Lucy Prebble

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Lucy Prebble
File:Lucy Prebble.jpg
Prebble in 2023
Born
Lucy Ashton Prebble

(1980-12-18) 18 December 1980 (age 45)
Haslemere, Surrey, England
EducationUniversity of Sheffield
Occupations
  • Writer
  • producer
Years active2003–present

Lucy Ashton Prebble (born 18 December 1980)[1][2][3] is a British playwright and producer. She has received numerous accolades including three Primetime Emmy Awards as well as nominations for a BAFTA Award and two Laurence Olivier Awards.

Prebble made her professional debut as a playwright with her play The Sugar Syndrome (2003) for which she received the George Devine Award for Most Promising Playwright. She went on to write ENRON (2010) which premiered on the West End and Broadway. The play earned a nomination for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play. She wrote The Effect (2012) which won the Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best New Play. She debuted her latest play A Very Expensive Poison (2019) for which she received another Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play nomination.

For television, she created the ITV2 series Secret Diary of a Call Girl (2007–2011)[4] and co-created the Sky Atlantic series I Hate Suzie (2020–2022) with her close friend Billie Piper. From 2018 to 2023 she served as a writer and an executive producer on the acclaimed HBO drama series Succession, for which she received three Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series.[5]

Early life and education

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Prebble grew up in Haslemere, Surrey, and was educated at St Hilary's School, Godalming,[6] and Guildford High School.[7] Her mother was a school bursar and her father was a businessman. Her paternal grandfather was a butler and her paternal grandmother was a maid at a castle in Aberdeenshire, Scotland.[8] While studying English at the University of Sheffield,[9] Prebble wrote a short play called Liquid, which won the PMA Most Promising Playwright Award.[10] She received the Distinguished Alumni Award in 2014.[11]

Career

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Theatre

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2003–2010: Early works

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Prebble's first full-length play The Sugar Syndrome was performed at the Royal Court in 2003[12] and won her the George Devine Award, followed by the TMA Award for Best New Play in October 2004. Matt Wolf of Variety compared the play to Paula Vogel's How I Learned to Drive and added "And yet, even as you’re anticipating [the play's] every gear change...Prebble lifts yet another lid on the varieties of bruises, physical and emotional, that link her four characters. And Prebble chronicles with great skill the way in which parents and children often have the goods on each other, in this case the revelation of Jan’s husband’s adultery — which turns out not to be any revelation at all."[13]

Her next theatre project ENRON, was based on the financial scandal and collapse of the American energy corporation of the same name. It was produced by theatre company Headlong at the Chichester Festival Theatre in 2009, under the direction of Rupert Goold. The production transferred first to the Royal Court and subsequently to the Noël Coward Theatre. The play earned Prebble an Olivier Award nomination for Best New Play. The production's Broadway transfer opened at the Broadhurst Theatre in April 2010 but failed to match the critical acclaim it received in the UK and closed the following month.[14][15] The Associated Press wrote of the production, "Playwright Prebble and director Rupert Goold attempt to walk a fine line in the production, which is alternately naturalistic and highly stylized in its depiction of the rise and fall of the mammoth energy company that engaged in accounting fraud on an unprecedented level."[16]

2012–present: Breakthrough and acclaim

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The Effect, a study of love and neuroscience, premiered at the National Theatre in 2012, won the 2012 Critics' Circle Award for Best Play.[17] The Effect premiered in the US Off-Broadway at the Barrow Street Theatre on 2 March 2016, directed by David Cromer, and featuring Kati Brazda, Susannah Flood, Carter Hudson and Steve Key.[18] In 2019, it was listed in The Independent as one of the 40 most "continually rewarding" plays.[19] In April 2017 it was announced that Prebble was working on a new play, based on Bizet's Carmen[20], from the new Bridge Theatre in London.[21]

