The Archers star Katie Redford offers joyous new comedy about beaches, bonding and body image

SussexWorld

Written by Katie Redford – Lily Pargetter in the Radio 4 series – it explores “family relationships, the agony of growing up and how to find your way in the world when you can’t help thinking you’re just not good enough.”

Transcript

00:00 Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor for Sussex Newspapers. It's lovely

00:06 this afternoon to speak to Katie Redford. Now, Katie is the author of a fabulous sounding

00:11 play which is on tour at the moment with dates including Brighton and Guildford. 'Wish You

00:16 Weren't Here' is the title, which kind of suggests immediately the setting, doesn't

00:21 it? This is a play essentially about holidays and what holidays bring out, isn't it?

00:28 Yes, yes. It is an accumulation of voices, young people's voices that I worked with as

00:37 part of the process about being on holiday with your family and most of that holiday

00:44 is spent not wanting to be there.

00:48 So the holidays are a time potentially of tension, aren't they, I guess?

00:53 Yeah, I mean, holidays are, you know, a lot of people that I spoke to, we talked about

01:02 the idea of holidays having this huge expectation behind them. We've all got to have a really

01:10 good time. We've paid for this holiday, so we're going to get the most out of it. We're

01:15 all going to get on, no one's going to argue and we're going to come back changed people.

01:22 And I mean, that's never really the case.

01:26 Yeah, you're saying you do that as well. You have those expectations and you can go

01:29 on holiday.

01:30 Yeah, every time I go on holiday.

01:31 It's like a summer version of Christmas, isn't it? You heap up the pressure on yourself.

01:35 It really is actually, it's similar to Christmas in that way that sometimes as well, if you

01:39 go back to the same place, you compare it to the last one and you're like, 'Oh, it's

01:43 good as you know what?' and all these reasons and it stops you from just simply enjoying

01:48 your time away.

01:49 And that makes it inherently a good starting point for a drama, doesn't it? Well, set the

01:55 scene with this play, what happens?

01:58 Yeah, so it's about a mother taking her teenage daughter back to where they used to go to

02:08 when they were younger on holiday, to the British East Side town, Scarborough.

02:12 Where they used to go?

02:14 Where I used to go, yeah, with my family, year in, year out. And the mother is so desperate

02:24 to reconnect with her daughter and she feels a bit like they've drifted lately. However,

02:32 it's quickly proven that the daughter has other ideas. And there's a lot that comes

02:41 out over the weekend that proves there's been quite a lot of stuff unsaid over the years.

02:51 And when you're in a tiny B&B room, it all sort of boils up and secrets come out and

03:02 all sorts of horrible truths come out. And essentially, they have to face up to all of

03:08 that in order to connect again.

03:10 It's meant to be a bit of a comedy as well. So it's not all doom and gloom, because you've

03:18 got the joy of their banterous relationship and the arcades and the fair and, you know,

03:26 the British East Side feeling that we've all had when we go, you know, you sort of, so

03:33 it can be really beautiful at one point and then fairly bleak at another.

03:37 Yeah. Yeah. The lovely thing is you're having Best of Two Worlds on tour, aren't you? Because

03:42 it's going into the theatres in Brighton and Guildford, but you're also taking this into

03:46 schools. Will that be a different experience?

03:51 Yeah. So Theatre Centre, who originally asked me to come on board to do this, they're brilliant.

04:03 They're a national new writing theatre company who make work amplifying the voices of young

04:10 people. And they essentially work with writers like myself. And I collaborate with young

04:19 people and workshop and facilitate all sorts of, well, we have discussions about various

04:27 things and then I go and write a play off the back of it. And then that play will then

04:30 go into the schools, some of which have been a part of the workshopping. So, yeah, they

04:37 get to see their words and their work and their input on a stage in their school hall

04:45 in front of them. So it's just about bringing the theatre to them as well.

04:49 Brilliant. So the play is Wish You Weren't Here, written by Katie Redford, and it's coming

04:54 to Brighton and Guildford in March. Katie, lovely to speak to you. Thank you.

04:58 Okay, thanks.

05:00 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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