“Having spent most of the last 50 years writing things for other people to say, I thought it was time to have a conversation with myself. Performing – and seeing myself on film – has been a revelation,“ David Edgar tells me.
“It turns out that I have taken to performing like a duck to water. It’s been a very rewarding experience and I am really enjoying it”
The British playwright and writer who has had more than 60 of his plays published and performed on stage, radio and television around the world, extensively at the RSC and The National, having reached the age of 70 with every accolade a playwright could hope for, he decided now was the time to debut his own one man show Trying It On.
And the subject matter? His 20 year-old self confronting his 70 year-old self.
Fired up in his youth about the events of 1968 – including the Vietnam war, Enoch Powell’s infamous “rivers of blood” speech and the assassination of Martin Luther King – it helped define the famous playwright’s politics and give focus to his writing.
“It’s a story of someone who was caught up in those early movements and what my older self thinks of that. Universal questions that everyone can ask themselves about being young and what happens to that generation as it gets older.
“What is the difference between a 20 year-old me then and a 20-year-old now? I wanted to challenge the audience as much as myself,” he tells me.
“There were things I said then that were rather grandiose, but I had such enthusiasm, passion, and energy that we don’t posses as we get older. But should we? Can we?”
He also asks in Trying It On whether it was all worthwhile, whether it was realistic, whether it came to anything.
In trying to answer his own questions, David prepared for his stage debut by reflecting on the legacy of the worldwide student revolt of 1968 (when he was 20 and at university), and drawing on first person interviews with some of the leading political figures of the time, as well as contemporary activists.
“The solo show has become an art form in its own right, so I use videos, film and interviews to explain the story and the context of my generation set against the social and political background of the time,” he explains.
Despite his misgivings, Trying It On has been an unmitigated success, selling out at Edinburgh Fringe, and is now on tour.
He puts much of this down to good timing, adding: “I think we are entering a new era of political activism – there is a new upsurge,”
He also argues fiercely that we are as active now politically as he was then with #MeToo, climate change, equal pay, student fees, equality and Black Lives Matter campaigns currently raging around the globe.
So how has the whole experience of appearing on stage been? And do the little grey cells stand up to the rigorous process? “I have an autocue which is important for someone in their 70s, to give me a safety net, but I enjoy doing it a lot.”
“The last time I performed on a stage was as Captain Bligh in a student production of Mutiny on the Bounty, in the early 1970s. So, in retrospect, I have been quite stage struck – the audience response, meeting people afterwards, the rituals before you go on which border on superstitious they all made me realise I quite like the theatre.”
“It turns out that I have taken to performing like a duck to water,” he smiles. “It’s been a very rewarding experience, and I am really enjoying it.”
David also says the whole experience of writing and appearing in Trying It On has been transformative in terms of how he now sees actors within a production: “I recently adapted A Christmas Carol for the RSC and saw the actors through the prism of having done it myself.
“I am much more tolerant about the process and how performances change as a result, and I respect that much more because otherwise a show can get stale. It’s been very educational in that respect,” he says.
Whether this is the beginning of something or not, David would only say: “I can see myself going back to it. I wouldn’t be surprised
“But I am very excited about appearing in Oxford. I was the Humanitas Visiting Professor in Drama at Brasenose for four years which was very enjoyable, concentrating on independent play writing, so I’m looking forward to coming back”.
Trying It On runs at The North Wall Arts Centre in Oxford on Tuesday 24 and Wednesday 25 September. Full review to follow.
