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Actor, writer and producer Simon Ward is well known for his work on screen.  He returns to the stage at the Basement this week in Thumper, a psychological drama which he wrote and stars in.  Renee Liang interviews him.

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We’re a country obsessed by sport.  Professional sportsmen are scrutinised both on and off the field, and though now less acceptable, bad behaviour fuelled by hormones and booze are still common. Writer and actor Simon Ward set out to explore this by placing an aggressive boxer and a less-than-ethical psychologist in a small room together.  The result, a play called Thumper, should be a riveting, and uncomfortable watch.  Just like any good sports match. 

Why do you act?

I'm trying to think of an answer that doesn't sound pretentious... it's a bit of a weird question. There isn't really a why, I just do. It's what I always wanted to do, and fortunately I found the right training at the right time and got on the right track with it. That was about ten years ago, and now it's almost more of a habit... I get really tense and anxious if I haven't worked in a while, and I can feel myself relax both physically and mentally when I start working again. I'm never more myself than when I'm acting. (...and there goes any shot of this answer NOT sounding pretentious. Oh well.)

Why do you write?

I first started writing as a way of generating acting work. Writing has been a longer, slower learning curve than acting, but I suppose that's because acting has always been my primary focus. I do see them as very complementary skills though and have fallen in love with writing on its own merits. I could definitely see myself writing on projects that I'm not acting in, but so far that hasn't been the case.

How did you get the idea for Thumper? Did you base it on real life?

To be honest, the idea for Thumper came from watching a lot of the TV show In Treatment. I was also re-watching The Sopranos, and started to realise that a lot of the things I write have therapy - or therapy-like - scenes in them. It's a scenario I find fascinating, and as a dramatic device there's so much you can do within that setting. It also allows you to strip back communication to a pure form of "two people in a room talking" and really play with communication as a means of telling a story - as they say, if you want to tell a story using dialogue, write for the stage. That of course provided the challenge - therapy is by its nature an ongoing process, so I had to come up with a situation that allowed for a single session that tells a complete story.

It's not based on real life - at least not specifically. Unfortunately the sort of behaviour we explore in Thumper is all too common in real life - it's an ongoing problem, so in that sense yes the script is my way of poking around that issue but the characters are not based on any one real life person.

What kind of research did you have to do?

Well the great thing about living in the age we're in is that you can do a lot of research from your laptop. In the last couple of years it seems issues such as violence and rape culture have exploded online - or maybe it's just that I've become more aware of those issues, but there are countless articles I've read that all feed into the ideas in the play. Other than that, for the most part I wrote the first draft from the gut. I had a broad idea of what I wanted the shape of the story to be - where we start and how we finish - but the technical fact-checking came later, courtesy of a friendly clinical psychologist who read through the script and helped us iron out certain inaccuracies.

Did you write the play for yourself?

Yes I did, but I didn't necessarily imagine myself playing the boxer. Generally speaking, to look at the roles I've played, you'd likely assume I'd play the therapist. It was actually Wolfgram who suggested I play the boxer when I first pitched him the idea for the show.

I've known Wolfgram and Mike Lowe for years, we all trained together in Michael Saccente's Meisner classes. Wolfgram and I have done a lot of writing together in the past, and Mike writes, so I was comfortable coming to them with the script knowing the three of us would attack it together and knock it into shape for performance. It's safe to say the script wouldn't be what it is were it not for the input of those two guys. I knew I could rely on them to make my writing better than I could do on my own.

What plans have you got for the play?

Well, I'll be happy to put it in a drawer for a wee while once this run is finished. I have a romantic comedy script I'm working on so it'll be nice to play with some lighter subject matter. I have always intended for this to be "version one" though, and the play is by design festival length, so I'd love to develop it further and maybe look at taking it overseas.

What I'm working on next is a feature film script - the romantic comedy mentioned above - but I'd love to write more for stage, and perhaps stay behind the scenes on the next one, sink my teeth into some directing.