Interview

Name: Douglas Maxwell

Occupation: Writer

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your work?

I'm a playwright living in Glasgow with my wife Caroline and my daughter Ellis.  I've been writing for 15 years, professionally for nearly ten of those.  I've had plays on all over the country and abroad.  I write for teenagers every now and then, and arguable those have been my most successful shows. My last one The Mother Ship won the Brian Way Award for Best Play For A Younger Audience 2009.

What made you become a writer?

I acted at Stirling University and ran a wee student theatre company there.  That got me into writing really.  My big break was going to the Performing Arts Lab for a week in1998.  It was run by John Retallack and I met Bryonny Lavery and Ben Harrison there.  PAL introduced me to the concept of writing for a younger audience and it immediately suited me. I wrote the first draft of Helmet there, got an agent, my play Decky Does A Bronco was picked up and it was there where I got the idea for Our Bad Magnet the first play of mine to go on.  After five years and twenty one terrible plays - which were guessing, posing and copying - I found a voice that sounded a bit like me.  
 
Who or what influences your work?

Hard to say. I read a lot and I love films and music - but who doesn`t?   I`m an apostle of Scottish Theatre too, so I`m inspired by the scene I suppose - but not really influenced.  Sometimes ideas come from real life, sometimes an idea drops in out the sky.  Sometimes I have to shake it into shape over time, sometimes the killer idea dies away on day one.  Some ideas are A sides, some B Sides you never know until you start working on it really.  They all have to mean something to me though.  There has to a personal connection to my life or I can`t do it.  I`m a personal writer I think.  I write subterranean autobiography.   So while it might mean that my work doesn`t become huge, national, political; it can be emotional.  Which is what I like.

But influences?  Springsteen mainly, he`s my north star. Dickens, Morrissey, The Simpsons, Tennessee Williams, Pixar, Angels In America, Seinfeld, The Cohen Brothers, Tom Waits, John Buchan, Gregory`s Girl, Six Feet Under, West Wing and too many Scottish plays to mention.   Ach the usuals.
 
Do you believe there are any fundamental differences in writing for young audiences than writing for adult audiences?

I think there are, but I`m not sure I can put it into words.  Maybe there shouldn`t be.  Shouldn`t all plays be fast and entertaining, emotional and connecting, unpretentious and terrified of being boring?  

In my experience I am allowed to be more creative and imaginative in my work for young people.  People trust me more to muck about with styles and use a big strong twisting actual story.  In "adult theatre" the fact I don`t use sub-text much or talk about Theme makes people a bit nervous I think.  But in my plays for younger people I can go crazy and be funny, sad, and inventive and they don`t seem to mind so much. 

Here`s a thing....No-matter how successful a play for younger people is, you don`t get the credit in the industry or the status that comes with a successful play for adults.  That sounds a bit paranoid, and it might be, but in some way a successful play for teenagers kind of doesn`t count - even though everyone knows it`s a harder job. When is a play not a play?  When teenagers might like it.  It`s funny cos when it works it`s like following the Theatre River back to its source.  When theatre for young folk works it`s theatre at it`s full mighty best, all weapons blazing and utterly unbeatable.  When it doesn`t however the audience shout out "this is shit", so it has its ups and downs.  It`s a high wire act.  

If a playwright has an idea that might appeal to both adults and teenagers it`s a marketing nightmare and although it might be a hit, it will always be relegated to the "kiddy section" of the cannon.  It`s funny cos you know what happens to a screenwriter who has an idea both teenagers and adults might like?  They move to a bigger house.  

How important do you believe Youth Theatre is?

It`s incredibly important.  Not just for all the usual reasons... confidence, literacy, social ability, skill building, developing imagination and empathy for other human beings; but also I think that the act of putting plays on teaches big deep lessons about life.  There`s an idea, you work with other people to make it better than you imagined, it excites you, the excitement spreads, then you rehearse.  You work, work, work at getting right.  And that takes ages and god it`s hard. But you`re still not finished - you have to take a massive leap of faith and go out there and perform.  You`ve got to actually do it for it to mean anything. And when you`ve done all that... well... it feels like nothing else.  You get the strange reward that you were looking for.  And then it disappears and you have to do it all again the next night.
 
What is the next project for you?

Unusually I`ve a very busy year coming up.  I`m writing a play for the NT Connections project called Too Fast.  I have a one woman play touring in February called Promises Promises.  The National Theatre of Scotland are using a new play of mine called The Miracle Man as the centre-piece of a season in March-April of work for teenagers and in the summer my play Decky Does a Bronco returns for its tenth anniversary.  And then, for pudding, I have a new musical called The Bookie opening next winter.   

So this time next year my career will be over.  Again.

MORE INTERVIEWS