P - The Queen's Theatre

Absolutely Frank
Onlookers show their encouragement as the Calendar Girls bare
all in the 2003 film
Tim Firth and Willy Russell worked and
performed together on The Singing Playwrights.
Do you identify with either Frank or Alan
Part of me identifies with both. You have to, to be
able to care. I particularly identify with the hidden
sense of failure in Frank. That’s a ghost that stalks us
all. Or maybe it’s just me and Frank.
The dialogue between Frank and Alan is very
realistic. How do you achieve this Do you
ever eavesdrop on other people’s
conversations for example
I spend my life eavesdropping but again, never
consciously. A writer should be a sponge rather than
a spy.
You once said your writing had a more
populist ambition, compared to playwrights
who wanted to explore serious social issues.
Are the everyday lives of ordinary people
important and interesting enough to write
plays about
The truth is that the mundane is rarely universal.
The putting up of giant letters on a windswept
Tesco was probably mundane to the two guys doing
it. The tragedy is we rarely get to find out how
intriguing our lives are to other people. That’s one
job of a dramatist.
What other things, ideas, people or
places inspire your writing
I’ve never met or visited anything that couldn’t inspire
a play, looked at from the right angle. Everything
has the potential to be a gateway into the dramatic
or comedic. Even the taxi cab booth outside
Hornchurch Tube station. I mean what is that building
next to it What’s going on Is there a secret top
floor Discuss.
You attended a writing course at the Arvon
Foundation because it was taught by Willy
Russell, the writer of the hit musical Blood
Brothers. You have since toured the country
together in The Singing Playwrights, where
you both sang and played music on stage.
What was that like
A nightmare. When we went on tour together he used
to set brutal traps for me in the dressing room. He’s
had nothing to do with me since I admitted to liking
couscous. He is bitterly anti-couscous.
As you are also passionate about music,
which do you prefer - writing songs or plays
Songs which ARE plays.
You are perhaps currently best-known for
your screen hit Calendar Girls. How do you
think it became such a huge success
Someone once wrote that it’s the only time they have
laughed and cried at the same time and I think
somewhere in there lies the answer to that question.
What projects are you currently working
on and what have you got planned for
the future
I have written a stage comedy based on the film of
Calendar Girls, which will begin in the autumn. The
musical Our House starts going on tour round the
country this spring.
What do you hope audiences will take away
from Absolutely Frank
The play comes down on the line that ambition can
ruin your life as much as make it. Happiness is
something you may have already without realising it.