Yarm playwright Graham Farrow is attracting would-wide interest thanks to his play Talk About The Passion which looks at the media fascination with child killers. Just before the play runs at Stockton's Arc, Farrow talks to Viv Hardwick.

THREE years ago, despite having written an award-nominated book, North-East playwright Graham Farrow was making a living out of composing the content of birthday cards for the Internet. Now he's enjoying international fame, thanks to one of six plays he's written which was inspired by the brutal murder in 1993 of James Bulger, but has a message that still resonates today.

Talk About The Passion, which will run for two weeks at Stockton's Arc from September 28, has captured the attention of top producer Andy Jordan, the BBC's drama department and theatre impresario Bill Kenwright.

The play, a simple two-hander, features the father of a murdered six-year-old confronting the female publisher of a book by his killer.

Yarm-based Farrow's ability to add twists and turns to the plot ensures that tours are going out in Japan, South Africa, Sweden, Iceland, Finland, Germany and Austria.

But he admits that creating plays in the Teesside area - recognised by the Arts Council as the UK's most theatre-deprived region - has meant his work having to travel to America and London before appealing to the North-East.

Of the play he says: "I'm very cynical about a lot of things, but there is a lot of belief in this project and hopefully in others as well.

"Basically, the James Bulger murder in 1993 just seemed to be the reaction of the Press and people in general who were blaming the families, and the perpetrators were lost in the system.

"I got to thinking that this just isn't fair; although kids did this thing, it was still a premeditated murder. These kids knew what they were doing, but it just seemed that a liberal society was falling over itself to protect the killers and was blaming the father and mother and forgetting that a child had been horrifically murdered.

"There was a spate of books coming out at the time and it seemed to be the 'in' thing to allow killers to produce stories about their crimes and to earn money for them.

"I think it's about time the victims were thought of instead of the perpetrators, quite honestly."

Farrow is aware that his views and the play go against the way Britain's justice system is often portrayed in television drama, but comments: "They might not like it, but they are well aware of the project, and I'm told the BBC's head of drama is going along to see for himself."

Farrow wrote the play in 1994 and saw productions staged in London and at Middlesbrough Theatre, but it has taken the success of his book Speak No Evil and plays in America and New Zealand to re-awaken interest in this country. Farrow says: "It's taken me ten years to become an overnight success. It's been quite soul-destroying to be honest. If I can sit and watch my play being performed in New York it's a fantastic feeling, but none of my family and friends can fly out and see it happening. They'd like to see my work on their doorstep... and why shouldn't they?

"I'm in the realm now where I can make some money but it's been the usual stuff over the years of doing some teaching, working in bars and writing articles for the Internet. Three years ago I was writing greeting cards for the Internet."

Now Passion has been selected by script publishers Methuen for worldwide release and Farrow says: "When the play was published I looked on the Japanese website and when the words came up in Japanese it was hilarious to see and flattering. It's good that theatre companies all over the world can access it."

The writer, who was a boarding school boy at Hurworth and Scarborough College, travelled the world before settling in Yarm and began writing plays in 1990.

As his play picked up interest elsewhere, Farrow contacted producer Andy Jordan - who discovered Jimmy McGovern, the writer of Cracker - and was offered backing.

Farrow adds: "Luckily, Arc at Stockton was encouraging new writers and also the New End Theatre in London showed interest. So these three things merged together and provided the funding. The first production was in London at the beginning of September and it's going down a storm," says Farrow.

"To be honest, the reaction mainly is that it's a good play. People appreciate the sentiment, but the over-riding majority view is that it is a good piece of drama, particularly as there are two major twists which turn it on its head."

Now he has a new play opening in Michigan in March called Lake Of Fire about a rock star holed up in his mansion going through de-tox.

Farrow explains: "The house is broken into by a man who thinks the star is on tour and wants to steal his heroin. This sets off events which lead to lies, betrayal and murder. It's sort of Kurt Cobain-influenced on what might have happened to him."

A play called Rattlesnakes, which premiered in New York in 2001, is also being produced by Andy Jordan Productions.

In fact, so many of his plays are capturing attention that he jokes: "Alan Ayckbourn's behind me in the queue at the moment."

"I'm always fascinated by the dark side and people with flaws on the edge of society. What makes them tick? What makes killers kill? What makes rock stars with everything in the world, try and kill themselves? "Rattlesnakes is about a male gigolo who works in a small town and some husbands track him down to a hotel room. But he knows about each husband and through a psychological game, he manages to play them off against each other. Now that's a really fascinating idea, because you imagine if that's set in the North-East, with our macho culture, so you know what the husbands' response would be."

Farrow is not surprised that his work transfers easily to the US because he doesn't give his scripts a North-East bias and comments: "A lot of people think I'm American anyway, which might be to do with the style of the writing. Also they've got the money and clout."

Farrow doesn't have children of his own and wrote Passion before his nephew and niece were born, so how did he conjure up the feelings of a father in such a nightmare situation?

"That's a good question. A lot of people have asked me if I'd actually lost a child to a murderer. But you use your imagination to try and understand what a parent would go through. I have a nephew and a niece now whom I absolutely adore and I'd put my life on the line for them, so now it makes more sense. I can see now how life-changing a child murder can be to anyone."

Of his future Farrow says that he actually prefers New York out of all places on earth, but adds: "Even though I love New York, everything I've written has been in Yarm because my laptop is in Yarm and that's where I do my work because that is where my inspiration comes."

Published: 23/09/2004