The director John Young talks to Damon Fairclough about the Everyman’s new production of The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher.

 

The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher is a new play based on Hilary Mantel’s original short story. It’s an exciting project, so could you briefly outline what it’s about?

Set in the late summer of 1983, it’s a real-time psychological thriller about two people from completely different worlds who collide and connect in the oddest of circumstances. Through that experience they unpack all kinds of things about the politics of individuals and society. It’s centred on Margaret Thatcher, of course, but it’s about a lot more than that too.

 

Did you already know the short story before getting involved in this production?

I read it when it was first published in The Guardian in 2014, and my first thought was, “This is a play!”

The story inherently feels really theatrical. We’ve got two people in a room with a gun, and they’re deciding whether or not they should shoot one of the most controversial figures ever in British history. That, dramatically, felt really interesting.

 

How are you approaching the transition from short story to stage play?

If you were to present exactly what’s written in the story, you’re looking at around 20 to 25 minutes. So Alex is expanding on that, which means we’ve got to work out what these two characters are talking about. And also, how do you spread the tension across the whole play? I think the key to that is the characters.

Right at the start we meet Caroline, who lives in a flat in Windsor close to where Margaret Thatcher is having an eye operation, and Brendan, a younger man who arrives at the flat. There’s a dark comedy to this situation, so it’s about mixing the danger with the comedy, and trying to keep the tension throughout.

 

 

As in the original story, the character of Brendan is from Liverpool. How does it feel to be creating the play for the Everyman?

The Everyman feels like the perfect home for it – because of the characters naturally, but also because the place has a history and a legacy of producing amazing new writing for its Liverpool audience.

I think what Nathan Powell, the theatre’s creative director, is doing with the Everyman is really exciting. I was so inspired and excited by meeting Nathan and hearing about his plans for the Everyman, and it feels like such a perfect combination. Nathan wants to make plays that are about the city and that sing to a Liverpool audience, but that are also universal and feel like they matter on a bigger scale. I think this play does that perfectly.

 

Is it your first time working here?

It is, but I live in Chester so I consider the Everyman to be one of my local theatres. It’s a theatre I’ve visited a lot, and I’ve seen loads of work here, and I’ve always wanted to make something here.

One of the gorgeous things about the Everyman space is that it can do both intimacy and ‘massiveness’ really well. I think that’s what this play does. You’re in a small flat with just two people, but the ideas and subjects they’re talking about are enormous. It’s about this flat, but it’s also about the world, and I think the space in Liverpool does that really beautifully.

 

What themes are at the heart of the play?

I think the idea of class is huge. It should be a play about class, about the two different sides. I also think it’s a play about violence, and about what happens when people feel they don’t have a voice. Attached to that are ideas about how political change can be made, and how dangerous it is when people feel they don’t have anything to lose.

There are also big themes about what Thatcher means to us now, and what she meant, and her relationship to a divided Britain. And of course, the relationship between Thatcher and Liverpool. I really care about audiences connecting to the material. I want to make a piece that makes Liverpool audiences feel, “Yeah, that means something to me.”

 

How do you think people will react to a play with themes like these?

Theatrically, the brilliant thing about someone like Margaret Thatcher is that she really divides people. I’m too young to have known her as prime minister, but growing up in a working-class environment, I just knew she was supposed to be bad. But there are whole swathes of people who would argue that what she did was incredible. So I think people’s responses are going to be interesting.

 

Why do you think this is the right time to do this play?

It almost seems to have become more topical since the short story was written. The murder, or attempted murder, of politicians in our own country and abroad has become more commonplace as we’ve become a more divided country. The current protests show that people feel really angry, and that’s what a lot of this play is about.

Also, part of the problem at the moment is that people are not listening to each other, we’re not actually having a debate and we’re not hearing the other side. We’re just in attack mode all the time. Whereas what’s good about this play is that we’ll be able to see two people having a nuanced, in-depth conversation about politics from two sides of the spectrum.

 

How would you sum up what you want The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher to be?

Dangerous. Thrilling. Thought-provoking. This is edge-of-your-seat stuff. It needs to grab the audience and hold them before letting them go. This is definitely one of those plays where you hope that when it finishes, people go for a drink and have a conversation about it. You want people to engage with it in that way.

It’s also a funny play, and I do want it to be a play for everyone. I think it should have the appeal of an exciting Netflix drama – the audience won’t know where it’s going to go, and it’s surprising, and it’s a bit of a buffet in terms of there being loads of stuff for people to grab onto.

 

Whether people know the short story or not, what will they discover when they come and see this play?

I think it has something for everyone. At its core it’s a political play, but it’s also about two people, two humans who connect and who are from different worlds. And if you give one of them a gun and you lock the door… that’s even more interesting!

It really isn’t just a play for people who have an opinion or strong feeling towards Maggie Thatcher. I hope to make a piece of theatre that engages, that’s about people, about lives that collide, about people trying to understand each other, probing each other, asking questions and coming together, and bridging that divide.

 

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