Tough at the Top

With the unemployment rate soaring and graduates being urged to consider a spell working abroad to ride out the worst of the recession, 24-year-old playwright and University of Edinburgh graduate Ella Hickson can count herself lucky to have landed so firmly on her feet. Unexpectedly propelled into the world of theatre last year by the success of her Fringe debut, Eight, she's since clocked up several awards and enjoyed an off-Broadway run in New York. Add to that a three-week stint in the West End in July and the upcoming premiere of her new play, Precious Little Talent, at the Fringe this August, and Hickson's career seems to have successfully bucked the downward trend over the last 12 months.

Having spent some of her time at university either working on short stories or acting as producer for Fringe Victoriana favourites, The Penny Dreadfuls, Hickson's first foray into theatre came after she won a free slot at the festival courtesy of the Edinburgh University Theatre Company. With only six weeks to write her offering after graduating last summer, the result was Eight – a collection of monologues that aim to provide a cross-section of modern Britain, which was performed at the Bedlam Theatre. Hickson remembers the experience well: "It was the first thing I'd ever written, so I expected a few average audiences. For the first two weeks, it felt like it had gone quite well but nothing was going to come of it. I thought I'd probably end up going into PR for the rest of my life. But then we were awarded a Fringe First and the play snowballed into this crazy, massive beast."

As well as the much sought-after Fringe First, Eight overcame stiff competition to snatch up the Carol Tambor Award, which offers its winners the chance to perform in New York. Precious Little Talent, which will also run at the Bedlam, was inspired by the time Hickson spent in the city during Eight's tour and offers a much more conventional, dialogue-driven format than its predecessor. The play is set in New York at Christmas and explores the relationship between a father and daughter, with a smattering of Anglo-American love story in there for good measure. And while Hickson admits that her new play is "sweet, very lyrical and a fairy-tale type story", she also claims it has important things to say about her generation.

"Droves of my friends have either gone into jobs [since graduating] and then lost them, or just can't get them," she says. "We are a generation that was born into and bred through decades of abundance and we're graduating into a world where we were promised that choice and options were something that worked on a meritocratic basis. It has become very quickly clear as the recession hits that that isn't true and we're a generation with sixteen grand of debt round our necks. So Precious Little Talent is about having to face up to our own mediocrity – that we can't all be superstars and we won't be."

Hickson appears to sympathise with her generation's current loss of opportunity to an extent, but there's a lot of anger here too. She explains: "We're a very apathetic bunch and we don't really believe in things. And thanks to the likes of [E4 TV series] Skins and so forth, we're generally disregarded as drug-munching no brainers. But I think we do have things to say for ourselves – now, that's become increasingly true and our political and social conscience will grow."

Ultimately, while Precious Little Talent seems to be encased in a saccharine veneer (Hickson says, "It's set at Christmas so there'll be fairy lights on stage and everything"), it promises a brave message for anyone that has been affected by the recession, graduate or not. And in a move that seems to overlap the play's aspirations with real life, the casting of John McColl—former assistant editor of the Edinburgh Evening News—in one of the lead roles bodes well for the enduring truthfulness of its ethos.

"John is an incredibly good actor," Hickson says. "I love the idea that he had always wanted to be an actor when he was young, but then went into newspapers because there was more money in it. Now that the money has fallen out of newspapers, he's become an actor again. So he's fulfilling his dream courtesy of the recession, which is very much what the play is about as well. It might seem like things are going wrong but actually it's a chance to regroup and work out what it is you actually want."

But what about the young playwright's prospects? Has last year's hit really positioned Hickson to scoop a follow-up success this year? Despite her relative lack of experience in the theatrical world—or perhaps because of it—Hickson shows a remarkable degree of levelheadedness, a quality that's essential when you're following up a significant debut hit. "I think a lot of Eight's appeal the first time round was that it pretty much came out of nowhere," she says. "At the moment, society is incredibly bewitched and fascinated by 'the debut', and its novelty and newness – 'the second' simply doesn't have the same commercial power as 'the first'."

Nevertheless is she dealing well with the pressure? Her composed, balanced side persists but her confidence shines through: "The pressure is definitely on and if Precious Little Talent doesn't do well, it will be a good learning curve for me. But this is only the second play of what will hopefully be many and, irrespective of what the world makes of it, I think it's wonderful."

Precious Little Talent Bedlam Theatre 6-29 Aug, 2.30pm, £8.50 (£6.50)