Torben Betts: I'm not Alan Ayckbourn's lovechild

What inspired Muswell Hill?
The idea came when I was sitting in a pub in north London on the night of the Haiti earthquake in January 2010. Most people in the pub were in their 20s and 30s, and most of them had phones or iPads and were generally ignoring each other and focussing on these. Then news of the earthquake filtered through, and people were discussing it between tapping away on their screens. So the play is really about connectedness and about what technology has done to the way that we communicate with each other, as well as the contrasts between the concerns of those people in the pub and the horror of what was happening in Haiti. The action of the play takes place during a dinner party in Muswell Hill on that same night.

Technology, particularly phones, is notoriously difficult to use effectively on stage – how did you deal with that?
I write two kinds of plays, one naturalistic and the other not. I think for the former, if it's fly-on-the-wall in style, you can't really avoid incorporating mobile phones. So in the play, people read texts and phone other people all the time, often to fill awkward silences. It starts with the hostess of the dinner party on the phone as she is told news of Haiti by somebody who's on a laptop, and the conversation continues in this vein. I think that's just the nature of modern communication.

Almost everything I read about you mentions Alan Ayckbourn. How do you feel about that?
It's slightly irritating, to be honest. I think because I was writer-in-residence at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, people consider me to be some sort of lovechild of Alan's. He was certainly an influence on me but he never sat me down and taught me to write plays. I think my plays are much darker, and that's probably why he has much more money than me [laughs]. I was interviewed by the Telegraph and they took a photo of me with him, which makes it look like I'm in love with him. The caption was something like 'master and pupil', which is a bit silly considering I'm 47!

What was your breakthrough as a playwright?
I was an actor when I started writing. I wrote a huge range of plays in my mid-twenties, in different styles, and sent them off. I got a huge amount of rejection letters until Alan picked up A Listening Heaven [1999].That was the play that made me think, 'maybe I can be a playwright'.

There's much talk currently of the difficulties of arts careers – how hard was it for you to make a living as a writer?
Well I moved out of London due to the financial pressures. I was the sole breadwinner for my family and we just couldn't make it work economically in London. I don't know how anyone does it, frankly, unless you get a big West End hit. Even now I'm relatively established it's still a huge struggle – it's only in the last few years that I've stopped doing other work to supplement my income. The life of a playwright it far from comfortable, but then you don't go into it for the money.

Did leaving London change your writing?
Not really, no. I come down every month or so, so I still feel part of London. But moving away [to Berwick in Northumberland] has afforded me more time; I don't feel under nearly as much pressure. It's very quiet and you have to like your own company, but I enjoy that – as a writer you have to deal with solitude.

Tell us about your upcoming projects
If you'd asked me that a year ago there would have been an embarrassing silence, but I do have a few things happening currently. I have a play opening at the Live Theatre [in Newcastle] called What Falls Apart, which is about a Labour MP who's full of remorse having voted for the Iraq War. It coincides with the general election, opening in April. After that I'm doing a new version of The Seagull for Regent's Park Open Air Theatre, directed by Matthew Dunster. And I'm adapting Get Carter for Northern Stage, which I'm trying to reimagine with Greek masks. I think Original Theatre Company are doing a national tour of Invincible, which was at the St James Theatre last year, and there's also a Spanish version happening in Madrid, starring Maribel Verdú.

Thanks for speaking to WhatsOnStage
No problem. Just promise me the headline won't involve the phrase 'Alan Ayckbourn's lovechild…'

Muswell Hill runs at the Park Theatre from 17 February to 14 March 2015