Alexander Zeldin: ‘We need to find a way to talk about things we don’t want to see’

The playwright found acclaim with works about the devastation caused by austerity. He returns with a drama exploring the realities of ageing

There is one no-no in an Alexander Zeldin rehearsal, and that's being theatrical. As the cast of his first French play, A Death in the Family, rehearses carefully choreographed entrances set in a care home, the British playwright and director keeps returning to the theme. Factual, simple. No theatre here," he tells one actor. You're wonderful as you are," he says to another. If you do more, it becomes theatre."

It's a delightful paradox for someone who is singularly obsessed with theatre, as I realise when I meet him close to his Paris flat. The 36-year-old, who found international success with an arresting trilogy, The Inequalities (Beyond Caring, Love, and Faith, Hope and Charity) that laid bare the human cost of austerity in Britain, moved here temporarily last September.