(Hermione Hoby's article ran in the Guardian, 11/8,)

'Most theatre is still really bad'

Hermione Hoby talks to the groundbreaking playwright Mike Bartlett

"We've got to get away from the idea that it's good to go to the theatre," says young playwright Mike Bartlett over lunch at London's Royal Court theatre, where his new play is about to open. "It isn't church. There's nothing innately good about it. Most theatre is still really bad."

Ignoring his plate of pasta, the 29-year-old is on a roll. "It has to appeal to people who do jobs and have lives. Theatre about theatre is the most awful, terminal nonsense."

In 2007, the Royal Court reconfigured the theatre to resemble a tube carriage to stage his acclaimed My Child, about a divorced father fighting for access to his son. His new play, Cock, also features a man in crisis: Ben Whishaw plays John, a happily partnered gay man who falls in love with a woman.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2009/nov/08/mike-bartlett-royal-court-cock

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