Features

6 of the best young playwrights

Catherine Love rounds up some of her favourite new writers, and where you can see them next

Phoebe Waller-Bridge performing her 'deliciously filthy' play Fleabag
Phoebe Waller-Bridge performing her 'deliciously filthy' play Fleabag

There's always a whiff of myth-making when commentators declare a "new generation" of playwrights. It happened most famously in the 1950s and 60s with the arrival of the "angry young men", but we have also had the so-called "in-yer-face" movement of the 90s and the new wave of youthful writers – some of them not yet out of their teens – that characterised Dominic Cooke's tenure at the Royal Court.

But what is most exciting about today's promising playwrights is the impossibility of shoving them in a pigeonhole. They come from a range of creative backgrounds, bringing with them different influences and strengths. Their work has shades of stand-up, film, poetry, music and performance art; a number of them are also performers. If there is anything that unites these writers, it is a willingness to experiment, an interest in other art forms, and a sensitivity to the multiple, thrilling possibilities of the live event.

Alice Birch

Alice Birch's Revolt. She said. Revolt again., written for the RSC's Midsummer Mischief festival, might just be the best new play I've seen this year, ripping up the rulebook to create something completely electrifying. Next year brings a new play, Little Light, at the reinvigorated Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond, as well as two projects in collaboration with performance duo RashDash. And Birch's work is not going unnoticed: this year she won both the Arts Foundation Award for Playwriting and the prestigious George Devine Award, which she shared with Rory Mullarkey (see below).

Michaela Coel

Performer, poet and writer Michaela Coel was not about to sit around waiting for jobs to come her way. After graduating from Guildhall in 2012, she got on the phone to Jay Miller, artistic director of The Yard Theatre in Hackney Wick, and persuaded him to let her develop and stage a solo piece she wrote at drama school. That piece was Chewing Gum Dreams, the punchy powerhouse of a monologue that went on to be programmed at what was the National Theatre's Shed. Coel has since been busy acting, but her next play should be worth the wait.

Kieran Hurley

Glasgow-based Kieran Hurley (pictured) also grabbed attention performing his own work, which is characterised by its political commitment and passionate belief in storytelling. In Hitch, Hurley shared an autobiographical account of his journey to take part in protests outside the 2009 G8 summit in Italy, while Beats paired his writing and performance with a live, onstage DJ. He has since written plays including Chalk Farm and Rantin and is currently on attachment with the National Theatre of Scotland.

Alistair McDowall

Film buff Alistair McDowall turned to writing plays when he discovered that it was much easier to bring his stories to life without the need for a camcorder. The cinematic continues to influence his work, however, which often crashes together the mundane and the fantastical – a time machine in a Middlesborough housing estate in Brilliant Adventures, or a father turned superhero in Captain Amazing. His latest play Pomona, which is about to open at the Orange Tree Theatre, looks just as captivatingly strange.

Rory Mullarkey

Co-winner of this year's George Devine Award with Alice Birch, Rory Mullarkey shows himself to be just as willing to play around with the possibilities of live performance. Harold Pinter commission The Wolf From The Door, which is just about to finish its run at the Royal Court, brings the revolution to Middle England, demonstrating an eye for absurdity and an ear for bleak, almost Beckettian dialogue. Sticking with the village halls, his First World War play Each Slow Dusk is currently on a rural tour with theatre company Pentabus.

Phoebe Waller-Bridge

Another creative multi-tasker, Phoebe Waller-Bridge was better known as a actor before her deliciously filthy breakthrough play Fleabag. This one-woman show, to which Waller-Bridge brought her pitch-perfect comic talent as a performer, pushed insistently at the edges of the unsayable in its messy dissection of modern womanhood. Along with Vicky Jones, Waller-Bridge is also one half of DryWrite, a theatre company that has playfully challenged other writers to test their practice.