Betts attended the
University of Liverpool, where he read English Literature and English Language, and originally trained to become an actor but later changed course to begin writing plays. Betts said that part of the reason for this transition was the difficulty he faced as an actor without an agent and that playwriting allowed him to "exercise all my instincts as an actor without actually having to live the life". In 1999
Alan Ayckbourn invited him to be the resident dramatist at Scarborough's
Stephen Joseph Theatre.
A Listening Heaven premiered there that year before a second production took place at the
Edinburgh Royal Lyceum in 2001. The play was nominated as the TMA Best New play that year. During this period Betts had plays on p at the
Battersea Arts Centre -
Incarcerator, a drama in rhyming couplets - and at the
White Bear Theatre -
The Biggleswades. Also in 2001, his play
Clockwatching initiated a series of co-productions between the
Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond and The Stephen Joseph Theatre, producing theatre in the round. Betts works in two styles: a darkly comic social realism, reminiscent of the plays of Ayckbourn or
Mike Leigh, and a more tragic, poetic style of a kind associated with dramatists such as
Howard Barker. His anti-Blair satire
The Unconquered, in a touring production by Scotland's
Stellar Quines Theatre Company, won the 2007 Best New Play award at the
Critics' Awards for Theatre in Scotland. Critical reception for Betts's plays has been mostly positive:
The Daily Telegraph claims he has a "profound and highly original theatrical voice", while
Liz Lochhead (the former
makar or national poet of Scotland) suggests he "is just about the most original and extraordinary writer of drama we have."
Michael Billington in his ****
Guardian review of
Invincible said that "Torben Betts should be a bigger name."
Invincible played at the
Orange Tree Theatre March/April 2014, the fourth of his plays to premiere at that theatre, following
Clockwatching (2001),
The Company Man (2010) and
Muswell Hill (2012). The production transferred to London's
St. James Theatre in July 2014, receiving positive reviews. He wrote the screenplay for the British independent feature film
Downhill, which was released in cinemas nationwide on 30 May 2014. The
Independent said "his screenplay for this engaging, quintessentially British road/rambling movie combines knockabout comedy with surprisingly bleak observations." A revival of his 2012 play
Muswell Hill transferred to London's
Park Theatre in February 2015, while his political tragedy,
What Falls Apart, centring on the 2015 General Election, opened at Newcastle's
Live Theatre in April that year. A production of his version of
Anton Chekhov's
The Seagull opened at
Regent's Park Open Air Theatre on 24 June 2015, directed by
Matthew Dunster. He has also adapted
Get Carter for
Northern Stage, Newcastle upon Tyne, where it opened in February 2016. The Original Theatre Company embarked on a four-month UK tour of
Invincible in 2016, which it remounted in 2017. His political tragi-comedy,
The National Joke, played in rep at the
Stephen Joseph Theatre over the summer of 2016. A tour of
Invincible (in Spanish
Invencible) took place throughout Spain over 2016/17, including runs at the
Teatro Arriaga in Bilbao and at the Teatros del Canal in Madrid. The production starred
Maribel Verdú and
Pilar Castro and was directed by
Daniel Veronese. The play was remounted in September 2019 with the same cast. In 2017 the play was produced in New York, Argentina and the Czech Republic. On 3 December 2017 a production opened at the Teatr 6.pietro in Warsaw, directed by
Eugeniusz Korin. Another production opened in Gdansk in the summer of 2019. Further productions of the play in 2020 took place in Athens, Ostrava, Lima, Buenos Aires and Gdansk. In November/December 2017 the off-Broadway company
the Barrow Group produced the US premiere of his 2012 play
Muswell Hill. His play
Monogamy toured the UK before a five-week run at London's
Park Theatre in June/July 2018. It starred
Janie Dee,
Patrick Ryecart,
Jack Archer,
Charlie Brooks and
Genevieve Gaunt. A second UK tour of the play (revised and retitled as ''Caroline's Kitchen'') took place in the first half of 2019 before taking part in the Brits-off-Broadway Festival. The remount starred
Caroline Langrishe,
Aden Gillett,
James Sutton and
Jasmyn Banks. The play opened at Teatr Wzpolczesny in Warsaw on 18 January 2020. His online play Apollo 13: The Dark Side of the Moon, starring Tom Chambers, began streaming in October 2020. He plays Oliver in the film version of
Invincible, alongside
Laura Howard,
Samantha Seager and Daniel Copeland. The film is scheduled for release in late 2023. Betts' play,
Murder in the Dark, toured the UK from September 2023 for six months, starring
Tom Chambers. ==Bibliography==