Lydia Marchant’s keynote speech from Fresh Ink 2026
Ahead of her new short play Kicks premiering at Middle Child later this week, we publish Lydia’s keynote speech from this year’s Fresh Ink: Hull Playwriting Festival
Lydia Marchant speaking at Fresh Ink: Hull Playwriting Festival 2026
Is the future of new writing hyperlocal?
Lydia walks onstage to the sound track of ‘London? London??? LONDON??!!’ from the Coronation Street meme.
Hi, I’m Lydia and I’m a script writer from Hull. Well, technically Hessle. I’ll let you argue amongst yourselves about whether that counts.
When I was growing up, films set in hometowns like mine always ended with the character ‘getting out.’ That big Billy-Elliot-Royal-Ballet-School moment when you leave the North for the place with all the opportunities. So that’s what I did. And then came back.
I started writing this the week Andy Burnham announced his vision for a Number 10 of the North. A commitment to transferring power away from Westminster. Is that what theatre should be doing too? The average London rent is £2,200. So why do we keep seeing London as the ‘end goal?’
I want to talk a bit about the impact Hull has had on not only me but generations of playwrights. With opportunities like Fresh Ink and companies like Middle Child and Hull Truck’s incredible commitment to new writing, is this city becoming a blueprint for what theatre outside of London could and should be? And is it time to explore whether the future of British theatre is regional?
When I was a teenager, Hull’s claim to fame was “Britain’s second crappest town.” Which we all know is incredibly unfair. Hull is not a town.
When the Lord Mayor came to speak to my book club, he said to a room of 10 year olds: “Just because you’re from Hull don’t think you’re not as good as everybody else.” Because if you’re told over and over again, in Daily Mail headlines and panel show punchlines that the place you’re from is “crap”, you start to wonder if you’re a bit crap as well.
I grew up with an idea that the rest of the country was getting some kind of better deal. But the book club the Lord Mayor was speaking at was a totally free reading group for young people from all over the city, run out of Central Library. It showed me there was more out there than Jacqueline Wilson and Puppy Patrol, transformed the way I thought and talked about books and made me feel like my opinions mattered. It turned out to be my first experience of the incredible arts opportunities the city has to offer.
In 2008, Hull Truck Theatre advertised a Young Writers’ Festival. Sixteen young people aged 10-18 would get the chance to see their 15 minute plays performed by the youth theatre over four nights. Aged 13, I wrote about a grumpy dead man, travelling to Bridlington to have his ashes scattered… Because write what you know, right?
Before that, I would never have even thought writing a play was something you could do. What other city was platforming and celebrating young voices like that?
I think the fact the Young Writers’ Festival existed says a lot about how we view new writing in Hull. We know that we rarely see Hull represented on screen. High Street and Victoria Square are more likely to feature as a stand-ins for London than in a story set here. We also know that the version of our city projected to us - in those “crap town” lists and clickbait headlines - is not one we recognise.
So, since Mike Bradwell founded Hull Truck Theatre, and probably before, we’ve been making our own stories. And we’re not precious about who gets to tell them. Experience level, qualifications, financial backing or star casting doesn’t come into it. I once went to a talk where a guy said “there’s more writers in Hull than milkmen” and he’s right. I mean, statistically he really is probably right. Playwriting in Hull is a democratic space. We don’t need permission or a green light. It’s the way we see the world around us reflected back to us.
Arts and culture ended up totally transforming the way I saw the city I’d grown up in. Through my teens, I saw plays like Up’n’Under by John Godber, Every Time It Rains by Rupert Creed, City of Light by Morgan Sproxton, Me and Me Dad by Nick Lane, Confessions of a City Supporter by Alan Plater, Luke Barnes’ Weekend Rockstars and Tom Wells’ Kitchen Sink.
When I was 21, we became the UK City of Culture. Suddenly I met all these amazing theatre companies coming out of the university’s drama department: Middle Child, Silent Uproar, The Roaring Girls, each making cutting edge and exciting theatre, playing with form in a way I’d never seen before. Paines Plough recorded Hull stories for their Come To Where I’m From series. There were new plays by Hull-born Richard Bean, Hull university graduate James Graham and brilliant new voices like Maureen Lennon, Ellen Brammar and Josh Overton, to name just a few…
It also had a huge impact on the stories I was telling. I was introduced to devising and co-creation, making plays with Hull Truck’s youth theatre, their over 55s theatre makers and a script with a group of teen mums at the Boulevard referral unit, which ended up inspiring my first full-length play, Mumsy. For the first time I understood the stories I wanted to tell and the audiences I wanted to make them for.
