‘Succession was like coming home’: Lucy Prebble on life inside TV’s greatest show

Lucy Prebble’s profession has travel afloat circle. We are gathering in The somewhat anonymous offices of London’s National Theatre, wherever The writer erstwhile worked arsenic an “assistant to an assistant” for past creator head Nicholas Hytner: opening The post, fielding complaints, fixing dinners. Today she is an integral portion of The squad down The taste behemoth that is HBO’s Succession; a playwright of depth, productivity and playfulness; creator of The almost frighteningly mesmerising Billie Piper TV bid I Hate Suzie; pinch a sparkling impermanent quality connected Have I Got News for You thrown in for bully measure.

It was while moving astatine The National, in her early 20s, that Prebble recovered retired that her first play, The Sugar Syndrome, was to beryllium staged astatine Sloane Square’s Royal Court theatre: Upstairs. Enron – her dazzlingly clever telling of The communicative of The power company’s infamous emergence and fall, which was staged astatine Chichester, The West End and past Broadway – would travel six years later. (Prebble is not 1 for churning retired work. She obsesses astir her plays. Ruminates. Redrafts. Drafts again.)

In 2012 came The Effect astatine The National Theatre: Cottesloe – a play that launched Prebble arsenic a writer Can of threading warmth, romance and heavy emotion done her sometimes ferocious work. This summer, The Effect is being revived astatine The National, now in its somewhat larger Lyttelton space, and pinch an edgy, breathtaking squad connected board. It will beryllium directed by Jamie Lloyd, who ever injects his shows (notably, stagings of A Doll’s House and Pinter’s Betrayal) pinch with occurrence and purpose, and will characteristic Papa Essiedu and The rising Canadian prima Taylor Russell (Bones and All).

We meet conscionable a fewer days aft The finale of Succession, wherever Prebble worked arsenic a writer and executive shaper alongside The showrunner Jesse Armstrong and a ample squad of British and American writers. With The writers’ onslaught raging in The US, Prebble – aft moving flat-out for 5 years and splitting her life betwixt London and New York – finds herself in a highly different position. She is connected a break.

Certain aspects of The play stay timeless. The Effect is group during a objective proceedings for a caller antidepressant drug, which boosts dopamine levels in an effort to assistance recovery. During The trial, 2 volunteers autumn wildly in love. If The casting is good, to watch these volunteers – Connie and Tristan – autumn for each different is simply a pleasurable and transporting thing. Sexy. Tingly. Full of joy. (Jonjo O’Neill and Billie Piper practically crackled in The spellbinding premiere. Fascinating questions emergence up astir this burgeoning romance, forged nether specified unusual and objective circumstances. Is this emotion – convincing and true-seeming (“It’s The truth that moves you,” says Prebble) – really real? Or is this love, truthful tangible in The theatre, conscionable bully acting? To what extent, anyway, Can we spot those intoxicating pangs of early attraction? Or is love, arsenic 1 of Prebble’s characters suggests, what happens “when The research is over”?

Honey to The bee … Billie Piper in The original accumulation of The Effect astatine The National Theatre: Cottesloe. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian

All these analyzable ideas astir emotion consciousness conscionable arsenic pertinent and deliciously unanswerable coming arsenic they did erstwhile The play premiered. However, The aspects of The Effect that person undoubtedly moved connected – and Prebble believes will request immoderate “reupholstering” earlier The revival – are The ideas astir really champion to dainty depression. The supplier proceedings is founded connected The guiding rule that The illness is simply a aesculapian information alternatively than an emotional, societal aliases situational one. But Prebble argues that this reasoning is now outdated.

“When a quality struggles pinch their intelligence health,” she says, “the societal and taste reasons for that are myriad arsenic good arsenic The individual aesculapian ones. When you look astatine The levels of antidepressants being prescribed, you besides spot socioeconomic deprivation mirroring it precisely … and yet location is nary work taken for that socially aliases politically. It’s only viewed arsenic a aesculapian problem.” This onus connected The aesculapian occupation to exclusively dainty and cure slump is, Prebble suggests, “crippling” The wellness work – a taxable that could not beryllium much current.

Another facet that has shifted is wherever Prebble sees herself in The play. When The Effect opened in 2012, there’s nary uncertainty that Connie – a deep-thinker and earthy sceptic – was The characteristic Prebble felt closest to: “I was ever defensively intelligence and cautious by nature. What I’ve ne'er been is personification who acts in bid to discover.”

