Preview: Wanderlust

The first thing that grabbed me was the dialogue. Nick Payne writes the way people actually talk – saying completely the wrong thing at the wrong moment. It’s hilarious, but it’s also painfully human. There’s a real craft to making something feel that effortless. But beyond the laughs, what really drew me in is how unflinchingly the play holds up a mirror to us. It forces you to sit with life’s more uncomfortable truths, the moments we’d rather not dwell on, and recognises that nobody in this story is wholly good or wholly terrible. Everyone is trying, and failing, and trying again. That feels very true to life.

It’s also just genuinely fun. People are going to have a brilliant time watching this. And for me personally, it’s unlike anything I’ve directed before, because of just how real it is. That’s been the challenge and the thrill in equal measure.

He just gets what it means to be a human being. As I’ve said, the dialogue feels as if he’s been quietly eavesdropping on all of our awkward conversations. And this makes the heartfelt storytelling all the more relatable – the emotion always comes first. So you end up caring about the characters before you’ve even realised how clever the structure is.

Wanderlust was only his second ever play, and his first outing at the Royal Court, in 2010. After that came Constellations, which received several Olivier nominations. He manages to pack in so much drama into short running times, with playful ideas coming face-to-face with powerful undercurrents of emotion that are surprisingly subtle.

I think his greatest appeal is that his plays are about real people. And I think actors love playing his characters because even for their flaws, there’s so much to love about them.

Wanderlust is at heart about the gap between love and desire – and what it looks like when those two things fall out of step with each other. It asks what happens to intimacy inside a long marriage, and whether the things we promise each other at the start can survive the weight of time, routine, and unspoken resentment.

But it’s also about feeling seen. We’ve worked a lot on the characters’ objectives – and we kept coming back to the fact that everybody wants to feel wanted in some way. It also explores the terrifying vulnerability of actually asking for what you want, and the equally terrifying prospect of not being able to give it. And, woven through all of it, there’s a surprisingly tender story about two teenagers navigating the complex world of relationships for the first time. It’s nostalgic and sweet in many ways.

I think it strikes a chord with today, because although we live in a world that’s more saturated with images of sex than ever before, genuine intimacy feels harder to talk about than ever.

There are quite a few scenes in this play that require real delicacy and trust, so we’ve been lucky enough to work with the incredible Megan Good as our intimacy co-ordinator. She has been an absolute gift. Her job has been to make sure the cast feel completely safe, comfortable and in control, establishing clear boundaries from day one, and then working through the choreography slowly and collaboratively like any other piece of staging.

We work behind closed doors for those rehearsals, we take our time, and we check in constantly. And crucially – we try to laugh about it, because nothing dissolves awkwardness faster than finding the absurdity in a situation together!

Joy (Cait Hart Dyke) and Alan (Ed Reeve) have been married for nearly 25 years. They’re still in love with each other, just not quite in the way they used to be, and they’re both making rather spectacular decisions about what to do about it. There’s Stephen (Tariq Rasheed), an old flame of Joy’s who turns up at her GP surgery with an embarrassing problem, and Clare (Charlotte Robathan), a younger colleague of Alan’s who has run away from the expectations life has put on her. Neil (Chris Cordell) is the school’s Head of IT who’s caught doing something he really shouldn’t in a classroom. And then there’s Tim (Adam Al-Janabi) and Michelle (Yasmin Monet Prince), two fifteen-year-olds who are in many ways the most clear-eyed and tender people in the entire play.

And while you’ll no doubt laugh, wince and root for them, you’ll probably recognise bits of yourself too – possibly in more than one of them.

An absolute blast, honestly. I feel incredibly lucky to have gotten to work with this talented bunch of actors. Rehearsing this play has been nothing but a joy, and all the midweek and weekend evenings have been full of laughs. I was lucky enough to be approached by Cal Beckett at the SLT launch night, and she has been a complete godsend as stage manager, fielding my endless questions about how everything works with the patience of a saint.

I also met Kelly Q that same evening, who signed up as assistant director without fully realising what sort of sexually-charged play she was letting herself in for! She’s been extraordinary – organised, full of ideas, and always the first person to roll up her sleeves, I’m so glad to have shared this experience with her. And then there’s Stephen Hayward, who has somehow taken my rambling, ever-changing vision for the set and turned it into something absolutely spot on.

And that’s just a snapshot of the help and support I’ve been given by the whole SLT community. I have been made to feel really welcome and I’m so grateful to be a part of the family now.

Awkward. Sexy. Real.