The Magic Roundabout

“Paines Plough is like Doctor Who. Every few years it regenerates,” notes James Grieve, quoting Fest’s own scribe Matt Trueman. “We’ve always re-invented ourselves, with different artistic directors, different writers-in-residence. That’s the key to longevity.”

He’s right, of course. Alongside George Perrin, a student pal from Sheffield, Grieve is the current co-custodian of the mighty morphin’ theatrical troubadours; much-loved, itinerant, and an inked-in byword for The Next Big Thing. Here, from “a little ramshackle office in London”, risk-taking is avidly embraced, new writing the forever lover.

And this year, the company that began in that most revered of traditions—over a pint (of Paines) in the pub (The Plough)—marks its 40th anniversary at the treacherously sharp end of the business. Happy birthday, boys.

“Thank you,” they chime, “We’re celebrating with our biggest ever programme of work, with 11 productions touring to 53 places. And counting,” continues Grieve, “We’re going from Lyme Regis to Margate to Much Wenlock to present work by debutants and Olivier Award winners at arts centres, student unions, village halls, music festivals and in our own pop-up theatre. I guess most importantly, though, we’re just doing what Paines Plough has always done – producing new plays by the nation’s best writers and touring them across the UK.”

It’s a refreshingly no-nonsense philosophy and one that has served Perrin and Grieve and their seven predecessors admirably. It’s also a philosophy, you won’t be surprised to hear, that reflects the evolution of the Fringe itself.

“Paines Plough’s first ever show premiered in Edinburgh. The company was formed by a playwright, David Pownall, and a director, John Adams, and David’s play, Crates on Barrels, which John directed, opened at Edinburgh’s Lyceum Studio. We both used to travel to Edinburgh when we were students and Paines Plough was the company we were consistently wowed by. I remember Vicky Featherstone’s landmark premiere of Sarah Kane’s Crave, Abi Morgan’s Splendour… Tiny Dynamite, Gary Owen’s The Drowned World and Mark Ravenhill’s Product which went on to tour the world.”

“Then there was Dennis Kelly’s After the End and Orphans,” chips in Perrin, “Gregory Burke’s The Straits directed by John Tiffany, Evelyn de la Cheneliere’s Strawberries in January… right up until we were last at The Traverse in 2012 with David Harrower’s Good With People.”

It’s an explosive list. A catalogue of rulebook-rubbishing playwrights who have defined British drama over the last four decades. So why come back? As a subsidised theatre company who have amply proven their mettle, what left to conquer amid the thrum and whir of another Fringe?

“Well, we have a loyal, long-standing audience for our work in Edinburgh, so we want to serve them as well as introduce new audiences to the company and to the plays,” suggests Grieve. “Edinburgh allows us to do both. The festival is such a great place to showcase new plays, there is a genuine hunger amongst audiences. That’s a big factor.

“It’s also important for us to be in Edinburgh to see work. We try to see as many new plays as we can while we’re at the Festival, in the search for the next generation of Paines Plough writers. We need to be at the Fringe to keep us on our toes.”

“We could not be more excited about being part of the Festival again this August,” confirms Perrin. “Edinburgh feels like home from home for us, and this year we’re partnering with Northern Stage and Summerhall to programme a range of exciting companies and productions in the Roundabout Auditorium, our new pop-up theatre.

"Roundabout is a 170-seat, fully self-contained, in-the-round theatre that flat-packs into a lorry and pops up anywhere from school halls to warehouses. We built it because there are so many places around the country that don’t have theatres, and we want to reach new people in new places with great new plays in a surprising and exciting theatrical context. We think Roundabout will offer people a unique, dynamic live experience, whether they are theatre fans or not.”

And herein, you suspect, lies the Ploughmen’s greatest achievement: an unswerving adherence to an industry nurturing artistic policy whereby others limply turn to frocks, fame and the familiar to lure in the audiences. Here, a gauntlet is defiantly thrown down to the gripers declaiming death for new writing at the behest of the bottom line.

“It’s about the context of the presentation,” explains Perrin. “You can sell a new play at established new writing venues easily enough. But away from big metropolitan centres, where people don’t get many new plays, it becomes much harder. Our response to that is Roundabout. That’s also why we tour our work to music festivals like Latitude and Bestival and to student union campuses, to meet audiences on their own turf rather than always expecting them to come to theatre buildings.”

“Yes, the climate is hard and we’re having to be ever more inventive,” continues Grieve, “But we are fortunate to work with some brilliant people at our partner theatres up and down the country, whose shared passion for new plays and collaborative approaches to production have meant we have been able to maintain our output. New writing will always survive, and indeed thrive, because we have the best playwrights in the world working here in our country, and when you read a great play, you just have to find a way of getting it on.”

And how do you know you’ve landed on “great”?

“We just look for it. That may sound obvious, but you can feel great writing. You know great writing three lines into a play. We try to work with the best writers, because great writing is universal.

“The very best writers usually innovate. A characteristic of Paines Plough plays over history, and we hope today, is formal invention. We are excited by writers who tell stories in new ways, who change our perception of what theatre is and can be. Writers like Duncan Macmillan and Kate Tempest are writing plays that feel very new, in form and content. And we look for stories that speak to us now, about our friends, our families, our relationships, our politics, our global society.

“Contemporary stories, formal innovation, great writing. That’s the formula right there.”

PLOUGHING ON

40 years in the life of the UK's National Theatre of New Plays

1974

Over a pint of Paines Bitter at the Plough pub in Bolnhurst, Bedfordshire, writer David Pownall and director John Adams make good their plan to make and tour new plays in the UK. Paines Plough is registered as a company on 1 April.

1975

Pownall's play, Crates on Barrels, the company's first, opens at the Lyceum Studio, Edinburgh, on Sept 11. "An intense theatrical experience" proclaims The Scotsman.

1982

John Chapman takes over as Artistic Director, before handing over to Pip Broughton (1985), Anna Furse (1990), Penny Ciniewicz (1994), Vicky Featherstone (1997), Roxana Silbert (2005) and latterly, James Grieve and George Perrin who take the reins on 1 Feb, 2010.

1998

The incendiary Sarah Kane's Crave, depicting the disintegration of a human mind, opens. Later that year, Abi Morgan (whose went on to write Peak Practice, Birdsong, The Hour and Sex Traffic for TV) and Mark Ravenhill crop up on the books for the first time.

2005

Philip Ridley's Mercury Fur starring Ben Whishaw reveals a singular playwriting talent. At other times, Paines Plough have gone on to work with actors from Andy Serkis to Kathy Burke to Josie Laurence.

2010

Olivier Award-wining writer Mike Bartlett's Love, Love, Love opens in Plymouth. Paines Plough wins a TMA award for special achievement in regional theatre

2011

Ted Hughes poetry prize winner to be, Kate Tempest, joins the PP stable (with Wasted – "A play about love, life and losing your mind")

2014

Paines Plough hits 40 with 12 productions touring to 50 places around the UK, featuring the work of 100 playwrights