Mystery Bush Bundle

Four books for a fiver (worth up to £40!)

Get four playtexts in a mystery bundle for just a fiver. You never know what you might get! Featuring plays by writers from across our history. Get a copy of a hit play you love, or discover a new story you've never heard of.

Close-Up Magic (Paperback)

40 Years at the Bush Theatre

Open this book and you will hold in your hands a living history of a small theatre and its mammoth impact, a book which traces the treacherous and thrilling path through famine, feast and fire. It never should have worked: a makeshift theatre about a pub far west of the West End in the dark days of the early 1970s, with no funding beyond its (initially) meagre box office takings. It certainly never should have kick-started the careers of the likes of Catherine Johnson or Julie Walters, Conor McPherson or Simon Callow. It shouldn’t have worked. And yet it did.

The Origins of the Bush Theatre, for those who know it, have entered into the realms of the mythical: Brian McDermott standing on a beer crate at Speakers’ Corner flogging the latest show; the battles against de facto censorship; the struggles for survival; and most importantly, setting the tone for the future, those first few productions – wild, brilliant magnets of controversy – 90-minute packets of theatre at its best. This book captures it all and beyond: the guts, the gore and the glory of 40 years at the Bush.

This Might Not Be It

by Sophia Chetin-Leuner

A candid and unflinchingly human look at NHS mental health services, Sophia Chetin-Leuner's debut was Shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Playwriting.

Jay’s new. He’s just started as a temp in NHS Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services. Angela’s been working there for over thirty years and nothing seems to faze her – except Jay. Professional boundaries are crossed, trust is shattered, and Jay discovers the harsh reality of what’s truly at stake.

10 Nights

by Shahid Iqbal Khan

One man’s spiritual journey is about to begin… after he’s sent this tweet.

When Yasser decides to take part in itikaf, sleeping and fasting in the mosque for the last ten nights of Ramadan, he soon regrets his decision. But as he navigates smug worshippers, shared bathrooms, and recurring thoughts of chunky chips, Yasser’s isolation forces him to confront a side of himself he’s been trying to keep hidden.

A moving and funny new play by Shahid Iqbal Khan, 10 Nights is the story of one man’s journey of self-discovery and facing the consequences of your actions.

A Graeae and Tamasha co-production, in association with the Bush Theatre.

A Carpet, a Pony and a Monkey

by Mike Packer

Euro 2000: the European Football Championships. Millionaire ticket tout Baz has blown it all on dot.com shares, so it's off to Belgium with his reluctant sidekick Tosser to get rid of three hundred tickets for the England v. Germany game on a bunch of pissed-up Geordies.

And The Rest of Me Floats

by Outbox Theatre

And The Rest Of Me Floats is all about the messy business of gender. Performers from across the trans, non binary, and queer communities weave together autobiographical performance, movement, pop songs, stand up and dress up in this anarchic celebration of gender expression and identity. Playful and powerful, And The Rest Of Me Floats explores how it feels to live in a society where you are regularly categorised and policed. ‘Do you see me?’. Beyond the questions, the confusion, and the anger ‘do you really see me?’

Artefacts

by Mike Bartlett

Sixteen-year-old Kelly has never known her Dad. Turns out he's from Iraq, which her mum never mentioned, and he's brought an ancient Mesopotamian vase as some kind of present. But Kelly doesn't want a vase. She wants her dad to stay and get to know her. It's not the reunion either of them expected and for Kelly, it's the beginning of an epic and dangerous journey.

Mike Bartlett has been described as 'One of the most exciting new talents to emerge in recent times'. (The Stage).
His first play 'My Child' was called 'Brutal, thrilling, unmissable' (Evening Standard) and 'the theatrical equivalent of a firecracker'. (Metro).

August in England

by Lenny Henry

"Yu see me? I was eight years old when I come to H'Inglan' - I travel on my mother's passport."

