A Provocative Playwright

Two of his plays, After the End and Love and Money are currently being performed in Budapest. And Kelly is currently in town to discuss his works at various events across the city. “I believe in my plays so enjoy talking about them,” he says. “But I want to have a conversation about them, not have a debate like a bunch of lawyers. Debate is overrated.”

And that’s Kelly; straight talking, down to earth and pretty darn funny for someone who says that he’s “not really a comedy writer”. He shrugs off his BAFTA nominated TV comedy Pullingas “just about three girls getting pissed in London.”

How did he get this far? “Well, I’m not from a literary background – Dad was a bus conductor and Mum was a cleaner,” he shrugs. “I wasn’t very academic at school and afterwards did a string of crap jobs mostly in shops; theater became an outlet for me. Later I wrote a play, and then wrote a comedy which was basically a sitcom with swearing,” he finishes, neglecting to add that, despite having no formal qualifications, he went on to gain a first class honors degree in Drama and Theater Arts.

Now, Kelly has no shortage of commissions and is passionate, as well as protective, about all of his projects: “My business is the plays and I owe it to them not to be swayed by what’s going on around me. So if I’m writing a play, I don’t like to talk to people about it until I’ve written the first draft. The first part of the process is about me, on my own….all writers are control freaks, totally obsessive,” he laughs. “So when the time comes to let a director take control of your play, it’s important to manage your control freakery. Personally, I have to be completely involved, or let go completely.”

Written in 2005,After the End is one of Kelly’s career-defining plays and is a disturbing look at a fictional terrorist attack: “Another writer told me that it was too violent, but I felt strongly that if we were with characters for the good, we should be with them for the bad too.” Kelly stood his ground and, in an eerie twist, the first rehearsals for After the End coincided with the July 7th terrorist attacks in London. “We were in the middle of nowhere radioing people for information, echoing scenes in the play.” he explains.

Did Kelly have any doubts about writing about a terror attack now that one had happened? “I couldn’t work out if my play was very irrelevant in the circumstances or very relevant,” he explains. “Plays are plays, a conversation, and are not meant to change the world. And I felt that it was the right time to have a conversation about terrorism.” There is little doubt that After the End, with its opposing ideologies being fought out by two complex, yet ultimately convincing, characters, prompted this. “I like writing about people,” says Kelly. “I like people, not all of them, I bloody hate tight people, but the idea of them is great. I hate the Disney attitude that says we’re all great, because we’re just not. I like to write about real people. For example, I know that I’m a generous person, but I’m also aware that I can be sulky. Bad qualities make a person real.”

Soon Kelly worked the war on terror out of his systemand Love and Money followed in 2006; a play ruminating on debt and consumerism, which again manages to be unintentionally topical, given the current financial climate. “I originally wanted to write a play just about money, but then I met my Italian girlfriend and in the first bloom of romance, love crept into the play too,” he grins. But there are no plans to move to Italy just yet.

For now, he’s staying put in London ( “it’s a bit like Heroin, dirty but addictive,” he jokes) and is writing a play for the National Theater and working on a film, for Film Four, to be shot next year. But he says that he’ll never stop writing plays because first and foremost he is a playwright. “I can just about manage to call myself that now,” he smiles modestly.