'Thatcher still looms large, we're living in her country'

As his stage adaptation of 'Boys from the Blackstuff' hits the West End, playwright James Graham talks politics, football, Harvey Weinstein and work addiction

- Ellie Harrison

James Graham's output makes your head spin. More than 30 plays in the past 18 years, three TV dramas, a few films, oh, and a Broadway musical or two. There was the break-out hit This House. The lid-lifting Rupert Murdoch tale Ink. The “did he cheat?” “coughing major” drama Quiz. The Olivier-winning comedy Labour of Love. His enthralling study of media and politics Best of Enemies. This year, he’s had two plays on already: Punch, about a one-punch killing, and Boys from the

Blackstuff, an adaptation of Alan Bleasdale’s agenda-setting TV drama. In autumn, his Nottingham-set series Sherwood is returning to BBC One. In the days after we meet, he’s flying to Germany to watch England compete in the Euros as research for Dear England, his football play (another Olivier winner) that he’s bringing back to the stage and adapting for television. Phew. Somehow, in the middle of all of this, I snatch an hour with him, aptly, in one of London’s busiest places: Piccadilly Circus. He seems to be everywhere, all at once. But his state-of-the-nation dramas are always so even-handed, so undidactic, that I’m left wondering: who is James Graham? What makes him cry? What makes him angry…?