August Henderson, fifty-two years in England, a proud West Bromwich Albion fan, part-owner of a fruit and veg emporium, and a devoted dad. He's got the gift of the gab, exaggerates his musical talents, has no head for paperwork and is about to marry the woman he loves. And then the Home Office threatens him with deportation. August won't go quietly.

Lenny Henry's playwriting debut is a poignant, hilarious portrait of a life affected by the terrible injustice of the Windrush Scandal.

August in England opened at the Bush Theatre, London, in April 2023.

Baby Reindeer

By Richard Gadd

When Edinburgh Comedy Award Winner Richard Gadd (Monkey See Monkey Do) offers a free cup of tea to a stranger, what appears to be a trivial interaction has ramifications far wider than he could ever have imagined.

Fresh from a world premiere at the Edinburgh Fringe this summer, Baby Reindeer is an unmissable debut play and chilling personal narrative exploring obsession, delusion, and the aftermath of a chance encounter.

Bites

by Kay Adshead

Seven course, one meal

Moving from the biggest democracy on the planet to the newest, Bites takes us back to Afghanistan via Texas. In the last diner at the end of a world ravaged by war, a menu of love, death and revenge is served by the 'hired help'. Seven courses make for a poetic feast of universal tales looking back to the forgotten war and forward to a nightmarish future.

Bones

by Kay Adshead

'White people in their big shiny cars drive many kilometres with their sickness which I heal; sickness of the mind, body and of the soul. I charge a bit more for the soul'

At night, a young black boy is 'questioned' by a white South African policeman. 36 years later, when the truth is dug up, a tortured Jennifer watches over her dying husband. But does her maid Beauty have the power to 'save' him, and is the price of remembering a dreadful secret one that Jennifer is prepared to pay? Bones is a ruthless excavation of South Africa in 2005, and in an age of threats, retribution and bloody revenge, it is an anthem for hope.

Bottle Universe

by Simon Burt

Dave is a troublemaker. His mother's always trying to commit suicide, his father's never at home and he really doesn't see the point of school. Laura has ambitious parents who want her to get on, but she's being so badly bullied she's thinking of suicide as well. An unlikely liaison develops between Laura and Dave, as both their trouble exacerbate.

Chiaroscuro

by Jackie Kay

Chiaroscuro: (noun) the treatment of light and shade in drawing and painting. Aisha, Yomi, Beth and Opal couldn’t be more different, but when Aisha hosts a dinner party, the friends soon discover that they’re all looking for an answer to the same question. Does it lie in Aisha’s childhood? Or in Beth and Opal’s new romance? Who will tell them who they really are? What starts out as a friendly conversation between women, soon turns heated when Yomi reveals what she really thinks about Beth and Opal’s relationship.

Collapsible

by Margaret Perry

Essie’s lost her job. Her girlfriend’s left. But she’s alright. Except lately she feels more like a chair than a person. One of those folding chairs. Solid one minute. And then. From award winning Irish writer Margaret Perry (Porcelain, Abbey Theatre), Collapsible is the hilarious, multi award winning new play about holding on in this collapsing world, starring the “mesmeric” (Guardian) Breffni Holahan. For anyone who has ever felt crumbly. Winner of the Origins Award for Outstanding New Work at VAULT Festival 2019, The Stage Edinburgh Award, Best Performer at Dublin Fringe (Breffni Holahan) and Fishamble New Writing Award at Dublin Fringe.

Pre order today and receive the playtext when the show opens

Crooked

by Catherine Trieschmann

Fourteen-year-old Laney arrives in Oxford, Mississippi, an outsider with a twisted back and only her writing to keep her company. When she befriends the hapless born-again Maribel, Laney''s penchant for story-telling soon spirals out of control. A hilarious chain of events is set in motion, sparking a spiritual and sexual journey.

Cruising

by Alecky Blythe

A hilarious, real-life comedy about pensioners going in search of love - from the sublime to the downright saucy.

Maureen is a pensioner in search of passion. After 33 blind dates, 12 cruises and one broken heart, she is still determined to find Mr Right.

