Nick Payne play explores culture of lying

Playwright Nick Payne (standing) with Mark Wootton, Niky Wardley, Nigel Lindsay and Daniel Mays in rehearsals for The Same Deep Water As Me

After tackling cosmology and beekeeping in his play Constellations, Nick Payne's latest work delves into the world of dodgy insurance claims.

Three years ago, Nick Payne visited a civil trial in Preston in which a family were up in court over an alleged motor insurance scam.

Sitting at the back, taking notes, he realised two things. One - the claimants were hopeless liars. Two - he had found the inspiration for his next play.

The Same Deep Water As Me opens on Tuesday at London's Donmar Warehouse, directed by John Crowley, with a cast that includes Daniel Mays, Nigel Lindsay and Monica Dolan.

The story revolves around Luton's "finest personal injury lawyers", Andrew Eagleman (Mays) and Barry Paterson (Lindsay), who scent a quick win when they take on the car crash case of Kevin Needleman (Marc Wootton), Andrew's high school nemesis.

The seed of the idea goes back to a post-show conversation in 2009 between Payne and Damian Rourke (brother of the Donmar's artistic director Josie Rourke), who prosecutes minor fraudulent insurance claims.

"He was extremely passionate about it," recalls Payne, during a break in rehearsals in Covent Garden on a sweltering afternoon in late July.

Fascinated by the idea that some people try to make a living through fraud, Payne talked again to Damian and his legal colleagues and went to Preston for two days to witness a real-life case.

"I assumed if people were going to lie they'd be really good at it," he says of his courtroom experience.

'Funny and surreal'

"When the people were being cross-examined they would say something that contradicted their statement and the barrister would go for them and they'd crumble.

"Or they would contradict each other, the mum would get up and contradict something she just saw her husband say.

"I just couldn't believe it. It was very funny and surreal. I thought it was a way into something bigger about money and debt."

The result, he says, is a story in which "a lie that begins really small escalates until it reaches a scale that threatens to derail several of the characters".

Nick Payne won an Evening Standard Theatre Award and an Olivier nomination for Constellations

Payne wrote the first draft of the play around the time of the MPs' expenses scandal.

It opened him up to the idea that people in all walks of life could attempt to justify their lying if they felt they were entitled to more money than they were earning.

"I'd be lying if I said the car crash stuff didn't feel like it could be a metaphor for someone who feels they're not being remunerated fairly - so they put in [a claim] for a second house," he remarks.

Payne admits he is drawn to big subjects about which he knows little. His last play, Constellations, involved quantum mechanics and beekeeping, so he met cosmologists and an apiarist to get his facts straight.

But he did not immerse himself quite so deeply in the world of "cash for crash" lawyers.

"With Constellations it was about understanding what someone's job is, but with this it was more about the detail of how these accidents are staged.

"I spoke to some solicitors and barristers, and I did email a few people who had staged fake car accidents - but unsurprisingly they didn't get back to me!

"I shouldn't overdo how much research I did, there's lots of fiction and fabrication in the play. The crux of it I hope feels authentic."

But do his expert sources ever worry their actual words will end up in the play?

"It's one of the first things they ask. I try and be transparent. I tell them I might pinch something they say and they should tell me if they are uncomfortable with that and I won't use it."

Now with his new play about to open, Payne is looking ahead to his next project - a play with an all-female cast at the National Theatre's The Shed, in collaboration with director Carrie Cracknell.

"It's not written yet, it's partly-devised and partly-scripted - we're starting with the big theme of gender and equality."

Payne worked with Cracknell last year on a short film, Nora, a contemporary spin on A Doll's House. Cracknell's acclaimed Young Vic stage production of Ibsen's classic has just transferred to the West End.

Nora was Payne's first taste of screenwriting and he's keen to do more. "I have to learn the language of film in the same way I've learned the language of theatre.

"I don't want to rush it and take on something I'm not a good fit for. The amazing thing about working in theatre is the risk factor, in some senses, is much lower in that if something doesn't work, loads of people don't lose loads of money."

As Constellations has proved, Payne is fluent in the language of theatre. The play transferred from the Royal Court to the West End and won the Evening Standard award for best new play as well as an Olivier nomination.

Does he find that success adds to the pressure of the next project?

"It doesn't unnerve me or worry me. The only thing I am conscious of is that this play is very different to Constellations - it's two rooms in a naturalistic world, it's in one universe. If someone is looking for something that replicates Constellations they won't find it here."

The Same Deep Water As Me is at the Donmar Warehouse until 21 September.