The actor-writer and the poet-novelist talk writing, TV and speaking for a generation
Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Kate Tempest have met before, as you might expect of two London-based artists both born in 1985 – though Waller-Bridge was drunk and Tempest can’t remember. Several years on, both have written plays, with Waller-Bridge’s bleak and hilarious Fleabag on BBC2 (it returns for a run at the Soho theatre next month) earning her rave reviews and a commission to write a thriller, Killer Eve, for BBC America. Meanwhile, Tempest’s poetry, her recent novel, The Bricks That Built The Houses, and albums including her latest, Let Them Eat Chaos, have earned her plaudits, including the 2013 Ted Hughes award (for Brand New Ancients) and a 2014 Mercury prize nomination (for Everybody Down). Last week she was shortlisted for the Costa 2016 poetry award.
Not that it’s gone to either of their heads. When they meet at the Guardian’s offices, each writer-performer is engaged and fascinated by the other’s way of working. There’s a jokey intimacy to their conversation from the off; here are two women who get each other, even if their voices are completely different. Whether they end up collaborating remains to be seen, but if they do, the work would no doubt be as sharp and dark and funny as the generation-defining projects they have written so far.
The difference between a writer and someone who dreams of being a writer is that the writer has finished
That idea that you’re not being indulgent, being an artist, is such a massive step
Do you ever write something and go, 'Smashed it, that’s brilliant'?
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