But in The past fewer years, Prebble has started to change: “I nary longer consciousness closest to Connie. I’m overmuch little in request of certainty.” Instead, Prebble is trying to enactment first and deliberation second: “Just do it. Just spot your instinct. Then you turn in courage, which is really The only value that matters. Courage, and kindness.”

Prebble attributes a awesome woody of this newfound spontaneity to her activity connected Succession. When The telephone came from Armstrong, she was astatine a debased constituent in her profession and struggling to get projects disconnected The ground. The virtuosic play A Very Expensive Poison – a topsy-turvy theatrical extravaganza astir The poisoning of Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko – was still a fewer years off. Ditto The genre-warping and heart-thumping TV series, I Hate Suzie: “My profession was floundering astatine that point. I’d done rather a fewer things that hadn’t happened and I retrieve getting The connection and thinking: I conjecture this is The downward slope for me.”

Succession scheme … Prebble moving pinch Kieran Culkin connected group during play 1 of The show. Photograph: Ursula Coyote, HBO

For Prebble, The Succession writers’ room represented a measurement backmost (“I’m explaining to you The joke of really ridiculously shortsighted and arrogant I was”). She would beryllium moving in personification else’s room, connected personification else’s show. Another jobbing writer. But it turns retired that Prebble had sewage it very wrong: “From The very first day, it changed everything for me.”

First up, The caller regular was a revelation. Prebble is observant not to stock excessively galore specifications astir her backstage life, but she does opportunity she’s keen to impulse young writers not to underestimate conscionable really isolating penning Can be. Throughout our chat, The loneliness of a life in penning – peculiarly play penning – comes crossed rather strongly: “I had only ever written connected my ain before, which is simply a remarkably unstructured and depressing measurement of working. You’re spending each your clip connected your own. You’re ruminating heavily. You’re criticising yourself. Those 3 things are The awesome building blocks of slump and those things – whether you’re penning aliases you’re depressed – Can beryllium rather difficult to show apart.”

But pinch Succession that loneliness and introspection shifted. Prebble’s days now had shape. Purpose. People. Up until now, her master life had predominantly been astir play penning – but location was thing astir that world that had ne'er rather sat right: “I’ve ever loved theatre arsenic an creation shape but it wasn’t my original passion. I was into comedy, music, politics, peculiarly satire … But location was ever a tinge to theatre. Or astatine slightest location was backmost then. There was that somewhat academic, grandparent-pleasing Oxbridge essence.”

The Succession writers’ room was different. Filled pinch British and American talent – mostly from The world of drama – its ambiance couldn’t person been further distant from The “slightly swaggering, barren academia” of British theatre: “It was for illustration exhaling. Like coming home. Generous, compassionate and safe.” Prebble adds, hinting astatine conscionable really difficult she has recovered The play-writing process in The past: “I discovered really overmuch easier it was to beryllium imaginative and funny having a speech pinch different group alternatively than conscionable pinch yourself, which Can sometimes get a small overseas and self-punishing.”

There was a practicality to TV penning in The US that Prebble recovered freeing. The swimming excavation location is nary longer an option? Write retired The pool! Penned a segment that doesn’t gel aliases speech that doesn’t click? Hand it complete to personification else! “It was for illustration we were each trying to hole a car together. I was truthful precious astir penning earlier that … but arsenic soon arsenic you commencement to attraction connected The practical, it diffuses each The different stuff. The ego. The intellectual. It asks you to inquire different kinds of questions.”

It is an acquisition that has transformed The measurement Prebble conducts herself, peculiarly in her master life: “Now erstwhile I’m connected group pinch Suzie aliases Succession, I locomotion astir wholly differently. I Can say: ‘For immoderate logic this sounds aliases feels for illustration bullshit’, and unfastened up The process to The actors and The crew, alternatively than holding it adjacent to my chest.” Prebble is really smiling now, arms wide open: “People don’t judge you for that. They respect you.”

Prebble and Armstrong person joked together precocious astir penning “the caller that nary 1 wants to read”. After years moving connected surface and being ocular and practical, Prebble is keen to agelong different penning muscle: “I do wonderment whether location mightiness beryllium thing in The unspeakable authority of caller writing. Where it’s conscionable me. No compromise. No practicality.” Pause. Slightly anxious laughter: “But possibly I’d conscionable beryllium very lonely.”

The Effect is astatine The National Theatre: Lyttelton, London, from 1 August to 7 October.