Young Playwright Interviews: Andrew Birch

The next in our series of interviews with the Young Playwrights from our Young Playwrights Programme features Andrew Hamish Birch.

Why are you drawn to the theatre?

I love the messages and issues that are put forward in plays and shows. One of the first proper things I did, theatre-wise, was be in a play called Blackout being put on by the Bunbury Banter team, and it was this quite intense piece about being misunderstood and making mistakes and bad choices, and I think I do, even still now, resonate with that play. There’s also such a wide range of people within theatre, you get to meet so many wonderfully different and amazing people. I’ve met lots of people that I don’t think I would’ve ever met if hadn’t done this, and worked with great playwrights and actors and all sorts of people.

Tell me about your final piece? How hard was it to find an idea that worked? Did you struggle over it or did it come easily?

My final piece was definitely a struggle. I had a few ideas I was trying to sort through. One idea was a kind of farce comedy and I also had an idea to write about my anxiety, but the thought of that really scared me. But I eventually thought back to when we had practised writing scripts where the characters said, “I love you” to each other, without actually saying the words. I hadn’t thought I had done very well with that exercise at the time, so I really wanted to write another romance script, but that alone didn’t feel enough so I came up with the more fantastical element of one of the characters being something more than human. I’m really interested in fantasy and magic, and so often when creating ideas for writing, I tend to start in the fantastical and make it more and more grounded and human, but for this particular piece I wanted to stay somewhere in the realms of the fantastical because I think my writing is better suited to that area.

 

In what way do you think the support of the Bunbury Banter team was helpful to you?

They have been fantastic, they have been nothing but the best throughout all of this. I have definitely had very low moments where I didn’t feel as though I could carry on with the writing I was doing with them, but they were always there to let me know that it’s all OK and I don’t need stress myself out with the work because it’ll get done eventually. Even when I was lagging behind with some of my work and not making deadlines, they still didn’t stress me out, they just kept reminding me to carry on and get it done.

 

Do you hope to work in theatre in the future? In what capacity?

I absolutely want to work in the theatre in the future. I really want to go into stage management and producing. I’m currently at college for visual communication but I’m working with my lecturer on how I can aim my work more towards theatre-related things. I am very much hoping and planning to go the Scottish Conservatoire. I’m already looking at courses I want to be on starting next year.

 

Interview by Claire Watts