00:00Good morning. My name is Phil Hewitt, group answer at Sussex Newspapers. Really lovely to speak to Jamie Bodio. This is exciting, super exciting. You are the playwright and you are in it and it's safe space in the Minerva Theatre from Saturday, October the 11th to Saturday, November the 8th.
00:18And you were saying just now it's a play which is ambitious in so many different ways. You're saying it's ambitious on different levels. It's also zeitgeisty, provocative and hopefully fun, you said. Tell me more. What is it you're bringing to Chichester?
00:32Yeah, absolutely. I think it's all of that and even more. We're bringing a play about campus politics and identity politics and what it's like to be a young person trying to discover who they are and what they care about in today's world. And I hope that that will have a lot of resonance for a variety of different audiences.
00:54And this is your first play, but what seems so intriguing is the fact that you're in it. You weren't going to be, but now you are. Tell me about that decision.
01:03Well, it's funny because I majored in playwriting at Yale, or that was my focus and my concentration. And then I trained as an actor at RADA. And then I got a literary agent before I had an acting agent. But then I mostly have been performing on the West End and so forth the last couple of years as an actor.
01:22So it feels like I've been acting and writing have been kind of in parallel for quite a long time. And it's just a really exciting opportunity to merge the two.
01:34Or maybe not quite merge because during the day you're the actor at night.
01:37That's true. Yeah. I think 10 to 6, I try to wear my actor's hat and then 6 to 10, I wear the writer's hat. And that's kind of the bit of the way it works.
01:46Because you do have to be present in it when you're performing. But then once rehearsal lines, you can say, okay, I'm not sure if that line worked or whatever.
01:55I wouldn't be able to do it if I wasn't collaborating with a director like Roy, who I trust so much and who I think has such a wonderful, clear vision for the play.
02:08Because I just know that I'm in safe hands. So I can always, if I need to just really be in the scene, I'm in the scene. And I know that he's got it.
02:15He was describing himself just now as your midwife, in effect.
02:19To deliver the birth of our vision. Yeah.
02:23Well, it really is. I mean, we've been working together for a year now, which I think is quite unusual.
02:28And I feel like the play is, has become so much better and deeper and funnier, thanks to that collaboration.
02:35So I wish that every first time playwright got the opportunity to work with a director like Roy.
02:41And that obviously is very rare, but I, but I'm, because he's so experienced and so brilliant, but I'm very lucky and very grateful for that.
02:50Absolutely. Well, it sounds a wonderful prospect to conclude the 2025 festival season at Chichester.
02:55So Jamie, really lovely to speak to you. Congratulations on the fact it's happening and very much looking forward to seeing it.
03:01Thank you. Please come along.
03:02Oh, you bet.
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