People were wearing t-shirts saying '“Come to Hull, it’s not shit anymore.” And it wasn’t. Finally the rest of the country were seeing my hometown the way I did. It was the most amazingly exciting time to be learning how to write.
Then, in September 2017, I moved to down south to study script writing at drama school. Because London is the place with all the opportunities, right? So if things were this good in Hull, they could only get better.
Lydia Marchant speaking at Fresh Ink: Hull Playwriting Festival 2026
I absolutely don’t want this to be me shitting on London. Even though it was the first place I paid £7 for a pint. For the most part, I really enjoyed living there. I loved my course mates and studying playwriting full time was a dream come true. I was amazingly lucky that Hull Truck gave all their supported artists a £500 Go See Fund, so the cheapest night out I could have was at the theatre. I saw work at the Royal Court, Bush, Yard, Old Vic, Young Vic, West End, Finborough and Theatre 503 and I can’t deny that had a big impact on my understanding of playwriting.
But I wasn’t prepared for the divide that exists between regional and London theatre. Nothing I’d done in Hull could measure up to a short play in a pub theatre in London. My name was never mentioned during the “who’s going to make it” conversations at the end of the Summer term. Yes that’s a real, absolutely toxic thing that happens at drama school.
I also totally underestimated how stressful the money situation would be. Without the Go See Fund, all that theatre would have been happening around me, but I would never have afforded to go.
I used to lie awake in pure panic about what I’d spent on really normal student nights out. I applied for every job going in a bid to afford to stay in the city and, when I finally did get agency work as a teaching assistant, was naive enough to be shocked when I realised that would in no way cover my rent. I kept applying but, as the rejections piled up and my lease ran out, I finally accepted I’d have to move back home to my parents’.
This wasn’t part of the Billy-Elliot-Narrative I’d written for myself and I felt like a total failure.
But it was the best thing that could have possibly happened to me. If I’d had admin experience and a better CV, I’d have stayed in London, working multiple jobs. I’d have been in the place with all the opportunities, but I wouldn’t have had the time to do much actual writing.
Instead, I moved back to Hull. I worked as an usher, where I got literally paid to watch plays. I joined the Writing Squad, an organisation connecting young writers across the north of England. There, I met lifelong friends, got invaluable feedback on my work and even took part in a paid writers exchange between Hull and Reykjavik.
Hull Truck, the theatre I’d been so lucky to have a relationship with since I was a teenager, read the very rough first draft of the play I’d written for my dissertation. They supported me with developing it and, when they commissioned it, I cried. It is still one of the best moments of my life. As writers, we know it’s so important to apply for every call out. But, in theatre, by far the most transformative opportunities I’ve had have come out of meaningful, long-term relationships with companies in this city who have invested me in over time.
Living up north didn’t hold me back when it came to getting into TV either. When I was offered a place on the BBC Writers Academy, over half of us lived out side of London and we got paid a £480 a week relocation allowance on top of our fee - more money than I’d ever earned in my life. Writers on EastEnders live in Manchester, Northern Ireland, Wales, Malaga… If they invite us to story conferences, they pay our travel and accommodation. Zoom is also a brilliant thing. I once did the depressing £100 train fare for a 30-minute general meeting, but since Covid every pitching meeting I’ve had has been online. In my most random job ever, I wrote on a space podcast for N*SYNC’s Lance Bass, who’s based in LA. Very sadly they did not fly me out. When I started working for Waterloo Road, they were interested in me because I was a northern writer.
When I get meetings with production companies, it’s because they want to hear from northern voices. When I was pitching stories set here without living here, I felt like a fraud. Creatively, this is the place that inspires me and, in the last few years, I’ve realised it is the best place I could base myself.
I totally get that all of that is only my experience. I’m also aware that a lot of the opportunities I’ve mentioned might not exist anymore. Certainly, with a cash-strapped Arts Council, less literary departments and limited commissioning opportunities, the national theatre landscape feels a lot less optimistic than it did when I was starting out. But I’d argue that, here in Hull, things have actually got better.
I spoke to local writers at all stages of their career about how Hull influences their writing. Comments that came back included:
“I feel like I didn't really find my writing legs until I started to think about place and voice and moving back to Hull made me so much more rooted as a writer.”
“Having been born in East Hull and later moving to the East Riding… this geographical and cultural shift deeply influences my writing.”
“There's a gruff resilience, proper strength, an awareness that Hull is seen as a bit shit in the eyes of the world, apart from the lucky ones who live here.”
