Interview: Barney Norris Talks NIGHTFALL

Bestselling novelist and award winning playwright Barney Norris brings his new play Nightfall to the Bridge Theatre.

Speaking to us during rehearsals, Barney takes us through the process of mounting a new play in a new space, as part of the theatre's inaugural season.

What is your earliest memory of theatre?

My earliest memory is of performance - I was Balthasar in my school nativity play in Sussex. Mum thought I'd be too shy to do it, but I gave her a big wink as I walked up the aisle and onto the stage.

Did you always want to be a writer?

I've always wanted to do all I can to be involved in the theatre - I've worked as a writer, producer, director, actor, I'm happy doing anything if I can be involved.

What was the first thing you ever wrote: both non-professionally, and then professionally?

The first thing I remember writing is a poem about autumn leaves when I was four or five. I remember loving rhyme and handwriting and that was the start.

My first "professional" project - depends on the definition! My first piece to be seen by the public and be reviewed in the press was a short play called At First Sight in 2011. But no one paid me anything for another four years, I self financed a lot of my early work. Like David Brent.

For you, what's the difference between writing for stage and writing for page?

This is a difficult question - the technical differences are infinite, but the principle difference I notice is who I collaborate with. Each medium involves a different set of partners and supporters.

How did the commission for Nightfall come about?

David Sabel and Nick Hytner had read my novel, and asked to meet me for coffee; we talked about Ibsen and Sophocles as models, then about Miller, and then finally we talked about Friel.

I knew a story about an oil pipe, which I told to Nick, and he helped me be as ambitious as possible in what the story covered - then I started work.

What was the development and R&D process like? Were you aware of this new space you would be writing for?

As with all my plays, the script's been on a long journey. I'm a big re-drafter - every play is the last of many plays that bloom along the way.

So I always need artistic directors willing to make a serious commitment to me, not just to take a punt and see what I deliver, as some theatres do. Nick was willing to make that commitment, and Laurie Sansom got involved early, and we worked through the story over a year and a half. Yes, I saw the Bridge while it was still a building site, so I was always writing for that space.

What is the play about?

It's a play about love and grief; about family and inheritance and change and the nature of belonging and home; and about a group of people trying to keep a Hampshire farm from going under by any means necessary.

How do you think the themes or ideas will resonate with audiences today?

We'll have to see when it opens, I think - all I do is write what matters most to me, and hope it will matter to someone else. All I really know is that this is what I think matters.

Take us through the process of working with Laurie Sansom and Rae Smith, to bring your vision of the world to life onstage?

In a visual or design sense, that emerged quite quickly - Rae happened very quickly on a design that has both a naturalistic specificity, and, I think, a very impactful metaphoric resonance. That came from site visits and conversations and the requirements of the script, I think.

What's your role, now rehearsals are underway?

I sit in the corner and offer ideas where it feels helpful, and watch out with Laurie for sections that could work better.

Away from London, you are Co-Artistic Director of touring company Up in Arms. How did you involvement come about, and why is this project important to you?

Up In Arms is the theatrical family from which all my work in theatre and fiction stems. By preference, I'd make all my work through my company with those collaborators, because that's the band I'm in, and instinctively I'm not a natural freelancer, I'm slow to trust - but we want to make bigger work, and the way to do that is go and do a few bigger shows for other, more established companies, so I can then feed that back into Up In Arms in a few years' time.

We'd made that decision at about the time I met Nick, and he set me the challenge of taking responsibility for a larger auditorium in quite a stylish way that made me want to be part of what he was doing, to match my own ambition and sense of scale to his. So I wrote the play, and as a result I'm learning things from everyone at the Bridge in just the way I dreamed.

Nightfall at the Bridge Theatre, 1 May-26 May

Photo Credit: Manuel Harlan

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