Echoes, fragments and mutations

7 November 2007

It’s like you’re sifting through the culture, sifting through stuff that went before and you’re trying to find something that might still speak, that might be relevant – trying to find forms that you can do something with and create work through them. You’re quoting, you’re breaking up things from the past and trying to do something with them. There’s no authentic voice, there’s no original masterwork arising out of anybody’s soul, it’s all echoes and fragments and mutations of things that went before, and that somehow you inherited.

That’s me talking to Peter Billingham in an interview for his new book At the Sharp End, published by Methuen this week and described in the blurbs as ‘a critical examination of the work of five leading dramatists who have made an indelible mark on today’s theatre’. Alongside the interview with yours truly you can find Peter in conversation with David Edgar, Mark Ravenhill, David Greig and Tanika Gupta. Check Hugo’s picture of Cathy Naden in Forced Entertainment’s Bloody Mess on the front also.