Storytelling, Poetry, and Plays: Murray Lachlan Young on His Career and Funnelwick Limb

(Murray in the rehearsal room with Funnelwick Limb - photo Luke Whitcomb)

During our recent Harwich residency we sat down with poet, writer, broadcaster and of course our lead writer Murray Lachlan Young  to ask him  about his career to date and why he likes collaborating with Funnelwick Limb.  This is what Murray had to say

So, I have been interested in theatre, words, storytelling and poetry since very early on. I  did a lot of child acting, sort of amateur dramatics starting in Seven Oaks in Kent where I was brought up. I was born in America and then went through the various different levels at school of studying drama and theater studies, and studied in Manchester at Salford University of media and performance. And I kind of fell into writing poetry.

(Murray in R&D for the new Funnelwick Limb show 12 Yuletide Yarns - photo © Funnelwick Limb)

I mean, I enjoyed acting and did a bit of it, but it wasn't really 100% my thing and my love of storytelling or bringing stories together, plus performing, seemed to find a really good expression in writing and performing poetry, which was when I got involved with the BBC. 

My first gig was with Kaleidoscope in my 20s, and then went on to do BBC Saturday Live. I was resident poet of BBC Radio 2 Culture Show. I did stuff for Test Match Special, and for 13 years was resident poet for BBC 6 music. 

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1438861792873048

About 10 years ago, I started getting really interested in writing more long form work. And so started writing plays and musical theatre, theater and film.  I co-wrote the screen play of Dylan Thomas Under Milk Wood with Rhys Ifans, directed by Kevin Allen, which we shot in two languages. So it was shot with a bilingual cast in Welsh and English, and they shot one one take Welsh, one take English, and it ended up as the BAFTA Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film

I'm currently working on a few films at the moment, hoping to shoot one in September, directed by Irina Brooke, who's Peter Brooke's daughter, which is a film memoir based on my memoir about my grandmother, so there's lots going on.

I'm thrilled to be working again with Funnelwick Limb. So often as a writer you are working on your own, or in intense bursts with writing partners or dramaturges. The way we work at Funnelwick Limb feels much more like a genuine collaboration.

So with the show we are working on currently - Twelve Yuletime Yarns - we're in this incredibly rewarding space where we are just coming up with lots of really exciting ideas about what you can do in a show in a school hall.  We're exploring where all these ideas, these tales are going,.  And ever so slowly we are chipping away at the ideas going from no parameters where everything is possible to slowly narrowing it down to what we're looking at doing and, and beginning to get things like the where and the why down on paper

(The all important R&D fruit and nibbles, the flip charts and most important of all collaborator and actor Chileya Mwampolo improvising as part of the Twelve Yuletime Yarns residency at Harwich Arts and Heritage Centre - photo © Alica Cannell)

Together we are asking ourselves questions like - why are we doing this? What is it? And even what is the defining principle, what is thing where all roads lead to, which can be translated in a sentence. 

And ultimately at the end of the week I take this bundle of ideas and improvisations, the flip charts and the photos together with the learning I took from performing in school halls across Tendring last year and start to develop a script.

Find out more about Murray and his work outside of Funnelwick Limb at murraylachlanyoung.com