INTERVIEW: By Hilary Porter

AT the age of just 23 Southampton playwright Paul Hewitt has had his fair share of critical acclaim after taking his play Nude into London.

'A theatrical experience like little else on the London stage right now' wrote London City Nights ;'Charismatic performances bring heart to this exercise in emotional nakedness.' said The Stage, and 'Nude manages to move the heart... and taps into timeless truths about love, fear and loss.' wrote The Play's The Thing.

The play had its premiere last year here in Southampton in the unique setting of a 20ft shipping container as a part of the SO: To Speak Festival prior to receiving brilliant 4 star reviews at London's Hope Theatre.

Now it is returning to Hampshire and will be staged at the Forest Forge Theatre in Ringwood on Friday June 24 at 7.30pm and Saturday June 25.

Paul told the Daily Echo he was inspired by the Twelfth Century Persian poem called The Ruba’iyat of Omar Khayyam, and this poem-turned play is an exploration of two people’s love for one another and how fate might play its part. Love grows and fades, nearly always involves two strangers and, like life itself, is almost entirely unexplained. Fate, here, is personified - and is someone we all know.

Michelle Fahrenheim plays Woman, Edward Nash plays Man and Roshni Rathore plays Fate. Nude is directed by Ian Nicholson and designed by Minglu Wang.

Paul told me: "Omar Khayyam was a Twelfth Century philosopher/mathematician and academic who wrote a collection of thousands of poems. I've taken the basis of that and tried to contextualise it. It's about a couple and their journey together - their lives together. I've always been interested in philosophy and the text was given to me by an actor friend for my birthday. Apples and Snakes based in Southampton at the Nuffield asked me to write something for National Poetry Day and my idea was to do something for the So: To Speak Festival. We did it in a 20 foot shipping container with a cast of three on a stage 1foot by 2foot in front of an audience of 14: it was very confined! It was very bare; just a light bulb and the cast in normal dress: it was very still! It was fascinating to do theatre on such a small scale."

Even The Hope Theatre, where the play ran for three weeks, only had 50 seats and Paul says the intimacy allowed them a special connection with the audience.

"The play has a very different feel in front of different size audiences: the connection we had with the audience in the shipping container was so special. In terms of the exchange you can't escape what's going on and there's no where else you can look. Your attention is fully drawn and that's something that's very special . At the Forest Forge we try to keep that same feeling of claustrophobia. The stage is still small - only 2 foot by 2 foot, in a beautiful florescent cube. In just one hour it covers a life-time and homes in on the most important things that happen during a lifetime. A lot of it is episodic poetry with drama that connects it all together. Sometimes I think it has that same feeling that you are sat on your grandma's lap with fond memories of being read a story at bedtime. You can see everything and feel everything.

"It's a great thing for the actors as well as they can really lock eyes with people in the audience and that's very unnerving!"

Paul says the play is "an exploration of whether fate still exists in our lives" and in these times of internet dating and dating websites such as Tinder I suggest that fate would seem to play a diminished role in our love lives as we can select dating partners according to their attributes and interests etc without even meeting them.

Paul says: "I don't think it's necessarily about technology and its influence on our lives . I guess the play explores the influence of fate and it's for the people who sit watching to decide: it's a play rather than an answer. 'Fate' is there as a person in the mix as a philosophical idea . It touches people and there are choices but I don't think it necessarily says fate is the answer - and there are things that happen because of other people's choices. It is food for thought; it's definitely an exploration.

"It goes through the trivia of one's lives and there are ups and downs . It's quite reflective. It's a little piece of reality. The magic of theatre is it can hold a mirror up to our lives. I go to the theatre to find out a little bit more about myself and I hope people will find something of themselves in it. "

Nude is at Forest Forge Theatre, Ringwood, BH24 1SF

Friday 24 June at 7.30pm, Saturday 25 June at 2.30pm & 7.30pm

Tickets available at www.wegottickets.com – search ‘Forest Forge’