Lucky Jim

Award-winning ‘little voice’ playwright jim cartwright begins a new partnership with the theatre royal wakefield. Tony greenway talks to him about his life, career and the state of theatre in yorkshire.

- Tony Greenway

WHEN I ring playwright Jim Cartwright at his home in – whisper it – Lancashire, he feigns shock that I have been able to get through to him at all. ‘It works!’ he says in a broad Bolton accent. ‘There is a direct line between Yorkshire and Lancashire! I thought the call would be intercepted at the very least...’

Cartwright, it turns out, is a jolly soul. But then so would you be if your work had been translated into 37 languages and performed in most major theatres of the world, including the West End, the Royal Court, the National Theatre and Broadway. Still, it’s good to discover that he has no luvvie airs and graces. You get the impression that, despite the five star reviews and armfuls of awards, he has much better things to do than spend his time kissing the air at the Groucho Club. ‘I’m lucky,’ he says. ‘I know I am, because my plays are performed still – and all over the bloomin’ world – and some of them were written a long time ago.’

True. For example, his third play (from 1989) is so popular that it’s almost certainly being performed somewhere right now. ‘It’s amazing,’ he says. And he does sound genuinely mystified by his success, like a man who has won the lottery. ‘It’s keeping me kids in shoes, at any rate.’

One perk of being a writer, he says, is that he enjoys a certain amount of anonymity. ‘But if people find out who I am, they’ll come over and say: “I saw a production of your play and it changed my life”. That makes me think I haven’t lived in vain. What’s really refreshing for an old farty like me, though, is when 16-year-old kids come up and say: “I’m studying your play at college and it’s fantastic”.’