Born in Malvern, Worcestershire, in 1986, Alice Birch is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter for film and TV. Her screenwriting debut was for the 2016 film Lady Macbeth, starring Florence Pugh; she then worked on HBO’s Succession, co-wrote the 2020 TV adaptation of Normal People with Sally Rooney and co-created the 2023 Amazon series Dead Ringers with its star, Rachel Weisz. Her adaptation of Federico García Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba, about a matriarch oppressing her daughters, opens at the National Theatre next month, and her new film, The End We Start From, directed by Mahalia Belo, is released in January. She lives in Hackney, London, with her partner, theatre director Sam Pritchard, and their two children.
When did you first come across Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba?
When I was doing A-level drama. There were far more girls in my class than boys, and we were looking at putting on a play. Our teacher suggested we read it, and it broke my heart. The plays that do that are the best plays.
Has anything from that teenage production made it to this one?
The feeling of watching that many women on stage is still so exciting, so thrilling, and still notable. The staging is slightly different! It’s in a cross-section of the house, with conversations in the bedroom, out of windows, happening simultaneously. Also, the ending of each act is still an absolute banger.
Harriet Walter is your lead actor, who played another oppressive matriarch in Succession. Had you met before?
No, we never crossed paths. Succession was my first experience of writing for telly. I know! I worked on season two and did three weeks on season four thanks to the generosity of Jesse [Armstrong]. I’d just finished a job so he got me in. Harriet was an actor to write for, but, in person, she’s extraordinary, such a titan. Being in the room with her, redrafting, watching her leave a scene when she’s shouted or hit her daughters, how she makes you think why her character is how she is – it’s such a pleasure.
You were born, and lived for your first five years, in a commune. Did that shape you?
My sister and I were the only children there for a long time, and when all the adults ate together, we’d be sat at the table or under it, listening hard. There were pretty shared values there politically, but still lots of debate, conflict and drama. Dinner party scenes are still my favourite things to write. And I’d always be in a corner, reading.
What were your favourite books?
I’d fill my suitcase for holidays with books and put a swimsuit on top. That was it – I’d read everything. I had my Roald Dahl and Jacqueline Wilson phases like everyone else, but I read Wuthering Heights, Sylvia Plath and Thomas Hardy very young. I was a sucker for a big, sad story, and still am.
Normal People is a great contemporary example of one of those. How did it feel when that became huge during the first Covid lockdown?
For Daisy [Edgar-Jones] and Paul [Mescal, the show’s leads], it must have been bananas, but I felt at a remove from it. Having a very young baby and home schooling our son helped. But I try very hard not to think about audiences, because it’s a bit dangerous to look up what people are saying, to listen to that noise. If I do, my writing becomes something else. It has to be something I’m in a private, intimate conversation with. I’m quite good at hiding.
How do writing and parenting work for you?
I’m all or nothing with the kids. When I’m with them, I try to forget everything else. When I’m writing, the banalities of motherhood such as head lice and sorting instrument lessons disappear. I write when the kids are asleep. I’ve always written well at night, but I’ve tended to over-romanticise the unhealthy, tortured pain of writing. You have to watch that.
Your adaptation of Dead Ringers, with Rachel Weisz, featured very visceral birth scenes, and your forthcoming film, The End We Start From, is about a mother (Jodie Comer) with a newborn navigating a climate disaster. What draws you to those extremes?
With Dead Ringers, I thought, well, death can be funny, heartbreaking, heroic or sad on screen, but birth is never on screen. The pragmatism around pregnancy and childbirth is wild to me. I can’t believe we don’t talk about it more. With The End We Start From, it made complete sense to me to bring that experience of motherhood and birth alongside climate disaster – the floods, the fear, the poetic, the cinematic.
How open is theatre in 2023 to new, diverse voices?
I did a talk recently with brilliant young writers from the Royal Court who were very excited and hopeful about the future. But there’s also a danger of schemes, support groups and funding making things look like they’re more inclusive when they’re not. Theatre has always been very hard to get into. I had three jobs every day when I started, as a nanny, and a waitress and I worked in a pub. I was always writing behind the bar or when the toddler was napping. Snatched time can be good, but it’s not sustainable.
Rumours circulated in the summer about you working with Taylor Swift on a meta-feminist TV show. Is that true?
[laughs] I think Taylor’s wonderful.
But what project would you like to make with her?
She’s the most exciting pop culture icon. She’s transcended everything, and I loved her documentary. But what would I like to make? I’m not sure yet.
Do you do anything to escape writing?
No [laughs]. I like going swimming to work out ideas, and my head does go a bit blank sometimes when I’m doing that, but that’s only about once a month. I’m one of those people for whom every conversation is a potential story. Every person I meet could be a new character.
What advice would give a budding, underconfident writer?
Give yourself permission to write. Do it for yourself. Read, read, read. And, because this industry is tough, be very kind to yourself, too.
The House of Bernarda Alba is at the National Theatre, London, 16 November-6 January
