The play's script was sent by Ridley's agent to The Hampstead Theatre, where Matthew Lloyd was the literary-manager. Describing his experience of reading the script for the first time, Lloyd said that "it sort of blew my head off. It was so startling. There was just like nothing else that had this kind of febrile energy that I'd read. And I was sort of trembling with excitement the first time I read it." However, the artistic director of the Hampstead Theatre (although appreciative of Lloyd's enthusiasm) did not want the play to be performed at the theatre. Lloyd understands that there was "caution about putting play on" because it was "a strange play. This was unusual. It didn't fit into sort of tidy categories. And it was breaking all sorts of rules and kind of pushing the boundaries." Despite this, Lloyd was adamant that the play should be staged because the "ferocious beating heart inside the piece demanded that it become a piece of live theatre". Because of this, Lloyd met with Ridley to discuss the play, and states that they both "sort of clicked". Lloyd says that "I had all sorts of problems with "The Pitchfork Disney" in that first draft I read" so he questioned Ridley about certain elements of the play. Lloyd recalls that Ridley "wasn't just enjoying my praise and my evident excitement. He was enjoying being challenged and being called on a lot of his writerly decisions." Lloyd states that he gave dramaturgical feedback on each of Ridley's plays that he directed, saying that "I've seen an early draft and given a lot of notes and we've had a lot of conversations and we've interrogated the text really, really fiercely together. And then he's done another draft. And then we've done that again. And then he's done another draft. So by the time I get into rehearsal with actors I really feel that I've got strong authority over what this story is and why it's being told and how to tell it."