In October 2018, London's Old Vic announced Prebble's A Very Expensive Poison, a stage adaptation of Luke Harding's non-fiction book of the same name. The play is about the assassination of Alexander Litvinenko by means of the invisible radioactive isotope polonium-210.[22] The play opened at the Old Vic on 5 September 2019, directed by John Crowley.[23] A Very Expensive Poison was nominated at the 2020 Laurence Olivier Awards for Best New Play[24] and won the Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best New Play[25] and Best New Production of a Play at the Broadway World Awards. Prebble was also awarded the 2020 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.[26]

Her play The Effect had a revival in 2023 at the Royal National Theatre's Lyttelton Theatre in the West End before transferring to The Shed in New York City in 2024. The production was directed by Jamie Lloyd and stars Taylor Russell and Paapa Essiedu. Kate Wyver praised the production describing at "intense and intoxicating" adding, "[the play] remains an intellectually and physically intense experience, with subtle edits that sharpen and freshen the text for a stellar new cast".[27]

Television

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2007–2017: Secret Diary of a Call Girl

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File:Jesse Armstrong and Lucy Prebble.jpg
Prebble with Jesse Armstrong at the Succession finale screening at BFI Southbank in 2023

Prebble wrote her first television series, the ITV2 drama-comedy series Secret Diary of a Call Girl based on the novel, The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl by Brooke Magnanti. Set in modern day London, the show revolves around a young woman, Hannah Baxter, played by Billie Piper who lives a secret life as a call girl. The series received positive reviews with Nancy Franklin of The New Yorker comparing the series favorably to Sex and the City writing, "The show also uses London in somewhat the same way “Sex and the City” used New York—we see a lot of bright lights, fancy restaurants, and expensive apartments—though there is a sadder, more wistful quality to the photography here".[28] Prebble wrote for the first two of the show's four seasons, the last of which concluded in March 2011.

Prebble has also appeared as a guest on Frankie Boyle's New World Order and Have I Got News for You. Prebble contributes to major publications as a journalist and wrote a weekly Tech column for The Observer newspaper.[29] She was the Head Scene Writer for Bungie's first person shooter video game, Destiny, which was released in September 2014. Prebble was hired in 2016 to write and executive produced a pilot for Sarah Silverman for HBO.[30]

2018–2023: I Hate Suzie and Succession

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From 2018 to 2023, Lucy served as a co-executive producer and writer on the acclaimed HBO drama Succession starring Brian Cox, Jeremy Strong, Sarah Snook, Kieran Culkin, and Matthew Macfadyen. The show revolved around the fictional Roy family, loosely based on the Murdoch family, each struggling to take power of the Family owned media company. The series received numerous accolades including several Golden Globe Awards and Primetime Emmy Awards. As a producer she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series in 2020, 2022, and 2023. Prebble also won the Writers Guild of America Award for Television: Dramatic Series twice in 2019 and 2021.[31] Prebble wrote two episodes of the series herself, the first one being "Austerlitz" (2018) from season 1. Scott Tobias of Vulture praised the episode writing, "it’s such a great opportunity to get to know the significant others in the Roys’ lives and see how they interact with their mates — and, hilariously, with each other".[32] She wrote her second episode "Honeymoon States" (2023) from season 4. Alan Sepinwall of Rolling Stone praised the episode for its examination of the characters' greed in the wake of tragedy, and called the episode overall "sharp and funny"[33] Noel Murray of The New York Times hailed the episode "one of the funniest of the series, filled with quotable lines and sick burns".[34]

In 2020 Prebble reunited with Piper for a further television project, the comedy-drama series I Hate Suzie for Sky Atlantic.[35] The series followed Piper as a former teenage pop star and television actress. The series had a second season in 2022 entitled, I Hate Suzie Too. The series received critical acclaim ending up on several best of lists. Lucy Mangan of The Guardian praised the collaboration between Prebble and Piper, calling the show a "wild ride that feels like an absolute gift."[36] The series received four British Academy Television Award nominations as well as a win for Prebble for the Royal Television Society Programme Award for Best Writing in a Drama Series in 2023.[37]

