Trying to run a theatre in the middle of a historic pandemic would send most of us running for the hills — but not Lynette Linton. Just over a year into the top job at the Bush Theatre, she’s not only survived the last few months but is about to make her television writing debut. And she has a huge smile on her face: the day after we speak on Zoom, she’s heading back to the Bush for the first time since lockdown to get the building ready to reopen to the public. “I am desperate to get back,” she tells me. “It’s been a looooong couple of months.”
Before taking over the Bush Theatre last year (she was just 28 when she got the gig) with a debut season championing new voices and diverse stories, Linton had written a handful of plays. When just four weeks ago she was asked to write a short film for ITV’s Unsaid Stories series, starting tonight, inspired by Black Lives Matter and produced by Greenacre Films (behind Michaela Coel’s Been So Long), she leapt at the chance. “I called my best friend and was like... yo, I forgot how much I like this you know!” she tells me.
Linton knew immediately what she wanted to write about. “It’s an experience that’s close to my heart and a lot of people I know have gone through it,” she says. Look At Me, starring Paapa Essiedu (I May Destroy You) and Pippa Bennett-Warner is about a young black couple stopped by the police while driving to a date — but Linton’s film goes beyond that moment and explores its aftermath. “When we see footage of it or it’s reported, it’s always about the moment of the stop,” she explains. “You go home, you’re on your own together. And you’re left with it in your gut and your stomach. And how do you carry on? What is the conversation? That’s the stuff we don’t see.”
The film is being directed over Zoom by Francis Annan, who Linton hasn’t met but already considers a friend. She hopes it’s a step towards commissioning more black artists on TV. “It was just really nice to meet black people in telly and have a black-led project,” she says. Could she have seen a mainstream TV channel commissioning a project like this a year ago? “Errrm. I would like to say yes. But I think the answer is no,” she says. She’s clear that this must be more than a moment. “This is a stepping stone. It’s a thing we’re going to see a lot more. We’re going to see black creatives, writers, directors, producers, crew, actors, leading shoots on telly and film.” Will there be real, systemic change? “There better be. Is my answer to that. Because this conversation has been going on for hundreds of years, and I think Britain has to be really honest about where it sits in that conversation.” There was a “small shift” in better representation in the theatre world before lockdown, “so it’s not going to stop. I refuse!” she says, with a big laugh.
Linton’s trajectory over the last two years has been exhilarating. Not only did she take on her first artistic directorship, but she directed an award-winning production at the Donmar and then West End transfer of Lynn Nottage’s play Sweat, and curated a series of filmed monologues about the Windrush generation (one of which, Carmen, written by Natasha Gordon and directed by Linton, has just been selected for the S.O.U.L. Fest, a celebration of Black British talent in film). And she only turned 30 in January — one of the last of her friends to have a celebration that wasn’t at Zoom or in a park. Her flatmates in her King’s Cross houseshare have kept her sane throughout lockdown with binges of RuPaul’s Drag Race, inspiring Friday night dress-up sessions. “It’s been interesting to stop and think about the last few years,” Linton says, but “this has been too long a stop.”
Her first Bush season hadn’t even finished when lockdown began. She describes the day Boris Johnson ordered theatres to close as “one of the hardest days... you know you can remember certain points vividly in your life?” As part of a wave of new artistic directors, she found herself in a situation no mentor could advise on. Her answer was to focus on her clear-eyed sense of what the Bush is for: creating new work and engaging with the community. She’s adamant that the pain the industry is going through must not close it off to diverse voices. “It’s going to be tough, but it’s one of the most important topics surrounding our industry. We need to hold on to the progress we’ve made.” In the aftermath of George Floyd’s death , Linton’s cultural leadership was focused and empathetic, including a series of short video works led by her associate Daniel Bailey. “The Bush’s response was how I respond, which is through art,” she says.
She mentions James Baldwin, quoted in one of the Bush’s statements on Twitter: “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.” Lockdown was difficult already, “but when George Floyd was murdered...” It’s one of the only moments in our interview when she seems lost for words. “Those couple of weeks were really hard.”
The government’s £1.57bn rescue package was “what we hoped for”, but the Bush has still had to launch a fundraising initiative to secure its future and support its freelance artists. The guidelines around indoor performance are constantly changing, but she hopes the Bush can stage shows before the end of the year. “But who knows? It’s always in the back of my head.”
For now, it’s about welcoming the community back through the doors , with Linton and Bailey running a crash course in theatre-making for 14-17 year olds from West London, and the building’s beautiful bar is now back open for business. Community has always been at the heart of Linton’s vision, and now she knows that more than ever. “This might sound weird, but I feel like I’ve changed as a woman, as a leader of the last couple of months. Because this has been unprecedented — that’s the word everybody says, right? So I feel like I’m properly sitting in my power, now that we’re 600 years into this. Everything is absolutely crystal clear.”
Unsaid Stories starts on ITV1 at 9pm tonight
