Around 75 per cent of graduates at Scotland's top universities go straight into employment. But very few of them amass Edinburgh Fringe awards. University of Edinburgh graduate Ella Hickson has done just that, winning not only a Fringe First award, but two more of the Festival’s most prestigious awards for her first play, Eight.

The play, which sees the audience vote for four out of a possible eight monologues about British life in 2008, also picked up NSDF Edinburgh Emerging Artists Award as well as the prestigious Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award this August. As a result, Hickson and the cast now take the play to The Pleasance, Islington in London for three nights, followed by an expenses-paid week-long run in New York’s Performance Space 122 theatre after Christmas.

Speaking to The Journal, Hickson said: “The success of the play has been overwhelming. Obviously myself and the cast are elated to have done so well and to be charging ahead with the opportunities that these prizes have provided, however, we are keen to realize this is just the first, if enormously exciting, step into a world where success is not always so easy to come by.”

It was while studying at the University of Edinburgh for a degree in English Literature and Art History, that Hickson—who both wrote and directed the play—became involved with the Edinburgh University Theatre Society at the Bedlam theatre. Accepting the Fringe First Award Hickson praised the theatre: “we’re straight out of uni, some of us are still in uni, and we don’t really have the money to come to the Fringe,” she said. “But Bedlam facilitates that and that’s invaluable for people who want to do something in an industry that’s quite tough.”

Eight’s cast—also drawn from the society—have, according to Hickson, “worked exceptionally hard” to produce a piece of award-winning theatre. “The cast really did give it everything and for that I will be eternally grateful,” she acknowledged.

Eight presents short snappy monologues which arose from surveys with young people about the experiences of their generation in Britain. Miles, for instance—who appears in The Journal’s exclusive extract—is a survivor of the 7/7 bombings; Milly is an upmarket prostitute with surprisingly traditional values. But despite the apparent gloom, festival critics praised the works rejection of the stereotype of an apathetic, layabout British youth.

Asked about her desire to show optimism amid the gravest of situations, Hickson was unequivocal: “I am part of a generation that has to struggle incredibly hard against the engulfing tides of brainless media in order to be heard saying anything worth hearing,” she lamented. “It creates a frustration in you to defend what you believe your generation is actually capable of.”

Speaking of the winner, Carol Tambor, founder of the Best of Edinburgh Award, said: “Ella is fearless in describing characters you’ve never come across before. Surely you’ve never heard inner voices speak so eloquently. I can only compare her play to another of my favorites, Talking Heads by Alan Bennett, except her characters are just beginning their lives, and we know the road ahead will be a rocky one.”

And so it is for Hickson who, aged 23, who now begins her journey in the competitive world of theatre. But she is realistic about the prospect: “Courting attention with the allure of youth and novelty is all well and good but I am very aware that over the next few years this initial success will have to substantiated with proof of enduring skill.”

Eight will reappear in Edinburgh on Friday 19 and Sun 21 September at the Bedlam Theatre.