We sat down for an exclusive interview with Hugo Timbrell, writer of An Instinct. A gripping new thriller coming to the Old Red Lion Theatre this November, it’s set in the early days of a nationwide lockdown, survival hinges on trust, manipulation, and the thin line between truth and fear.
This show runs from 18th November to 6th December at Old Red Lion Theatre.
Tickets here
First off, congratulations on being shortlisted for the Theatre503 International Playwriting Award! How did it feel to get that recognition for your work?
Thank you so much! I have entered a lot of competitions over the years with varying levels of success, so it always comes as a lovely surprise when something gets to the final stages. I would say that knowing that a variety of people have anonymously read your work and enjoyed it has meant that it feels like I’ve been doing something right all these years when tapping away at my keyboard. It has also meant that more people are ready and willing to read my work, which is really invaluable for emerging writers. Stories are meant to be shared, so not being able to share a story with someone is torture for a writer.
What first inspired you to write An Instinct? Was there a particular moment or feeling that sparked the idea?
People won’t believe me but I began writing a play set in a world where a virus has hit about 6 months before the COVID-19 pandemic actually became a reality. I’d like to add that I don’t consider this play to be a COVID-19 pandemic play, at least not in the way that people often throw that label around. During the pandemic I put the play away for a couple of years, as I thought no one would be interested, and really my attention was trying to survive the intense lockdown trauma of that time like most people were doing. I would say that a year or so after the final national lockdown here in the UK, I began working on the play again and on reflection the real world lockdown experience really informed how the play developed from then on. I would say the initial idea came from wanting to write a play where the protagonist, and in turn audience, doesn’t know who or what to believe from moment to moment.
The play unfolds entirely within one cabin – that’s such an intimate, contained space. What drew you to that setting, and how did it shape the tension between the characters?
The play sees our protagonist Max trapped both psychologically and physically in a cabin in the woods. Max is seemingly trapped between two abusive men in his life inside the cabin, but also trapped by the chaos of what’s going on outside. The threat of a global virus seemed an interesting way of holding the characters hostage in one space, allowing tensions to bubble away and build through the pressure a lockdown has. A cabin in the woods is also such a classic thriller/horror setting, and when most people hear that phrase they can really picture it in their minds. As a setting there’s a real sense of isolation, and being miles away from an urban landscape, there’s a lot of scope for people to behave very differently to how they usually would.
Was there a particular challenge in writing something so contained – one cabin, two people – while keeping the energy and momentum alive?
I would say the play is in two halves. The first half our protagonist begins a lockdown in a cabin in the woods with his ex-boyfriend. This first half of the play their dynamic is really tested, not only with how they individually deal with being trapped in a cabin, but that struggle for control and power over the other in the space. They also have a lot of unresolved history which they are suddenly forced to address, which was very interesting to unpack for me as a writer. What I think keeps momentum so well in this first half is that we aren’t 100% sure what each character actually wants from the other, and working this out as an audience member is going to be really fun. The second half of the play the two men get an unexpected visitor, which really disrupts what their dynamic has changed and grown into. This visitor really throws a spanner in the works, and turns up the heat significantly for an explosive ending.
If an audience member came up to you after the show and said one sentence that summed up how it made them feel – what would you hope they’d say?
‘I didn’t trust any of them, I still don’t trust any of them, and now I don’t trust you!’