Recognition

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In June 2018 Prebble was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in its "40 Under 40" initiative.[38] She was also the recipient of the 2019 Wellcome Screenwriting Fellowship.[39]

Works

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Theatre

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Year Title Venue Ref.
2002 Liquid
2003 The Sugar Syndrome Jerwood Theatre Upstairs, London [40]
2009 ENRON Noël Coward Theatre, London [41]
2010 Broadhurst Theatre, New York City [42]
2012 The Effect National Theatre [43]
2016 Barrow Street Theatre, New York City [44]
2024 The Shed, New York City [45]
2019 A Very Expensive Poison Old Vic Theatre, London [22]

Television

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Year Title Writer Producer Notes Ref.
2007–2011 Secret Diary of a Call Girl Yes No Also creator; 7 episodes [46]
2016 Untitled Sarah Silverman Project Yes Executive Television pilot [47]
2018–2023 Succession Yes Executive Writer: "Austerlitz"; "Honeymoon States"
Also producer; 38 episodes		 [48]
[49]
2020–2022 I Hate Suzie Yes Executive 11 episodes [50]
2024 The Effect Yes No National Theatre Live special [51]

Awards and nominations

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Year Award Category Work Result Ref.
2003 Critics' Circle Theatre Award Most Promising Playwright The Sugar Syndrome Won [52]
Evening Standard Theatre Award Most Promising Playwright Nominated [53][54]
2004 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Nominated [55]
2009 Evening Standard Theatre Award Best Play ENRON Nominated [56][57]
2010 Laurence Olivier Award Best New Play Nominated [58]
Drama League Award Distinguished Production of a Play Nominated [59]
Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Nominated [60]
Tony Award Best Original Score Nominated [61]
2012 Critics' Circle Theatre Award Best New Play The Effect Won [17]
2013 Evening Standard Theatre Award Best Play Nominated [62]
2014 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Nominated [63]
2019 Critics' Circle Theatre Award Best New Play A Very Expensive Poison Won [64]
2020 Laurence Olivier Award Best New Play Nominated [24]
Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Won [26]
2019 Primetime Emmy Awards Outstanding Drama Series Succession Nominated [65]
2020 Won [66]
2022 Won [67]
2023 Won [68]
2025 Outstanding Television Movie Mountainhead Nominated [69]
2021 BAFTA TV Award Best Drama Series I Hate Suzie Nominated [70]
2024 Laurence Olivier Award Best Revival The Effect Nominated [71]

See also

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References

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  6. ^ "St Hilary's Association", sthilarysschool.com, accessed 7 July 2025
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  11. ^ "'Enron' playwright, Lucy Prebble, receives Distinguished Alumni Award" sheffield.ac.uk, 24 July 2014
  12. ^ Loveridge, Lizzie. "A CurtainUp London Review. 'The Sugar Syndrome' " CurtainUp, 10 October 2003. Retrieved 5 January 2009
  13. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  14. ^ Jones, Kenneth. "'Enron', a Theatrical Dissection of a Famous Crime, Opens on Broadway" Playbill, 27 April 2010
  15. ^ Kuchwara, Michael. "Tony nominations are not enough to save 'Enron'" chron.com,7 May 2010
  16. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  17. ^ a b Edwardes, Jane. "The Critics' Circle Theatre Awards 2012" criticscircle.org.uk, 16 January 2013
  18. ^ Clement, Olivia. "David Cromer Sets Cast for Lucy Prebble's 'The Effect' Off-Broadway" playbill.com, 28 January 2016
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  23. ^ Trueman, Matt. "London Theater Review: ‘A Very Expensive Poison’" Variety, 7 September 2019
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  43. ^ , The Effect Archived 22 November 2012 at the Wayback Machine nationaltheatre.org.uk, accessed 29 January 2016
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