Interview: Making A Show of our Politics

Emma Burnell on Triggered

Earlier this year, Emma Burnell‘s Triggered sold out its run in the lovely Lion & Unicorn Theatre. It’s now about to start a second run in the equally delightful White Bear Theatre from 22 November. Although it might be too late to get tickets as this has now sold out too! (We recommend checking with the venue for returns.) But sold out or not, we still grabbed the chance to chat with Emma about the show, reviewing herself and selling out.

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Diving straight in, tell us what audiences can expect from Triggered?

Triggered is about the fictional deselection of a Labour MP. So first and foremost, it’s a play about political processes and the people to whom they matter.

But in truth, it’s about the real human beings that get involved in politics. I tried to look at the question of deselections from every angle – without taking a view. When we showed it the first time in the summer, we had the head of Momentum (the pro-Corbyn organisation) in and the head of Labour to Win (the pro-Starmer group) who both enjoyed it and both thought it made their case!

We get a laugh out of the byzantine nature of the rulebook, but what I wanted to show is that people in politics at all levels are trying to do their best. There aren’t any bad guys in Triggered – just good people with different perspectives.

Triggered played a short run earlier this year in Lion & Unicorn, how did you feel went? Have you changed or revisited anything in the play for this second run?

It went really well. We had incredibly responsive audiences who seemed to really love it. It was so interesting talking to them afterward and hearing their responses to it. Everyone has a different theory about it! It is so funny when people tell me that I wrote it with one aim or another in mind – and they all contradict each other. But the joy is – they do want to talk about it afterwards. That makes me feel like we’ve really achieved something.

I believe you had some Labour MPs attend, did they have any feedback on how the play reflected life in the Labour party?

They said it was almost too real! One night we even had a Labour whip in at the same time as an MP who was in trouble with leadership and whips. Luckily none of them was Gavin Williamson and everything was fine. The Whip was laughing a lot at the scenes about the discipline so that was good.

They were actually kind enough to make a video of their reactions.

It must be a fantastic feeling to have sold out your second run but does it also bring any additional nerves or pressure with it?

In some ways I think it makes it easier. Audiences are lovely and responsive and give the actors so much energy. So, when we play to a full house, I think it just helps us all bring just a little something extra. However, we do need to make sure that whatever size of audience we’re playing for, we give it everything. The cast are so brilliant, I know they could and would deliver to one man and a dog.

However many people are there though, the thing is that they have paid us their money to be there. That’s not something I take lightly in these times. As someone who has (and still does) reviewed, I know that an audience’s time is precious and valuable. We owe them the best show we can give them.

During a recent round of chaos in British politics, there was a tweet from James Graham which said Don’t any of you buggers call anything political I ever write again ‘implausible’. It made me wonder, how do you approach presenting a play that audiences can believe and respect in a time when we have such unprecedented political chaos?

It’s interesting with this play. My first play – No Cure For Love – was set in a world I know nothing about. And yet both characters are me. They’re an extension of an argument I have in my head about love and sex all the time.

Here this is totally my world. I have worked in politics for 20 years. But none of the characters are me at all. In fact, at times I disagree with all of them.

But I knew that we would have a lot of people coming who would be really really bothered by us getting details wrong. So I learned the rulebook backwards. I got someone who does sit on an NEC panel to look over the script to make sure we wouldn’t be jarring people out of the action with something unrealistic.

This is your second play, plus you’re also a journalist and theatre reviewer. How have you found this new role as playwright and director? Has it affected how you approach your own reviews now that you have had a full view behind the stage curtain?

I learned so much about directing from reviewing. So many night watching plays that either entranced me or left me cold or were even just a bit middling, I wasn’t just responding in the moment, but thinking deeply about why that was. And making sure I understood that well enough for myself that I could articulate it in a way that others could find helpful.

It is so much harder reviewing now. Because I know so much how it feels to be critiqued in that way. But I also know that I am not – eventually – doing anyone any favours if I am not honest. If I give a play a low score, then I always make sure that I say why in the review. What it was that didn’t work for me and why so that – if they want to – they can address it. I hate reviews that are just about the reviewer showing off and being catty and arch or even about them celebrating the theme of the piece rather than the theatre of it.

For me reviews serve two purposes: firstly helping a hard pressed audience find something that they might want to go and watch; secondly, championing a piece that has really moved me (to laughter, tears or thoughtfulness) and that I think deserves shouting about.

If something is not great, I feel a duty to that first audience to say so, but to the second to justify why I think so.

Will we see more of Triggered, two sold out runs would suggest there might be a bright future for this particular play? Do you have anything else in the pipeline at the moment that you can tell us about?

I mean obviously if a much larger theatre wanted to develop Triggered that would be great. I am extremely proud of it as a piece (*awaits reviews – GULP*). A lot of people on Twitter have also mentioned that they would love to see it in their town, and I think political theatre like Triggered is having a real moment so I think there’s an audience there. What I don’t have is a budget to tour a four actor show or a producer with the know how! I’m open to conversation though – as that would be the dream.

I am also already working on my next piece of theatre – a one-woman cabaret show loosely based on the Medusa myth. And if I don’t chicken out, the one woman is going to be me. On stage for real, acting and even bloody singing!

I am also – somewhat bizarrely – potentially working on a Hollywood film with a guy who used to be my music teacher and is now an Emmy nominated composer. As Ferris Bueller says – life comes at you pretty fast sometimes.

Finally, for a bit of fun as we touched on your journalism and reviewing background above. What question should we have asked you here but managed to miss out and if you’d kindly answer it for us too 😉

These have been great questions. I suppose the question I am asking myself as I type these answers late on Sunday night is how I fit it all in. Which I don’t really know the answer to yet.

I know that the question I get a lot from theatre friends is whether I want to be an MP. My political friends know from the state of my Twitter (I am exceptionally indiscreet about myself) that I never would.

The truth is I would be a terrible MP. I know lots of people who do it brilliantly and they are so dedicated – I hope that respect shows in the piece. But I like to flit from theatre to politics to journalism. I like to write about sex and love and my past and potentially my future and all of those things would make me very unlikely to get through a selection process or to put up with doing the same job for years and years.

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Thanks so much to Emma for taking time to chat with us, you can follow her on Twitter and visit her website here.

Triggered plays at White Bear Theatre 22 – 26 November and has sold out it’s run. Look for our Everything Theatre review to follow.