A performance of work by the No Dress Code writers’ group at Fresh Ink: Hull Playwriting Festival 2026
The brilliant thing Middle Child have done is create a clear development pathway. At the start of this year, I was so excited to be asked to run Middle Child’s No Dress Code young writers’ group. Having got into writing through young playwriting opportunities in the city, this felt like a full-circle moment. The week I worked with them was one of my favourite of the year. I was blown away by their ideas and insight. I’m sure you’ll agree, the quality, power, depth and emotion of the short plays they created shows just how vital young writing opportunities are. If they’re writing like that now, where are they going to be in five years, 10?
And they’re in the right place for it. The amazing thing about Fresh Ink is it provides a stepping stone for writers at all stages of their journey. You can take your first steps into playwriting with Tom Wells’ Introduction to Playwriting group, write a 15-minute monologue, push yourself to tell a 30-minute story and then create your first full-length, 70-minute play.
And it’s really working. Marc Graham’s Isabelle, which started life as a 30 minute commission, was produced by Middle Child this year and Hannah Scorer’s Can We Be Friends? from the 2024 festival is under commission at Hull Truck. That’s amazing. This isn’t artist development to tick a box on an Arts Council form. It is holistic writer support, a real, functioning pathway to help hone your craft.
And it’s not just Middle Child. Next year, Hull Truck have four plays under commission by local writers. At a time when many theatres are reaching for ‘safe’ classics, that investment in Hull talent is massive.
I also asked the writers I spoke to about their relationship with local work. They said:
“No matter the theme, the universal issues of Hull are always relatable in one way or another and it's also interesting to see home through somebody else's eyes/voice and lived experience.”
“Knowing you can be supporting the local talent that sometimes gets hidden, feels so rewarding and refreshing, in a world that typically… was dominated by the same sort of plays or Southern voices.”
“Local writers are so intriguing because they take what I know I feel but I just might not have the words to explain and throw it back at me.”
“You get to see Hull with fresh eyes. Also, you might bump into them in Big Tesco and have a really detailed, intricate, life affirming chat about it.”
But new writing opportunities aren’t just beneficial for the artists. The arts has real economic benefits. Since 2017, cultural regeneration has had a tangible impact on Hull. The most recent list we appeared on was the National Geographic’s Top Global Destinations To Visit. And Hull’s museums, festivals, art galleries and this open air stage were highlighted as reasons for that. When I was growing up, that was unimaginable.
So should we all stop obsessing over London? Is the future of British theatre regional? I think the answer to that is it could be.
But it’s going to take work.
The problem is, not every city is Hull. I speak to writers in Leeds, York, even Manchester, and they’re really jealous of what we have here. And they’re big metropolises. If you can afford to live in London, your post code makes you eligible for opportunities at Soho Theatre, The Bush, Theatre503, Hampstead… Outside of London, the discrepancy is huge. Opportunities like the Writing Squad, which connect writers across the north as a whole, are getting increasingly rare. That’s creating a real post code lottery. You’re lucky to live near one regional producing theatre and luckier still if they have a commitment to local talent and stories. Important voices are being lost, simply because of where they live.
Over the last three years at Fresh Ink, I’ve seen real magic happen. In the work on the stages, ideas and discoveries formed in the workshops and connections and communities made. Imagine the impact on the national theatre ecology if this model was replicated across the country, in ever yregion. From Teeside and Cumbria to Gloucestershire and Cornwall. Writers of all experience levels, from all backgrounds, would have properly paid opportunities to share their stories and take their next steps.
Audiences would feel involved in the development of work that reflects their lives and broadens their horizons. Writers wouldn’t think moving to London was their only chance of “making it”. Surely then, theatre snobs down south and the industry as a whole would have catch on and treat regional theatre with equal respect…
Anyway, like I said, I’m a writer. I’ve got no experience of producing or knowledge of funding, as is probably obvious, but I think it would be pretty amazing.
These days “you’re so lucky to be in Hull” is the first thing I say when I’m running workshops for local writers. Because far from being at a disadvantage to other areas of the country, we should actually be held up as an example of what is possible.
Thanks to Middle Child, Hull Truck and the thriving arts scene in Hull, this city is platforming the work of diverse and underrepresented voices - not just the ones that can afford it. It is helping build our understanding of each other at a time when the country is divided. It is shaping our identity and empowering us to project ourselves to the rest of the country and the world. Young people have the opportunity to see characters from their city doing more than just “getting out”. And I think that’s pretty special.
Lydia’s short play Kicks runs at Middle Child from 25-27 September.