Star of The Archers explores holiday tensions in new play

Written by The Archers star Katie Redford – Lily Pargetter in the Radio 4 series – it explores “family relationships, the agony of growing up and how to find your way in the world when you can’t help thinking you’re just not good enough.” It plays Brighton Dome Studio Theatre on Thursday-Friday March 7-8 and the Mill Studio at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford on Thursday-Friday, March 14-15 – a piece created through conversations with hundreds of young people across the country.

Katie explains: “I was asked to do it by Rob Watts, the wonderful artistic director at the Theatre Centre who came to see my first-ever play in 2022. He asked if I fancied becoming writer in residence with the Theatre Centre. They are a national new writing theatre company that makes work amplifying the voices of young people. They work with writers and they work in schools and within communities especially collaborating on pieces of theatre so I jumped at the chance. I find writing to be quite a lonely thing. For most of the day you're working in solitude. It's just me and my dog which is lovely but it's nice to break it up by going into schools and listening to conversations and I went to the schools for about five months.”

And out of that grew Wish You Weren't Here: “The idea came from a particular workshop that I did in Sheffield. We started talking about family holidays and everybody has a story about family holidays. Most of the time it's about not wanting to be there and there's actually no way of escaping. There's no way to get out and I think that makes it a great place to set a play. It's a good place to think about who you are and how people in the play are interacting with each other. I was trying to observe the young people that I was working with.

“I think the thing about holidays is that they bring certain expectations. There is money being spent and you have to have a good time. I know I've done it when I've gone away and thought I'm going to come back a changed person, that the holiday will help you think clearly and you will be able to make certain decisions that you haven't been able to make and that you will eat healthily. But then when you are there you realise that you are only there for a week and ‘why did I ever think that this was going to be life-changing!’ But also it depends who you're on holiday with. It can be quite intense. We always went to Scarborough. That was the place for the Redford family holiday year in year out and if it was raining then you could really end up feeling cooped up in the hotel room!”

Katie did contemplate being in her own play: “I thought ‘Why aren't I making work for myself?’ but when Rob explained the process, I was cautious about taking on too much.” She also has her Archers commitments: “And I love it because you're given a script and it's just a question of bringing your character out rather than having to write something! But I've also realised that The Archers is such a beautiful conversation starter. It always seems to be at a wedding and you're sitting at a table with someone and they realise that you are in it. Everybody's got a story about The Archers about how they grew up with it or even if they don't listen to it themselves about how their grandparents or their parents grew up listening to it. It's like a friend in the corner.”