Theatre 2003–2010: Early works Prebble's first full-length play
The Sugar Syndrome was performed at the Royal Court in 2003 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." 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.
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."
2012–present: Breakthrough and acclaim The Effect, a study of love and neuroscience, premiered at the
National Theatre in 2012, won the 2012
Critics' Circle Award for Best Play.
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. In 2019, it was listed in
The Independent as one of the 40 most "continually rewarding" plays. In April 2017 it was announced that Prebble was working on a new play, based on
Bizet's Carmen, from the new
Bridge Theatre in London. 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. The play opened at the Old Vic on 5 September 2019, directed by John Crowley.
A Very Expensive Poison was nominated at the
2020 Laurence Olivier Awards for Best New Play and won the
Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best New Play and Best New Production of a Play at the Broadway World Awards. Prebble was also awarded the 2020
Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. 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".
Television 2007–2017: Secret Diary of a Call Girl 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". 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. 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.
2018–2023: I Hate Suzie and Succession 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. 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". 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" Noel Murray of
The New York Times hailed the episode "one of the funniest of the series, filled with quotable lines and sick burns". In 2020 Prebble reunited with Piper for a further television project, the comedy-drama series
I Hate Suzie for
Sky Atlantic. 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." 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. == Recognition ==