AWARD-WINNING writer and performer Kieran Hurley is a theatre-maker from Glasgow whose work has been presented throughout the UK and internationally. An adaptation of his play Beats is currently in post-production with Ken Loach’s Sixteen Films. Next month Square Go, a play co-written with Gary McNair exploring how boys learn the rules of manhood, has its world premiere at Summerhall.
5.30am. My three-year-old daughter comes in to our bedroom and after a number of attempts to cajole her towards the idea of going back to sleep, I give up and take her to the living room so her very pregnant mum Julia can try to get some rest.
9.00am. I take the little one over to Queen’s Park to play in the sunshine, so that Julia can head to a meeting. When you’re freelance, people tend to think it means you can choose your own maternity or paternity leave, which is sort of true until you factor in the small matter of how we’re all going to eat, so we’ve been kind of cramming it in order to be able to take some time off later. Them’s the breaks.
After playing on the swings and saying hi to the ducks, I drop the wee one at her Nonnie’s (that’s her gran’s) before meeting Gary to talk through rewrites for Square Go, our wee play that’s going on at the Edinburgh Fringe this year.
2.00pm. Gary and I are in China Buffet King. We hadn’t planned to be in the China Buffet King. It’s just sort of what happened. Sometimes, when Gary and I get together to do a thing, it results in these slightly odd occurrences that wouldn’t have happened otherwise but both of us are very enthusiastic about. Like lunch at China Buffet King. Or this wee play we wrote, called Square Go.
We were much younger when we wrote it, and it came out of a completely wild process at the Battersea Arts Centre that culminated in the creation of these characters, Max and Stevie. They are two young boys trying to navigate the weird violence of cultural masculinity when one of them is called for a fight at the school gates.
It’s full of jokes and bonkers live action competitions and it’s kind of chaotic and fun, but it’s also a real discussion about a thing that’s always been a big deal for us both.
We’re both dead proud of it and excited it’s now finally getting to meet an audience. As we step up for our second plate I’m a little worried this lunch might not be the ideal fuel for a day of focused writing.
3.00pm. Bloody hell it’s hot, eh? I set up in a wee spot by the Clyde to send some emails and try to bask in the rare pleasure of a proper Glasgow summer laced with a low-level anxiety about climatic endtimes, before heading up to the Mitchell Library to crack on with these rewrites.
7.45pm. Turns out Chinese buffet is ideal writing fuel keeping you full until, well, now-ish, when the library is about to close.
Revisiting a play first written years ago is an odd experience. The task is really to enhance and preserve what it is, rather than to completely overhaul it. It’s a true collaboration, this. We both love these characters. We both love this play. But it’s also sort of unlike anything either of us have done without the other one there. Kind of like lunch at China Buffet King.
Square Go is at the Roundabout, Summerhall, Edinburgh from August 4 to August 26 (not 7, 14, 21), 8.20pm, £15, £10 concs. Tel: 0131 226 000. www.painesplough.com @kieran_hurley
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