Interview: Playwright celebrates revival of play that struck a chord

ten minutes into our interview, Lucinda Coxon has what she calls a “Kitty moment”.

Already an hour late because an afternoon appointment has over-run, she begins the interview and five minutes later her mobile phone is ringing.

“I’m sorry, it’s my daughter, she’s supposed to be home from school, but is probably ringing to say that she’s off to see a friend or something,” says Coxon. “Yet another Kitty moment.” Kitty is the heroine of Happy Now?, the play that re-launched Coxon’s career in the UK in 2008. Staged at the National Theatre, it was a major hit and tapped into something that Coxon is experiencing as we try to speak today.

“I was in the playground one day and I looked around at all these parents and realised that half of them were going out of their minds trying to run their lives and their careers, look after their children. Their marriages were in freefall, these people were clinging on by their fingernails and no-one seemed to be writing about it,” says Coxon.

Happy Now? provided a major hit for the writer who in the Nineties relocated to America because, despite early success, she felt that the doors in British theatre on which she were knocking simply were not going to open for her.

The 47-year-old Derby playwright, pitched the idea of Happy Now? for two years when she came back to the UK to “every London” theatre, only to find it rejected by each one.

She continued to believe in the script and re-sent it to the National in 2007, this time with the result that it ended up in the hands of someone who recognised a hit.

Coxon says she just knew the story had to be told.

“I was amazed when no-one wanted to take it on, not because it was some amazing piece, although I am very proud of it, but because it was talking about something that absolutely nobody else – in films or on the stage – was saying,” says Coxon.

“I just knew it would have something to say to a lot of women who are in a similar position.”

Coxon was proved correct. Not only did the play win a multitude of awards, the box office was so strong that the play’s run was extended at the National before the official opening.

“A woman came up to me after seeing it and said that the play made her feel like she existed,” says Coxon.

“That made the whole thing worth it.”

Now the play is being produced at Hull Truck, the first time it has been in the UK since its run at the National. Something for Coxon to celebrate – perhaps even something about which she can be happy, now?

COXON’S WRITING CAREER SO FAR

• Plays include: Herding Cats, The Eternal Not and Waiting at the Water’s Edge.

• Screenplays include: Wild Target, The Heart of Me and The Danish Girl. Her four-part adaptation of The Crimson Petal will be screened on BBC2 this Spring. Happy Now? Hull Truck Theatre, to Feb 26. 01482 323638.