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How accurate a representation of the play is the film?
"Hettie MacDonald directed the film and directed the play, so I always knew that she would get the feel right. I mean, the play was quite different in its setting. It was all set on the walkway outside the flats and in the boys' bedroom. But with film you can take it to other places and you can be more concise with the storytelling. You can tell it quicker and get in closer to the faces so it's a bit more touching. Also with the play we had older boys playing the leads because you're not as close and it was easier to get older actors to make that journey for two hours every night. But you can't get away with as much on film. So it's nice to have boys of the proper age group playing the roles."
The casting of the film struck me as very strong. Were you happy with it?
"I was absolutely delighted with Scott Neal and Glen Berry as the two young lovers, Ste and Jamie. We spent a long time seeing lots of youngsters for the parts, and both those boys had eight or nine auditions before they were finally selected. But again that comes down to Hettie who is very good with actors, poking them in the right places. You can see that especially with the way she got kids of that age to deliver the goods. But it's the same thing with the supporting cast as well. I'm absolutely thrilled with all their work. We obviously made the right decisions."
You had two plays in the West End, and then you made this film. Was it difficult transferring from stage to screenwiting?
"It was exciting, like being let loose in a toy shop. Because I had the characters and I had the story set out, so I knew exactly what had to happen. It was just a matter of finding the best way for it to happen within the medium. The biggest lesson I learnt was that as a playwright, I'm obsessed with dialog. I was amazed at how little dialogue you need in a film. On film, you can get up close and see the actors' faces, so you don't need as much of the chaff, really. But it was difficult, you know. It took me two years and about seven script drafts to get it right."
Scott Neal, director Hettie MacDonald and Glen Berry
I really liked the fact that you didn't try to gloss over the limitations of living on a council housing estate, but you also didn't dwell on it as a totally colourless, humourless, bleak existence. That's become such a cliche.
"I think it would have been very easy to go down that stereotypical road, and make the insides of all the flats quite drab. Or maybe make Sandra's flat look tacky. But the play's sense of fun on stage had to be translated to the screen. You have to believe in these characters' survival. And Sandra is a feisty character who has a good job, so she would have enough money to have some nice clothes and to do up her flat nicely."
That approach does actually give this film a great sense of hope. You really believe that these people can survive relative social poverty, and perhaps even resolve the perceived conflict of being both working class and gay.
"Well, that was indeed my goal, to have a hopeful, happy ending story about being gay and being working class and coming out. Because I haven't really seen that done anywhere myself, and yet that's what seemed to happen in my life and in the lives of other people I know. Yes, there is drama and there is sadness. But any heterosexual teenager can turn on the television and watch the gorgeous guy taking the gorgeous girl to the prom. I felt that just as in Beverly Hills 90210, there should be an element in Beautiful Thing of it all working out nicely, so that we were giving hope to gay teenagers."
I suppose the thing with film, and even plays to a degree, is we only ever tend to see people struggling with being gay. Characters are either tortured by it, and/or are tortured by others about it. The minute that dilemma is resolved is usually when the story ends.
"Yes... (laughs). And I don't necessarily think it is like that. For me being gay, I don't know where it comes from and I don't really care, it's just who I am. It's me. I never sort of had the internalised homophobia of feeling I was weird or strange. I was aware that society thought I was, but for me being gay was just natural. And with the two boys in the film, they're straight, so that became the main thing that I had to get across to them in the rehearsal period. You know, that this film wouldn't have been made if it was about a boy and a girl because that's no big deal. Society says that's okay. It's being made because it's about two lads, but you mustn't approach it with any sort of idea that it's out of the ordinary. Just play it as is, say the lines, and remember it all seems perfectly natural to these two lads. Or at least that's what I wanted to show, and if that makes me a rose-tinted optimist who's very romantic, I don't really care. Because I think there's a place for it, especially at the moment."
How did two young straight lads cope wth the responsibility and pressure of carrying such roles?
"I think the boys are marvellous in it. They were anxious doing it, but they really wanted to do it because they're serious about their acting, and well you just don't turn down the opportunity to be in a major British film."
Of course, the film doesn't just work on the strength of the boys' performances. It's very much a superb ensemble cast. Particularly the young, vital, fresh-faced Tameka Empson, who plays the troubled, smart-mouthed girl next door. She's a real stand-out.
"She is a lot of fun. She's the best cure for a hangover that I know."
The film also has a wonderful soundtrack of songs by Mama Cass that really work well as both background music and thematic emphasis.
"Yes, definitely. I was originally aware of Mama Cass because my mum used to say that I ate too fast, and if I wasn't careful I'd end up choking to death like she did. So I knew about this gargantuan singer, also because one of my aunties was really into her. But I really didn't get into her myself until I was writing the play. I saw a tape of her in a record shop and bought it to play in the background while I was writing. But then I started listening more and more to the lyrics and realised that what she was singing was about being empowered, being optimistic, being different and that it was alright! It was fabulous. Making Tameka's character obsessed with her was really just an excuse for using the music in the play. Although we almost couldn't use it in the film because it was very, very expensive to get hold of the rights."
How is it that the English seem to be so comparatively permissive and progressive about the cultural representation of homosexuality on stage and screen, when the country itself is so politically conservative about the very same issues?
"I think that it's a reaction to what's going on around us. Certainly for me, part of the reason for writing this play was a sense of outrage at the UK's unequal age of consent laws. That has since been lowered to 18, but it still should be 16 in line with heterosexuals. So I guess if that's what inspired me to write what turns out to be a sweet, little, optimistic, boy meets boy kind of film with a few jokes in it, then obviously the more progressive stuff comes out of a similar sense of anger as well. And I think that just comes out of living day to day in a society that discriminates."
Do you have any problems being labelled as a gay playwright/screenwriter? Many artists seem to take issue with the terms gay and lesbian as being limiting, although personally I think such arguments are a cop out...
"It doesn't cross my mind really. I'm gay and I'm a writer, so I'm a gay writer, yu know. I know they don't say heterosexual writer, but I really don't care what they call me in regards to that. I mean, to me when people start saying they're worried about being pigeonholed as gay, it just sounds a bit too much like internalised homophobia."
Beautiful Thing opens around the country from September 19. A must see event at any of Sydney's Denby & Hayden Cinemas, Melbourne's Nova and Sharmill cinemas. Brisbane's Dendy and Classic cinemas, Perth's Luna cinema and Canberra's Electric Shadows complex.
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