Polly Stenham interview

In The Observer, Lynn Barber talks to playwright Polly Stenham, whose new play, Tusk Tusk, opens at The Royal Court next week.

It's so strange, when every twenty-something in the world seems to want to write for movies, to find one who wants to write for theatre. But she says her father took her to the theatre from a very young age and she always loved it. "And theatre's more for the writer really, isn't it? It's more your vision, whereas writers get sacked on films, or they have 17 different writers, and you're much more a hired hack. I'm not saying that I won't go there – and I am doing the screenplay of That Face – but I love the simplicity and kind of groundedness that you just write a play and send it in and they say yes or no, and then you get some actors and rehearse it for four weeks and it goes on. No crap about money, no million people involved, no diluting it – oldest form of storytelling in the world, you know?"