An interview with James Graham, writer of Coalition

18 March 2015

Coalition is the brainchild of writer James Graham, whose back catalogue has seen him carve out a niche for himself as a political playwright par excellence. Here, the writer of hits including Privacy, Tory Boyz and the Olivier-nominated This House explains the lengths he goes to in researching his plays, reveals his inner geek, and talks about a new project taking him in a rather surprising direction.

 

What was it that drew you to this story?

There’s a Shakespearian quality to this – it’s a story of the rise-and-fall of governments. And Clegg’s story – he comes from pretty much nowhere to being thrust into the limelight and given power. Brown is this huge figurehead in British politics who loses power. It was such a huge story that I just wanted to dramatise it.

 

So once you’ve made that decision, where do you begin to research something like this? That must have been an enormous job?

Yeah, that’s the fun side of it, for me – I love that stuff. I’m such a geek about getting as much information as possible. For me, the best way of doing that is always to try and speak to people directly rather than second-hand, so I just sent off this huge amount of letters and emails to as many people as I possibly could. And luckily, because I had a play on at The National Theatre [the Olivier award-nominated This House, set in 1970’s Westminster], a lot of those guys had come over the river to watch it, so most people said yes. So the majority of my research consisted of face-to-face interviews with people like George Osborne, Paddy Ashdown, Peter Mandelson, people across all parties who were involved over those three days, getting all sides of the story.

 

It was weird how candid and open they were willing to be about it. I’m not sure why. I think maybe in the run up to the election, they’re very keen to get their version of events across. Even the more naughty wheeling and dealing they want to get across – everyone wants people to think that they got the best deal and the upper hand. Even if it means being quite candid about the slightly untoward way they tried to gain power. One of the most useful people I spoke to was Gus O’Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary. He gave me an insight into the protocol and the procedures of how you try and do this [form a coalition government] in modern Britain under the glare of the spotlights. It was fascinating. He also had some pretty interesting insights into how it’s going to get more difficult to do. His theory was that we could only form a coalition government last time because everyone was new to it. This time, everyone’s a bit more savvy, including the public and the media, so it might be harder to do this time around.

 

Is it true his nickname is GOD?

Apparently so. It’s very cool. It’s better than my nickname at school.

 

Did you approach Nick Clegg?

He knows it’s happening, as do Cameron and Brown, but I didn’t have direct contact with those three.

 

This genre has become very popular recently, with Peter Morgan’s work as well. Why have we suddenly discovered an appetite for it?

I don’t know. It’s this weird paradox, that we’re constantly told how people are disengaged and disillusioned with politics, and yet political drama has never felt more popular and in demand. I don’t think people aren’t interested in politics, I think they’re just slightly disillusioned with some of the events that have happened, and some of the people and practises involved. But that doesn’t mean they’re disengaged, just annoyed. And I think we’re just getting better at political drama, to be honest. You’ve got Peter Morgan, and over the pond with the House of Cards revamp, we’re just making it better. When you have compelling characters set against a world that seems important and intriguing, and high stakes and mysterious, I think that’s why people love it.

 

Do you have to work hard to put your own political opinions to one side when you’re writing something like this?

It’s about presenting, as clearly as possible, events as they happened, or characters and their own views, and let the audience make up their minds. I don’t begrudge any writers who have an agenda they want to set, they’re entitled to push that. But for me, more often than not, that’s not the reason I want to do political drama. I don’t want to preach my politics to people who have their own opinions. Nor do I think that’s my responsibility to do that.

 

So in Coalition, the most exciting thing for me wasn’t the policies of the campaign, or the rights of which parties to claim power, it was the processes and the procedures and the methods people used to get power, and the characters at the heart of it. The only political question I want Coalition to ask is “Are we cool with this, if this is going to be the way that governments are selected from now on?” It all takes place behind the scenes, with deals and compromises, and personalities, and how well people get on. If we’re okay with that, then fine. I just want to ask that question.

 

Having written this, do you have a greater understanding and sympathy for Nick Clegg at the end of it all?

I think if you’re writing these characters and you want to get into their heads then you have to have empathy, at least, with all of them. You have to understand the motivations for what they were doing and why they were doing it. I remember watching it all on the TV and asking myself what I would do. It must have been such a difficult position for him to be in. Here was a man who believed in change, went into politics probably for the right reasons, and then is put in a difficult situation. You can agree or disagree about the choices he made, and people do. He paid quite a high political price for that. But as a dramatist, I have to believe that he went into things for the right reasons, and we can disagree about whether it was worth it or not.

 

Do we discover any revelations in the programme?
I hope there are loads, yeah. I think people will be very surprised about the ways all three parties went about negotiating. A lot of it was very informal. People were texting each other, like it was a game in a school playground. I really enjoyed finding out some of the tactics that the different parties used, some of it was very clever and really fascinating. It’s so easy to forget, because this is now history, that it could easily have turned out very differently. That Monday night, the day before it all came together, David Cameron went home to his wife and told her he wasn’t going to be Prime Minister. He really thought that after Gordon Brown resigned, the Lib Dems would go with Labour. And Nick Clegg really had to sell the deal to his Lib Dem MPs in a meeting of high emotion. I talked to people who said they were in tears. We think that all they’re interested in power at any cost, but this was people wrestling with their principles. It was really tough for a lot of the Lib Dems.

 

You’re currently working on Finding Neverland, and working with Gary Barlow. That must feel astonishingly different from doing something like this?

It’s the best part of the job, I think. It’s a musical, with Gary Barlow, produced by Harvey Weinstein, in New York. To go from Nick Clegg and issues regarding electoral reform and quantitative easing and fairies and pixies and boys that fly, it’s a bit of a contrast. But I think that variety really helps me write. It keeps you on your toes. The challenges and styles are so different. Working with Gary Barlow, making up songs – my mum’s never been more excited about anything in her life, that I get to go to Gary Barlow’s studio, and he sings songs to my face.