“I was in John Lewis about two years ago and there was a girl wearing a t-shirt that just said ‘You’re So Gay’ and I really just wanted to say ‘Yeah, I fucking am! What’s the matter with that?'”
We’re at a rehearsal in South London of Jonathan Harvey’s new play and he’s explaining exactly what he thinks of the current youth appropriation of this word.
“I get on trains,” he continues, “and kids say ‘Oh don’t sit on that chair, it’s well gay,’ and it just gets on my tits. I’ll always challenge people who use it.”
There’s a specific reason we’re talking about young people’s attitude to homosexuality; Harvey’s new play Tomorrow I’ll be Happy is one of the plays being performed as part of the National Theatre’s Connections, a festival of new writing and youth theatre making, and the subject of Jonathan’s contribution is homophobic bullying.
Begun in 1997, Connections is a fantastic opportunity for teenagers to get involved in theatre at the very highest level. Each year the National Theatre asks ten playwrights at the top of their game to write a 45-60 minute play. They then farm out the plays to any youth theatre group who wants to have a go. The performances, all around the country, are judged and a group is chosen to perform each of the plays on the stage of the National. This year there are two on each night from July 3-8.
And this year, surprisingly, is Jonathan Harvey’s first Connections year.
Tomorrow I’ll be Happy is a tale told backwards, beginning at Darren’s graveside. Marcus has just returned home from sea and is unaware of what’s happened to his friend. Through his inquiries, we learn the fate of Darren and it’s not pretty. He’s been murdered by people he knows simply because he’s gay.
As the play unfolds, in reverse, we see the consequences of the group’s actions. We then we go back to the fatal night, and through to the months before Darren’s death, where a fledgling romance with another boy shows a life that could have been.
“I wrote a play a few years ago called Canary,” says Jonathan, “and that was about the history of gay people in Britain, set over 50 years, and as I was finishing it I was thinking ‘Have things really changed?’ And around the same time I read two or three stories in the press about homophobic hate crimes. There was the case of Michael Causer in Liverpool who was attacked at a party and died, and the judge said it wasn’t a homophobic hate crime when it clearly was. Then there was the man in Charing Cross who’d left Heaven and was attacked and killed by two girls and a bloke.”
Why tell it backwards? “Well,” he says, “I tried it forwards first and it was a bit shit actually! I realised that the gay character died in the middle and then you never saw him again and I felt that was a shame. The thing I wanted to do was have secrets and a group of friends hiding things, covering something up. That was easier to do when it was told backwards. And it made it a lot more interesting to write.”
The teenage cast are told that the rehearsal will start in a couple of minutes so we all take our places. Jonathan is today’s guest of honour and it’s the first time he’s seen the play performed by the winning company, LOST Youth Theatre. I expected the cast to be nervous, but they’re nonchalant as only teenagers can be and seem unfazed by the presence of the famous playwright whose words they’re bringing to life.
The first scene is run through and I’m amazed, again, this time at the quality of the performances. The script proves to be funny and touching, just what you’d expect from a play written by the author of Beautiful Thing and who’s now a lead writer on Coronation Street.
They take a break and ask Jonathan what he thinks. “I’m sorry to start off so negatively,” he says, “but Kennedy, you need to open your mouth wider as I couldn’t hear what you were saying. I wrote this play to be heard and it’ll be a real pity if people don’t get the plot because of the enunciation.”
He’s right, although the LOST Theatre auditorium itself isn’t helping. It’s acoustics are so bad that the performers might as well be speaking into a black hole. “It’ll feel odd at first,” he tries to soften the blow, “but it’s needed.” And Kennedy is noticeably clearer for the rest of the run-through.
Talk turns to prams. A bit of comedy ‘pram-won’t-fit-through-the-door’ shenanigans are needed as Cyprus (the play’s funniest character) is shown glued to one throughout the piece. “I imagined it as a big fuck off Silver Cross one,” says Jonathan. “We’ll have to look into our pram repertoire,” responds NT blokey who later says that the NT will also take care that a stab wound looks up to scratch.
This is what Connections is all about. The winning company have already passed the first hurdle of being selected. Now they can expect support all the way from the National, as can the director who’s frantically scribbling notes during every scene that she then can’t decipher afterwards: “Hmmmm, I know this bit was important but I just can’t make it out.”
Sometimes she pumps Jonathan for information on what the motivation is behind a specific line. Sometimes she calls out that the blocking isn’t right, or that they’ve ‘lost it a little bit’ from the rehearsal yesterday. Jonathan’s main concern is that his play is heard properly, especially certain lines and names that give the audience the ‘clues’ they need to follow the plot.
We reach the end and the NT guy drops a bit of a bombshell on the cast: they’re performing on the very first night of the Connections run. Farran, who plays the lead girl and who looks uncannily like Billy Piper, can’t stop grinning. The others looked excited, but glance at each other nervously.
“Coming along today,” says Jonathan, “I was more excited for them than I was for me. What an opportunity! Actually, I was really excited to be writing a play specifically for young people. I remember drama at school. It as all very bog standard, or imrov stuff which was shit. I’ve always believed in the importance of good drama in schools and using it as a way of exploring difficult subjects and different issues.”
He’s chuffed that he’s been asked to write this year. “Vanity!” he laughs, “It’s going to be on at the National!” Surely he must have had other work on there over the years: “Only one play and that was at the Cottesloe in 1999.”
The work of Connections continues each year by the NT publishing the ten plays as an anthology, at which time the copyright reverts back to the authors. Anyone can then use the plays for a small fee paid to the playwright, and some past Connections plays are still going strong. Dennis Kelly (who wrote Matilda, which has conquered both the West End and Broadway) was commissioned in 2007 and came up with DNA, which has already become a GCSE core text.
“Obviously I’d love that, for my play to be on the syllabus,” Jonathan chuckles. “I would hope the play would have a bit of life after Connections. Even though it’s got a bit of swearing, I’d hope that schools would want to put it on, or at least read it in class.”
I have a chat to the cast before I go. They’re well stoked to be doing a Jonathan Harvey play. “And it’s such a good one!” says Alex who plays the murdered Darren. This is his second time at Connections, both times with LOST Theatre, and as he’s 19 it’ll be his last. He’s off to drama school next year, mind. “Connections has been fantastic for me. I’ve loved every minute. It’s been a springboard and such a boost.”
Jonathan, who plays Siddie, is more taciturn. Full of bravado onstage, being the one who knifes Darren and who ends up in nick, he’s quite shy in real life. He’s just 16 and still taking his GCSEs. “We started rehearsing this play quite a time ago,” he says, “but then had to drop it to study. I thought I’d have forgotten all the lines, but they came back to me just like that.” Ah, the memory power of youth!
The girls all disappeared in a flurry of make-up and mobile phones before I had a chance to catch them as teenage girls tend to do.
As Jonathan leaves I wish him a happy birthday. 45 today. Is he doing anything special? “Yeah, I’m off to see Sweet Bird of Youth at the Old Vic.” So he’s a big theatregoer? “Nah, not really,” he confesses, “I watch the television much more I’m afraid.”
Event: Jonathan Harvey’s new play Tomorrow I’ll be Happy at Connections
Where: The Shed, National Theatre, South Bank, London
When: July 3
Time: 8.30pm
Tickets: You’ll be lucky! But try and CLICK HERE:
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