Roy Williams interview

In The Guardian, Simon Hattenstone talks to Guild member Roy Williams about his new play Sucker Punch which opens at the Royal Court in London on Friday and is set in 1985.

As much as anything, Williams wanted to capture the selfishness of the Thatcher era. Every character betrays somebody close to them. "They're all dispensable at some point. This is what the 1980s did to people. It made them behave that way." He doesn't do heroes and villains; he prefers the grey areas. So Charlie, who walks out on Leon when he discovers he is going out with his daughter, is basically a good man, struggling with changing times. In his 2002 play Sing Yer Heart Out for the Lads, Williams even gave an incendiary white supremacist some charm and a load of intelligence. "I wouldn't know how to write a hero," he says. "I wouldn't know where to start. I'm certainly no hero. I've done my share of stupid things." Such as? He talks about all the times he bunked off school or did his best to screw up his future.