17.4 Abi Morgan, Writer

Can you tell your own story? Viv Groskop talks to award-winning playwright and screenwriter, Abi Morgan, whose work includes The Split, The Iron Lady, The Hour and Suffragette. Abi has occupied and owned many rooms in her life and career – the solitary writer’s room, the family rooms of bustle, the emergency hospital room, the space on set to direct. In all these arenas she’s adapted herself while keeping a steady eye on maintaining space to tell the stories she wants to tell. Four years ago, Abi and her family’s lives were blown apart by a devastating medical emergency suffered by her partner. How would this sudden and unwelcome plot twist affect Abi’s life and writing? Channelling confusion and pain, Abi turned the lens onto her own life in This is Not a Pity Memoir. She reveals how a space to write has always been essential to her survival and none more so than in these crisis years. But having reached relative dry land, she tells Viv that it’s not over yet. There are more rooms to own and more stories to tell.

Listen to This is Not a Pity Memoir on BBC Radio 4

A new updated edition of Viv's book, How to Own the Room is out now.

@vivgroskop