Writer James Graham was ‘scared’ to meet Rupert Murdoch after play about The Sun

Playwright James Graham has said he felt “scared” to meet Rupert Murdoch after he watched his play about the business magnate’s purchase of The Sun.

Graham, 41, spoke to Lauren Laverne on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs about what it has been like to meet real-life people, such as Mr Murdoch, who often feature in his work.

He said: “Sometimes it can be quite intense and awkward.

“So I’ve met politicians who were in This House, after that in the play Ink, which was about Rupert Murdoch taking over The Sun newspaper in the late 1960s.

“He did come and see it, I remember, and I met him in the West End theatre afterwards.

“I remember being very intimidated and scared in the build-up to that meeting.

“In the end as often happens, it’s actually quite vanilla, you’re able to come away with a really good dinner party anecdote.

“‘He said this to me.’ And actually, I think he was a particularly studied case in not giving anything away.

“He met the actors, asked them questions about their research and then left.

“So it’s not always the key moment, actually, that you would expect it to be.”

The Dear England playwright also spoke about his work habits and said he was told to go to Workaholics Anonymous.

“I knew something wasn’t quite right in sort of my late 20s,” he said.

“I would go into periods where I would be far too isolated from friends or self-sabotage relationships as soon as they became intimate and important, and was just working late around the clock continually, but without really looking after myself.

“So I went to see a particular woman who probably saved me.

“And the first thing she said to me, well she was listening to me wanging on about feelings, and she eventually just said, ‘Why aren’t you wearing a coat?’

“And I think it was winter, it was really cold outside, and I had like a really flimsy paper thing on basically from the summer and I just hadn’t had time, at that point, to go out and buy a winter coat.

“So I brushed it aside, but she was obsessing about it.”

He added: “I was getting really frustrated with her, like that’s not the issue.

“And that was obviously, to her, symptomatic of an inability sometimes to sort of look after myself.

“So I took that on the chin, and she said, ‘Go to this particular group’, which was Workaholics Anonymous.”

He went on: “It’s a habit that you have. It’s not an actual sickness, but it is addiction, in no way different really, from drink or drugs, or sex or anything else.

“It’s a pattern of behaviour that is slowly sort of killing you and people spoke of the people they lost due to it.

“I think that the moment I realised I had a problem was I started to lie to my family and my friends about stupid things that didn’t even need lying about.

“They would go ‘You look tired, what time did you get up today to work?’ and I would say ‘Oh, eight’ and I’d say to myself but ‘I know I got up at five, that’s really weird. Why did I say that?’ Or I wouldn’t have eaten for like a whole day.”

Last year Graham’s play Dear England, starring Shakespeare In Love actor Joseph Fiennes as England football manager Gareth Southgate, was staged.

His television work includes Bafta-nominated crime show Sherwood and drama Brexit: The Uncivil War.

Desert Island Discs airs on BBC Radio 4 at 11.15am on Sunday and is available on BBC Sounds.