Royal Court Playwright’s Podcast

S10 Ep7 Georgie Dettmer talks to Lucy Prebble

I am thrilled to be here today with Georgie Dettmer, the writer of Are You Watching? which opens in the Theatre Upstairs at the end of the month.  
Georgie is an award-winning playwright and actor from the East of England.  
In 2024 her play ATTEMPTS ON A BIRCH TREE won the Bloomsbury New Wave Prize and in 2025, her play ORDINARY SEX, a thriller which questions the line between intimacy and violation, was longlisted for the Bruntwood Prize.  
In 2025 she was part of both the Mercury Theatre Writers’ Group and was also part of the Royal Court’s Playwrighting Group.  
It was on the Royal Court’s Writing Group, that Georgie began developing Are You Watching? A year later, it will be making its debut at the Royal Court. Also marking Georgie’s professional debut.

S10 Ep6 Gary Oldman talks to Vicky Featherstone

S10 Ep5 Leo Simpe-Asante talks to Beth Flintoff

S10 Ep 4 Yousef Sweid and Isabella Sedlak talk to Nina Segal

I’m joined today by Yousef Sweid and Isabella Sedlak, the writer-performer and writer-director of Between the River and the Sea, currently playing in the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs.  Yousef is an actor and writer, Isabella is a writer and director; the two have been collaborating on Between the River and the Sea since 2024.  The show premiered in 2025 at the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin, then went on to the Edinburgh Fringe and the Segal Center in New York - now the show is here in London, at the Royal Court.  Welcome, Yousef and Isabella - to the Royal Court and to the Royal Court Playwrights’ podcast.

S10 Ep3 Kimberly Belflower talks to Ciara Elizabeth Smyth

Kimberly Belflower is a Tony-nominated playwright and educator from a two-stoplight town in rural Georgia, Appalachia.
I don’t think I’m alone in admitting that I have a mild obsession with Appalachia. Between the landscape, the legends, the people, and the region’s deep culture of storytelling, it has long been a hotbed for creativity. Great Appalachian writers include Pulitzer Prize winner Barbara Kingsolver, novelist Lee Smith, and poet Nikki Giovanni. The commonality in their work is generosity, intelligence, and an almost elemental force, exploring the region’s history, its communities, and its complicated relationship with industry.
Our guest today, Kimberly Belflower, emerges from that same rich tradition of storytelling.
Her plays include Lost Girl, Saint Pigtail, and John Proctor Is the Villain. Her work is known for its distinctive tonal balance of hilarity and gravitas, grappling with questions of gender, power, and change. She writes with remarkable attention to the interior lives of women and the social ecosystems that shape them, bringing great intelligence and emotional complexity to the stage...

S10 Ep2: Jack Nicholls talks to Ishy Din

Jack Nicholls is a writer and poet. As a playwright, he has twice been a member of the Royal Court Writers’ Group, with readings of his work staged at the Royal Court and Northern Stage, and one play longlisted for the Bruntwood Prize. After graduating from the BFI Script Lab, he wrote and directed the BFI Network short, “Nettle Day,” a primary school-set folk horror, which premieres soon at the BAFTA and BIFA-qualifying Manchester Film Festival. He was twice one of the winners of the National Poetry Competition, and his poems have been published in Poetry Review, PN Review, The New Statesman, The Rialto, and in The Telegraph as a Poem of the Week, among other magazines. He comes from Cornwall and lives in Manchester, where he works as a tutor and runs the cult comedy night, “Title Fight.” His debut play, The Shitheads is playing in the Royal Court's Theatre Upstairs from 6 Feb - 14 Mar, as part of the 70th Anniversary Season. 

S10 Ep1: Luke Norris talks to Simon Stephens, with 'noush notes' from Anoushka Warden

It strikes me that the working life of playwright and actor Luke Norris may be built on two foundation stones.
I have long been taken by the idea that the county of Essex is a perfect breeding ground for writers and for playwrights in particular. The county that gave us Kenny Emson and Rebecca Prichard, David Eldridge and Sarah Kane is striking for the diversity of its economic and social geography. All kind of people come from and move through Essex. Romford, the Havering town that Norris was born in is the quintessence of the county. A market town for eight hundred years it brings together, in its cauldron of booze and nights out and transport routes and good shopping, exactly that clash and diversity and contradiction that energises a writers imagination. 
This podcast was produced with support from the original Playwrights Podcast team Simon Stephens and Anoushka Warden. 

S9 Ep5: Sophia Chetin-Leuner talks to Susan Wokoma

Sophia Chetin-Leuner is a writer from London.  
Her work for theatre includes THIS MIGHT NOT BE IT, an unflinchingly human look at NHS mental health services, which was short listed for the Women’s Prize for Playwrighting in 2020, followed by a sell-out run at the Bush Theatre in 2024.  
Sophia’s play PORN PLAY, which she begun writing whilst studying in New York, will debut at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs in November this year, directed by Josie Rourke and starring One Day’s Ambika Mod.  

S9 Ep4: Nick Payne talks to Susan Wokoma

Nick Payne is a playwright and screenwriter. His award-winning plays have been performed extensively, including to sell out audiences in London’s West End and Broadway.  
 
His latest play The Unbelievers, directed by Marianne Elliot and starring Nicola Walker premieres this October in the Theatre Downstairs at the Royal Court Theatre. 

S9 Ep3: Nina Segal and Melanie Wilson talk to Susan Wokoma

Released 2 Sep 2025: Together with director Katie Mitchell, Nina Segal and Melanie Wilson make up the team co-creators behind Cow | Deer, a new experiment in performance, in which using only sound and no words, a quartet of performers and Foley artists evoke the lives of two animals – a cow and a deer.