Adrian Lester as Ira Aldridge in Red Velvet. Photo by Tristram Kenton.
Lolita Chakrabarti is a creative bundle of talent. For those growing up in the 90s, she is best remembered as strong willed WPC Jamila Blake in The Bill. For avid theatre goers she is the playwright who set the stage alight in 2012 with Red Velvet, based on the life of African American, British-based actor Ira Aldridge. In between she has worked extensively on stage and screen. Her theatre credits include The Great Game: Afghanistan for the Tricycle Theatre, Last Seen for the Almeida (which she also contributed to the writing of), and John Gabriel Borkman for the Donmar Warehouse.
On the small screen her acting skills have been flexed in diverse fare from Vera and Outnumbered to Holby City and Silent Witness. Married to actor Adrian Lester, Chakrabarti won the Most Promising Playwright category at the 2012 Evening Standard Awards and at the Critics Circle Awards in January 2013. Her husband also won a Critic Circle Award for best actor in his commanding role as Aldridge in Red Velvet. With the critically acclaimed play back at the Tricycle Theatre before its transfer to New York, Chakrabarti tells Joy Francis of her love of writing, why being a Gemini keeps her on her toes and her plan to pen and produce her first full length feature directed by her husband.
Most people may know you as a writer, but I remember you vividly as Jamila Blake in The Bill back in the 1990s as it was one of the most multiracial shows on TV. Was writing always on your radar or did that evolve through acting?
In retrospect I have always written – stories, scenes – but I only started writing properly four or five years after leaving drama school. I was writing while I was on The Bill, but I didn’t admit it to anyone. I wrote lots and lots of short stories. I have also written a lot of scripts over the years. I would write in-between acting jobs.
Why did you keep your writing quiet?
I don’t think I had the confidence. A lot of writers keep it quiet at the beginning. I saw it as just me expressing myself. I started writing because I was bored between acting jobs. I’d read a book or do a course in pottery, but then I thought, I actually just want to work. Writing was something I could control and it met the creative drive I had in my head.
When did you decide to take up writing full time and what prompted that?
It happened slowly. I started to send work out myself – I didn’t have a literary agent at that time. I first sent out a book of short stories to publishers. I got some good responses but at the time I just thought they were rejection letters. Then I started to write a few scripts, including a three part TV series which I worked on with Adrian [Lester], my husband. We did a reading for TV executives. My [professional] connections as an actor have absolutely facilitated my movement as a writer. I’ve had access to people at the top of their game who I’ve asked to read my work and advise me.
What is it about the theatre form that appeals to you?
When I started writing I didn’t have a plan to be a particular type of writer, such as a novelist or screenwriter. I’m a Gemini. You can’t pin me down to one form. I try my hand at everything. I love the theatre form because it is so different from all the others. It is about creating a sustained character that you develop in front of an audience. You can do crazy things in the middle of a play as long as it makes theatrical sense.
Red Velvet is loosely based on Ira Aldridge, the African American actor who courts controversy when he takes over the role of Othello from a renowned white actor (Edmund Kean). Why did this piece of 1800s history appeal to you?
I heard about Ira back in 1998 when I was in The Bill. Adrian had read about him and we both hadn’t heard of him before. Yet he was awarded the Prussian Gold Medal for Arts and Sciences from King Frederick William III, the Maltese Cross from Berne, Switzerland, and many other honours. As I started to dig and research him I found out about his extraordinary life. He lived in south London. I am a south Londoner. I found out that he lived not far from my house. As an actor you look for role models who have trodden a path you would like to emulate. When I was growing up actors of colour were quite rare so I looked to Sidney Poitier who is far from my demographic in that he is an American and a man, but in his time he was an outsider who created his own essential niche. Ira was closer to home in Britain. He played in so many of the theatres here. There was so much about his life that resonated with me. That is why Red Velvet is an imagined version of his life. No one will know the truth of what he went through but I want people to know he was here.
With Red Velvet back at the Tricycle Theatre for a limited run before its transfer to New York, what are your hopes for its reception in America?
It’s a very British play, but Ira was an American. One thing I’m so happy about is that he was actually from New York. He left in 1824 and didn’t go back. He was planning to go back in 1867 to play at the Academy of Music, New York , but he died. It is so tragic that he never went back home. I’m just delighted to be taking him home.
You’ve written radio plays, stage plays and you’ve also produced Of Mary, a short film, through your production company Lesata Productions that you run with Rosa Maggiora and your husband Adrian Lester. Is a full length feature film of your own on the cards?
Rosa and I produced Of Mary. Adrian directed it. We did it as a trial to see if we could work together. We found out that we can. We are now producing a feature film that I’m writing and which Adrian will direct.
What else for you?
I’m developing a three part TV series with a production company based on a script that has been in my drawer for many years. We will see what happens with Red Velvet as there’s a lot of international interest in the play. I’m always available for acting. I’m guesting in The Smoke in February on Sky 1. It’s a fire fighting drama, a bit like London’s Burning.
Any advice to budding writers?
It’s a slow, hard path. You have to be really disciplined. If you have something to say, and you think you can tell it well, keep going. Lots of people will reject you. If you can rise above the rejection, push through it as not everyone will get your story or how you want to tell it. People have their own agendas in mind and their own visions in life, so don’t give up. Your story is important.
Red Velvet is at the Tricycle Theatre from 23 January to 15 March 2014