the prejudices of the church because her whole her faith was about love and acceptance and tolerance. And so even though this hasn't been released yet, because we're building up to our Broadway show later this year, this is sung by the extraordinary Katie Braben who played Tammy Faye. She won an Olivier for this role. And this is called If You Came to See Me Cry.

Speaker 141:41

You had b

Speaker 342:08

If you came to see me cry, You might as well grow wings to fly.

Speaker 342:15

I could fall from heaven's high

Speaker 342:18

But the pain won't cloud my eyes I do it all again I did my best up to the end Maybe you should wonder why

Speaker 342:31

You came to watch me cry.

Presenter42:39

If You Came to See Me Cry from Tammy Faye the Musical, composed by Sorrelton John, with lyrics by Jake Shears, performed by Katie Braben. And best of luck with taking that to Broadway, Jake's cream. So, the Tammy Faye show and many others of yours, I mean, Quiz, for example, interestingly, they do all seem to examine these questions around the contemporary morality. What does it mean to be good, to do the right thing? Are those questions that you spend a lot of time with yourself, your own personal life?

Speaker 142:50

Yeah.

James Graham43:09

I'm not imagining, I hope, a brilliant, glorious past when everyone behaved decently with one another, but I do think we're living through an incredibly dangerous and troubled time in the sense that there is new currency to division and short-term division or long-term division for short-term gain in our politics. And you can feel some of that being embedded into the fabric of sort of the institutions that I love to put and examine on stage and screen.

Presenter43:33

And and are you an optimist? Are you hopeful today?

James Graham43:37

Totally, yeah.

James Graham43:39

I can't actually think sort of when

James Graham43:42

I last wrote a story that sort of had an unhappy ending, and I don't think that's imposing artificial optimism onto stories that don't naturally have them, but I think a bit like Dear David Bowie, who infused his own work with such hope and belief in people and their innate goodness, that yeah, I can't let go of that for my own characters, even in sort of difficult and troubled times.

Presenter44:06

Where do you go when you need to up your reserves of hope and optimism?

James Graham44:10

The theatre. I find it incredible still that we, in the age of Netflix and everything else, that we still do this quite bizarre thing. I always think of aliens visited the planet, the theatre within the thing that would most confuse them. Like, why do you so what, you all go into a dark room and pretend that something is real when you know it's not, for what value? And we do do it. And I find every play has an innate sort of hope to it. Even if it's a really traumatic story or a really difficult, upsetting tale of injustice of which God knows there are many, the act of gathering around it and telling it gives me hope because if we can do that, then maybe we can find solutions.

Presenter44:51

I'm going to be casting you away to a completely new scene. You'll have to create a new world on the desert island.

James Graham44:55

Optic

James Graham44:57

Damn.

Presenter44:57

How do you feel about Life as a Castaway?

James Graham45:01

Okay with it. Like, honestly, I could do the rest, I could do with the sleep. And how will you be with the rest, though? Be honest, James. I'll take a morning off. Once I've crushed landed, I'll take a morning off and then I'll start working on some on some stuff. But no, I mean, yeah. And I guess also the joy of the Desert Island is. Always the possibility that you're going to be saved the next day or the day after or the day after, and I'm sure that will keep me going.

Presenter45:24

You got to stay hopeful.

James Graham45:25

Yeah.

Presenter45:26

Well, we'd love to hear one last track from you before you go. Your final choice today, is it gonna be?

James Graham45:31

I spend a lot of time thinking about political songs and protest songs from Bob Dylan onwards and I guess this one in particular, this is by Rufus Wainwright. I really value it because even though it is politically charged, it was written about America during the time of the war on terror, it still somehow yet manages to be a popular, soaring, theatrical, arty, moving, melodically satisfying, soft song. And actually, I bumped into Rufus in a thick. This sounds so pretentious, but yes, bumped into Rufus at an opening night recently. I was too scared to say anything to him. I stood next to him at the bar. The only gift I gave him was that they were about to close the bar and after I got my drink, I indicated that he should be served. So I gave him a glass of champagne, but I was too scared to say, I'm going to put you on Desert Island discs. But he's here anyway, and this is going to a town.

Speaker 346:23

I'm going to a town that has already been burnt down

Speaker 346:31

I'm going to a place that has already been described

Speaker 346:39

I'm gonna see some folks who have already been let down I'm so tired of America

Speaker 146:46

Uh

Speaker 146:47

Uh

Presenter46:53

Rufus Wainwright and Going to a Town. So, James Graham, I'm going to send you away to the island now. I'll give you the Bible, the complete works of Shakespeare, and you can take one other book, whatever you fancy, with you. What will it be?

James Graham47:06

I've really wrestled, but actually I've just gone with A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. Never read it, and this would be a good opportunity to bank that in my brain. It's something about time passing, which I've always had a bit of an anxiety about, about getting older, and there's something about not thinking of the time on the island as being wasted, because time is relative, as Hawking told us, and I think keeping that in my head would be good for my mental health and knowing that, yeah, that the time on the island essentially is not a waste of time, it's meant to be.

Presenter47:35

Oh, it's going to be the perfect book for you. It's yours. You could also have a luxury item, would you like?

James Graham47:40

I'd love to have like a keg of whiskey, if that's right. Like a single malt Scottish whisky.

Presenter47:43

Oh.

Presenter47:45

Well, and whiskey for you is a creative inspiration. I mean, you've written a play about whiskey for a while. I've written a play about whiskey.

James Graham47:49

I've read a play about whiskey which meant I had to do unfortunately a lot of research which was tax-deductible. But yes, like a keg of whiskey is actually a living, breathing thing. It ages and evolves every year and it's alive. It's like basically having a pet that I can drink. And I think knowing that every single year the whisky will be tasting different and will be maturing and developing characteristics, that means that again, it would help me pass the time knowing that the whisky is growing while I'm growing.

Presenter48:15

Finally, which one track of the eight that you've shared with us today, James, would you rush to save from the waves if you needed to?

James Graham48:21

I'm definitely going to need David Bowie with me on the island and there is something about that particular track. I love the lyrics at the end. Essentially he sings as long as there's sun, as long as there's rain, as long as there's fire, as long as there's me, as long as there's you. And I just love that about him and I think his parting gift to all of us as Bowie fans was that sense of hope and optimism about the human spirit.

Presenter48:43

This island sounds like it's going to be great.

James Graham48:45

Thanks. Come along.

Presenter48:47

James Graham, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

James Graham48:50

Thanks so much.

Presenter49:13

Hello, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with James and I hope he savers every mouthful of his whiskey. We've cast away many screenwriters and playwrights including David Hare, Tom Stoppard and Kay Meller. James's friend Jack Thorne is in our archive too. You can find these episodes in our Desert Island Discs programme archive and through BBC Sounds. The studio manager for today's programme was Duncan Hannands. The assistant producer was Christine Pavlovsky and the producer was Paula McGinley. The series editor is John Gowdy. Next time my guest will be Jenny Seely, the artistic director of Grey Eye Theatre Company. I do hope you'll join us.

Speaker 149:56

Hello, Russell Kane here. I used to love British history. Be proud of it. Henry VIII, Queen Victoria, massive fan of stand-up comedians. Obviously, Bill Hicks, Richard Pryor. That has become much more challenging for I am the host of BBC Radio 4's Evil Genius, the show where we take heroes and villains from history and try to work out were they evil or genius. Do not catch up on BBC Sounds by searching Evil Genius if you don't want to see your heroes destroyed. But if, like me, you quite enjoy it, have a little search. Listen to Evil Genius with me, Russell Kane. Go to BBC Sounds and have your world destroyed.