Prolific British scribe James Graham is beginning to get some serious American recognition for his body of work, and he isn’t biting the hand that feeds.
Graham’s Rupert Murdoch play Ink is being made into a Studiocanal, Media Res and House Productions movie starring Guy Pearce while a different production, Punch, recently transferred to Broadway.
Graham views this recent success across the pond as “repaying back investment from the state.”
Effectively, he is thankful to the British public broadcasters for funding his early work and for the government grants he received at the start of his career.
Speaking to a parliamentary committee this morning about the future of the BBC, Graham said these projects making it big in the U.S. are “my thank you as an artist.” He didn’t name them directly but they are his two big recent projects to have made it in the States.
“I hope I’m on my way to repaying back that investment from the state in terms of the plays I have going to Broadway, or film production I’ve just bought to the UK with American and foreign investment,” he added. “That is my thank you as an artist.”
Ink, which is being directed by Danny Boyle and written by Graham, first premiered in London and tells the story of the early days of Rupert Murdoch’s British tabloid The Sun. Pearce is playing Murdoch and Jack O’Connell is Sun editor Larry Lamb. Studiocanal launched sales at AFM and co-represents domestic sales with WME Independent.
Punch, meanwhile, started life in Graham’s home city of Nottingham and moved to London’s West End and Broadway last year. It is based on the non-fiction book Right from Wrong by Jacob Dunne about a teenager’s fatal act of random violence and his path toward forgiveness. Both Punch and Ink have played at the Manhattan Theatre Club.
Graham has never felt censored
Graham was speaking to a new Culture, Media and Sport Committee inquiry about the BBC’s charter review, which will set the BBC funding model and other key areas for the next decade.
The writer, who has tackled subjects including Brexit, the governments of the day and the England soccer team, was questioned on whether he has ever felt like commissioners were censoring his work, but he was adamant this isn’t the case.
“There’s certainly not been pressure about censorship or things that might make a commissioner queasy,” he added. “I’ve never been told [not to do certain] subject matter or a political moment or figure.”
Instead, he said “a huge amount of conversation happens around editorial policy” when you are making shows for British broadcasters, with lengthy discussions over fairness, impartiality and whether a program might be defamatory. “I feel like the only pressure I’ve felt is a positive thing about not alienating audiences or saying anything is libelous, but never about subject matter,” he added.
