Playwright Holly in rehearsals for The Secret Garden
What attracted you to study at King’s?
A mix of studying in London, the connection to my beloved Virginia Woolf and how cutting-edge the modules seemed.
What’s your favourite memory of your time at King’s?
I had a hard time at KCL. It feels important to highlight that you can have a difficult experience at university, survive it and that time can still have been worthwhile. For example, I learnt so much and I met my best friend, Mary. My memories of living with her are my most precious.
What’s the key skill or lesson you learnt at King’s?
I arrived at King’s as a loud and proud feminist. But that feminism was challenged and changed by my time at the KCL Feminist Society and other political groups. I learnt from brilliant fellow students like Shanice Octavia McBean, Emma Allwood, Hareem Ghani and Travis Alabanza. I learnt the meaning of solidarity.
Your adaptation of The Secret Garden is on at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre. Was the plan always to be a playwright?
I started King’s thinking I’d find a proper non-theatrical vocation. But I was going to the theatre every week, picking theatre modules at every opportunity and I directed two student plays. I even wrote my dissertation on the work of theatre director Katie Mitchell. There was no hope for me really!
Can you tell us about your playwrighting career?
I wrote my first play, soft animals, on a course in 2018-19 under the tutelage of dramaturg Adam Brace. In a stroke of luck, soft animals went on at Soho Theatre in 2019. That was the beginning of everything. Just as I was getting going on a number of projects, the pandemic hit. It was tough, but it also gave me time to become a better writer for which I learnt to be grateful.
How did you end up getting this adaptation staged?
The Secret Garden is a shared ur-text of Anna Himali Howard’s, the co-writer and director, and mine. For us, it’s a foundational text from which a lot of our artistic and political philosophies and tastes were formed. We’d obsessed about how you translate Frances Hodgson Burnett’s quite radical intentions around colonialism and disability into a more modern sensibility while keeping the period setting. The opportunity came to pitch our version to Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre. After two years of development and numerous drafts, the outgoing Artistic Director, Tim Sheader, programmed the show into his final season.
Are you pleased with how your words are coming alive on the stage?
It’s easier than usual because (most of!) the words are Hodgson Burnett’s! And they’re extraordinarily beautiful. I’ve loved shaping the adaptation with Anna. She’s been incredibly generous at letting me outstay my welcome in rehearsals. The cast of 12 are bringing so much unexpected colour, humour and depth to every moment. I can’t wait for audiences to share in it.