‘What if this was actually happening?’ An Interview with Neil Bartlett

In this interview, conducted in London in January 2024, Neil Bartlett reflects on his life and work to date, considering the invitations to speculate that his fiction, theatre and performance have offered from his early work in the late 1970s to his current projects. Bartlett discusses his childhood experiences of church, and his relationship with his parents throughout his life, considering how these have influenced his artistic work. He talks about his changing relationship with Oscar Wilde, as well as reflecting on camp, queer archives, and his decade as the Artistic Director of the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith. He comments on the importance of touch and embodiment both in his work and in queer cultural heritage more broadly, before discussing the creative process of adaptation, including his approaches to character, voice and staging the impossible. The interview also raises questions of aging, the intergenerational transmission of queer histories and culture, and the role of art in relation to social change.