Over the last year I have watched three plays emerge from the creative minds of two (now ex) students, on to the page and then on to the stage (or a toilet in one case). I was humbled by and astonished at their skill.  I’m a deviser of theatre by nature, a practical playwright if you wish. So to see them hone their skills through trial and error, draft and redraft was as much as a learning experience for me as it was for them.

There is lots of advice out there of course – a simple Google search tells you that – but I wonder where the line is drawn between a taught/learned skill and an innate talent. So I was delighted when I stumbled across this recording on The Open University by playwright Mark Ravenhill, talking about his craft and his approach to writing:

You can read the transcript of the recording by clicking here and then clicking the text tab.