Justice served: James Graham on adapting real crime stories for the stage

He continues to approach his subject matters delicately and with compassion for those personally affected. “My own process is to always get in touch with those involved as soon as possible, particularly when those people are ‘private’ individuals,” he says. “This is what I did with [the BBC One series] Sherwood... Following my conversations with the victims of a tragedy [that unfolded] in my local community, we decided to go in a different direction by renaming and fictionalising the characters and events so that there was some distance for them.”

The extent to which details are changed to protect those involved is considered on a “case-by-case basis”. But the same strictures don’t apply when dealing with prominent figures. “It’s a slightly different matter when you’re dramatising, say, Rupert Murdoch [2017’s Ink] or Dominic Cummings [2019’s television film Brexit: The Uncivil War],” Graham admits, adding that he still contacted both “further down the line”. The justification makes sense. “They – as public figures – have more of an expectation that their roles will be written about.”

‘There is a significant emotional burden – as there should be – to the responsibility of carrying someone else’s story’ James Graham

Punch, which premiered in 2024 at Nottingham Playhouse, is officially described as being “based on the book Right from Wrong by Jacob Dunne”, but Graham insists that while “the book was an incredibly useful source... eventually, my writing became more influenced by my conversations and interviews directly with those involved”. As well as speaking “quite extensively” to Dunne, who served 14 months in prison following his manslaughter conviction, Graham worked with David Hodgkinson and Joan Scourfield, parents of the victim, James Hodgkinson. 

“We had to check in with and listen to the questions and concerns of Joan and David... Much like in the play, this began by going through Jacob himself, who has built up a strong relationship with the people he harmed.”

The final product is a play that is as much a remarkable story of forgiveness, on behalf of James’ parents, as one of Dunne’s onward journey, which has seen him turn his life around by gaining a first-class honours degree in criminology and campaigning, alongside Scourfield, to raise awareness around one-punch deaths. 

For Dunne and Scourfield, whose work involves retelling their story in prisons and schools, the event that brought them together is presumably often front-of-mind, but in other cases, does a playwright have to be cautious when requesting contact with survivors – or those closest to them – of the risks of reopening old wounds? 
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“My view is that you have to enter those conversations entirely transparently and sincerely. If you’re asking for their guidance, their permissions around certain things, then you have to accept their answers, even if it impacts how you had originally imagined the work. For example, I had imagined that [Jacob, Joan and David] would appear as themselves as characters in the play – but if they had told me they weren’t comfortable with that, I would have totally accepted that and changed my play.” He even went a step further: “I also shared pages and invited them into the rehearsal room to watch a run-through way before we got into the theatre and invited in audiences. Here, once again, we committed to listening to their feedback and responding to what they had to say.”

His advice to budding playwrights hoping to dramatise true stories is simple: “Don’t be intimidated, and don’t feel as though you don’t have the right to take on real stories. Do enter knowing and accepting that you won’t be in control of all outcomes and that there is a significant emotional burden – as there should be – to the responsibility of carrying someone else’s story. I have felt the weight of this many times and never underestimate it.”

He adds: “Try to get all the support and advice from those around you – the theatre, the producers, whoever – and don’t keep worries, questions or anxieties to yourself. Share everything.”

Punch, in part, documents a real-life conviction, and it received a full-circle moment when, in May 2024, a judge referenced the play while sentencing another one-punch case, saying “people need to watch” it. Graham is “pleased that judges and MPs came to see it and found, within a story, a real value that they wanted others to share”.

“It reminds me simply that the power of theatre is empathy. So much of our modern discourse is undertaken on platforms that encourage cruelty – like social media – or occur not in good faith. Theatre is about community – getting people together in a civic space to calmly explore a human story or a particular institution, process or system.”

Punch runs at the Young Vic, London, until April 26. For full details, visit youngvic.org