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Jackie Holborough Interview

Playwright and screenwriter Jackie Holborough was writer in residence at the Bush Theatre in London. Her plays Garden Girls (Time Out Award) and Dreams of San Franscisco (Thames TV Best Play Award) were produced there. She developed a play for the National Theatre Studio, The Way South, which was produced at the Studio, the Bush, and adapted for radio. She has written for Casualty, Medics, London’s Burning, Chandler & Co and Silent Witness. She then wrote a three part screen adaptation of Barbara Vine’s crime novel Gallowglass for the BBC and has since written other adaptations for work by Ruth Rendell, Clare Frances and Frances Fyfield.

I was an actress before becoming a writer and worked with various companies. I began writing because I wanted to find suitable material for a group of a dozen women.

My first play was publicly performed at York Arts Centre and then given a rehearsed reading at the Royal Court Theatre. It was extremely thrilling to have a group of excellent professional actors performing my work, although the director of the reading wouldn’t allow me to attend rehearsals in case I unsettled the actors. Thank goodness that sort of attitude is rare in theatre.

I wrote a one-woman play for myself and premiered it at the Edinburgh Festival and then a national tour. I joined the Royal Court writers group on invitation and then I was asked to become Arts Council contract writer at the University of Aston in Birmingham Triangle theatre for six months. I wrote my first full length play which was performed at Midlands New Writing Festival. At this stage, I realized I might have a future as a writer and I gradually gave up acting in favour of writing.

My favourite all-time writer is Tennessee Williams, I just love the atmosphere, tension and poetry of his wonderful work. Of contemporary writers, Snoo Wilson is probably my favourite- his play More Light would be among my top five theatrical experiences ever. On television there’s a wider sweep of writers I admire.

It’s extremely difficult for television writers to gain recognition, even when they’re ... sign up to WriteWords to read more

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