Kelly, Dennis

Dennis Kelly was born in 1970. His parents were Irish and, along with his four siblings, he was raised Catholic and attended a Catholic high school. Kelly left education aged 16. He worked in a supermarket after leaving school, and it was during this time that he joined a youth theatre group and was put on the path to becoming the theatre, film and television writer that he is today. It wasn’t until he was 31, however, that he began to take his writing seriously. His attitude towards writing is that it should be done with passion; if it's not, then you shouldn’t write. When he first became a writer he decided, ‘I wasn’t going to write for money, because I was only going to write the things I wanted to write. By and large, I’ve stuck to that’.

Kelly had a difficult time with alcohol during his twenties, saying, ‘I was always a drinker: it was the only thing I felt I had to offer people’. He attended Alcoholics Anonymous and has been sober since he was 31. He says that giving up alcohol helped him to also let go of fear and insecurity, which was the turning point for when he could really start living his life.

Kelly admits himself that he never had a career plan. He believes, ‘As a writer you should be 99% focused on what goes on the page and maybe one tiny per cent focused on what’s going on out there, how you’re perceived and career choices’.

Kelly has a first class honours degree in Drama and Theatre Arts from Goldsmiths College, University of London, which he achieved when he was 30. Of being a mature student, Kelly says that he liked that he was, ‘young enough to still be interested in learning, but old enough to have a bit of life experience, and be grateful for the opportunity to learn. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done. It changed the way I think about a lot of things’.

During the early 1990s, Kelly attended a youth theatre group, where he met Sharon Horgan, the BAFTA-winning writer, actress, producer, director and comedian. By chance, a number of years later, Kelly ran into Horgan again. He told her that he’d written a play called Brendan’s Visit, and she encouraged him to put the play on with her. Kelly credits Horgan with his career path, saying, ‘I honestly think, had I not bumped into her, I wouldn’t have become a writer, because I don’t think I’d have had the drive’. They put on Brendan’s Visit, although today Kelly refuses to speak about his first attempt as a playwright saying, ‘It was just a sitcom with swearing which is like a lot of people’s first plays’.

In 2003, Kelly’s first professionally produced play, Debris, opened, kick-starting his playwriting career. Initially, the play was rejected by a number of theatres, but eventually Theatre503 agreed to produce it, with Kelly crediting the moment as one of the most important in his life. Kelly went on to write Osama the Hero (2004), After the End (2005), and Love and Money (2006). Speaking about writing for the stage, Kelly says, ‘A play can ask a question and not know the answer. For me, that’s much more interesting’. Kelly believes that you should write about things that you’re interested in, rather than trying to write about things you think the public are interested in. He says, ‘What’s more important than being political is being true to yourself’. Kelly believes, ‘Writing is very transparent, it goes right to the heart of you and it’s about what you think and what you’re currently thinking and that is what’s interesting’.

Kelly made the move to TV writing and Pulling aired in 2006 on BBC Three. The comedy sitcom was co-written by Sharon Horgan, who also starred in the show. The ratings were good and it was nominated for a BAFTA award in 2007 for Best Comedy Sitcom. The second series ran in 2008, winning a British Comedy Award. The programme was cancelled after Season Two and a special programme aired in 2009 to finish off the series. Of writing for TV, Kelly says, ‘When you start out, what a lot of writers don’t understand is that even writing the bad things on TV is difficult … You have to somehow make sure it does what it needs to do. You just have to learn it. You have to be open to what people are telling you’. Listen to Kelly discuss his writing process, his character development, his favourite TV shows, and advice for emerging writers here: BBC Writersroom interviews: Dennis Kelly - YouTube.

Kelly became part of the GCSE English Literature syllabus with his play DNA, which he wrote for the National Theatre Connections festival in 2008. YouTube’s Mr Bruff interviews Kelly about DNA here: Mr Bruff meets Dennis Kelly (Discussing 'DNA') - YouTube.

In 2010, Kelly joined nine other writers for an event in support of Dramatic Need, a charity which delivers creative workshops in African communities with the aim of promoting health, social development, gender empowerment and conflict resolution. Visit the charity’s website here: Home | dramatic-need (dramaticneed.org). Later on that year, Kelly wrote the script for the musical version of Roald Dahl’s Matilda. Hugely successful, the show has won multiple awards, and it’s set to continue being shown in the West End for the time being. Kelly won a Tony award for the script of Matilda and has written the screenplay for the Netflix adaptation, which is due to be released in the UK in the summer of 2023. Kelly talks about writing Matilda here: ‘Making Matilda,’ Episode 1: Librettist Dennis Kelly on Roald Dahl's Strong Heroine - YouTube.

Kelly likes to write in the morning and the afternoon and tries not to arrange meetings before 4:30pm. Sometimes he writes in the evenings too. Although he has an office to work in, he prefers to write at home, moving round to write wherever the mood takes him.

Kelly’s plays aren’t just enjoyed in the UK. As well as much of Europe, his work has been shown in the USA, Canada and Japan. Rather than being protective over his plays, Kelly doesn’t mind seeing his work done in other ways. He says, ‘I’ve been abroad and seen my plays done quite a bit, they do it completely differently from the way you think. You’re sat in theatres and think, I’m pretty sure I didn’t put a song in this play’.

When speaking about writing, Kelly suggests that there is something of himself in all of his works. He says, ‘If you’ve got any hope of writing anything good, what you have to do is put a secret in what you are writing. Sometimes a few … it is almost always something that you don’t tell your friends, family or partner. But you do put it in a play for a whole bunch of strangers to come and have a look at. Or in a TV series for a million people to see’.

Kelly’s works could be described as challenging, often brutal, and honest in the way they confront painful truths. Kelly says, ‘The truth is, I think, you can do anything as long as you do it well and with sensitivity and a sense of decency’.

Find out about Kelly’s favourite film, advice he’d give his 16-year-old self, the importance of rewriting and what he wanted to be when he grew up here: 60 Seconds With...Dennis Kelly - YouTube.