But when best friend Margaret beats her to the altar, Maureen has her doubts - is Margaret just on the rebound and, more importantly, will she lose her pension?

Dreaming and Drowning

by Kwame Owusu

An intimate and visceral deep-dive into the boundless mind of a young Black queer man wrestling with anxiety. Dreaming and Drowning won the Mustapha Matura Award in 2022.

Malachi’s been looking forward to a fresh start at uni for months. But he keeps having the same nightmare – sinking, crushed by the weight of the ocean – and it’s getting worse… As the boundaries between nightmare and reality fracture, Malachi must fight harder than ever to stay afloat. Back in stock: 04/01/2024.

tHe dYsFUnCkshOnalZ!

by Mike Packer

in 1977 when Punk was at its height. Billy Abortion's band mates left him bleeding to death in a Copenhagen hotel room. In 2007 Billy is back from the dead and stacking shelves. There was no way tHe dYsFUnCKshOnalZ! would ever reform. Until now.

Thirty years after the band's notorious split, an American corporation wants to pay them a small fortune for their punk anthem 'Plastic People', but everyone has to be in on the deal. So how much will it take for the angriest man in music to sell out?

Elephant

by Anoushka Lucas

2023 Expanded Edition

Part gig, part love story, part journey through Empire – Elephant is the powerful, critically-acclaimed play from Anoushka Lucas (Olivier nominated star of Oklahoma!, Young Vic).

A new edition of the playtext was published to coincide with the 2023 expanded production, featuring new material and full programme information.

F*ck the Polar Bears

by Tanya Ronder

A raucous new play about a family who have the world at their feet. Will they stamp all over it?

Gordon and Serena have worked hard to get where they are. He’s on the verge of a massive promotion at an energy giant. She’s preparing for a move into the house of their dreams. The family appear to be cooking on gas.

But behind their perfect front door, light bulbs are blowing, the drains keep blocking, and a phone inexplicably refuses to charge. Not to mention that daughter Rachel’s adored toy polar bear is nowhere to be found.

As Gordon chases the spectres behind these mysterious events, he spirals out of control and the family are forced to ask whether the life they desire is worth its cost.

Fair Play

by Ella Road

The clocks are set. The line is drawn. They’ve got a chance to be champions. But at what cost?

When Ann joins Sophie’s running club she’s thrown into a world of regimented training and pure focus. The two girls couldn’t be more different, but soon their shared passion makes them inseparable – dreaming in lanes and lap-times, waking up picturing Olympic medals, each day stronger and faster…

But set head to head in the run up to the World Championships, they find themselves and their friendship put to the ultimate test. As their relationships, their bodies, and their very identities are pulled into public scrutiny, does being exceptional come at too high a price?

A gripping exploration of the underside of women’s athletics, Fair Play is the new work from Ella Road (The Phlebotomist) – “the most promising young playwright in Britain” (The Telegraph).

Favour

by Ambreen Razia

‘There’s going to be some changes round here, sugar and TV allowed whenever you want’

Leila is happy living at home with Noor, her loving but traditional grandmother. When Aleena, her fiercely independent mother, returns home from prison determined to deliver a new world of fun and excitement, their calm lives are upended in a blur of nail varnish and sweet treats. Family secrets come tumbling into the light, and Leila finds deciding on her future more difficult than she first thought.

Favour is a touching and hopeful family drama that tackles duty, addiction and the battle of putting yourself back together.

Writer of Diary of a Hounslow Girl Ambreen Razia’s remarkable new play, a new Bush Theatre and Clean Break co-commission, tells a strikingly frank story of a working-class Muslim family in a way you’ve never seen before on stage.

Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going To Happen

by Marcelo Dos Santos

'I’m thirty-six, I’m a comedian, and I’m about to kill my boyfriend.'

A permanently single, professionally neurotic stand-up comedian finally meets his Mr Right – and then does everything wrong.

Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going To Happen is a dark and bitingly funny one-man show. It premiered at the 2022 Edinburgh Fringe, where it won a Fringe First award, and then transferred to the Bush Theatre.

Forget Me Not

by Tom Holloway

In Australia, Gerry hopes to meet his mother for the first time. Despite being almost sixty, he has spent his whole life believing he’s an orphan.
In Liverpool, Mary brews a good, strong pot of tea. Nothing posh. But she’s as nervous as a pig at a butcher’s.

Determined to uncover his past, Gerry and his daughter Sally embark on an extraordinary journey home – halfway across the world – in a precarious bid to bring their family together.

Through a program created by the British Government and eagerly supported by an Australia in the throes of its ‘White Australia’ policy, between 1945 and 1968 over three thousand British children were told they were orphans and sent to Australia on a promise of warmth, fresh air, abundant food and opportunity. Instead they arrived to deprived institutions where neglect and abuse were the norm.Tom Holloway’s tender new play unearths a secret buried by time that, in turn, exposes a world of historical injustices currently in the limelight.

Going Through

by Estelle Savasta

When the men come to drive her away, Youmna cuts off Nour’s hair. And so begins one girl’s journey. By bus, by lorry, into the sound of gun shots, through adolescence and across borders. All she can take with her is a little box and her memories of Youmna, the woman who raised her.

Gong Donkeys

by Richard Cameron

School's out, and David has been sent to spend the holidays with his Aunt Deelie, Uncle Robert and cousin Charlene in the rough part of town.

It's a summer of stories; In the shed, Uncle Robert prepares to impress the local history society with his revelations about Charles Dickens in Doncaster; On the allotment, Charlene acts out her favourite soaps; Even Gobbo and Wink, Charlene's non-too-bright conspirators, have rich fantasy lives brimming with the thrills and importance their real lives lack. But when a child goes missing, accusations are thrown at David's new friends, and the line between fact and fiction becomes dangerously blurred.

Got To Be Happy

by Simon Burt

A poignant and tender-hearted play set in a pub kitchen.

When fifty-something Connie starts work in a pub kitchen one sweltering summer, she proves to be the catalyst for change in everyone's lives: Charley, the stubborn cook, is forced to reassess his past; while Richard, the stroppy bar manager, and his waitress girlfriend Caroline, come to realise that they may not be heading for the same future.

Guards at the Taj

by Rajiv Joseph

It’s 1648. Agra, India. Imperial guards and best mates Humayun and Babur keep watch as the final touches are put to the mighty Taj Mahal behind them. The emperor has decreed that no one, except the masons, labourers and slaves who exist within those walls, shall turn to look at the building until it is complete.

Now, as the building nears completion and the first light catches on the pure white domes behind them, the temptation to steal a glance at the most beautiful monument the world has ever seen grows stronger. But beauty has a price and Humayun and Babur are about to learn its true cost.

Harm

by Phoebe Eclair-Powell

I want Alice immediately. To suffer something unfortunate. To be friends with me... I don't know. Both?

When an unhappy estate agent sells a house to a charismatic social media influencer, the two strike up an unlikely friendship. But soon the lines between online and reality become dangerously blurred.

We are excited to announce the world premiere of Bruntwood Prize award winner Phoebe Eclair-Powell's Harm - a thrilling dark comedy on the corrosive effect of social media and isolation.

Heather

by Thomas Eccleshare

Postal orders available from 31 Oct

A reclusive children’s writer becomes wildly successful. Her books are treasured across the country. But when a troubling narrative starts to unfold, we find ourselves asking: what matters more, the storyteller or the story?

Brilliantly imaginative and theatrically original, Heather is a short, sharp play about language, prejudice and the power of stories. The cast includes Ashley Gerlach and Charlotte Melia.

House of Ife

by Beru Tessema

‘See that’s the problem with this family innit, we never wanna talk real about Ife.’

In the wake of the sudden death of their eldest son, Ife, one family is forced to confront the traumas they’ve long tried to bury. As the sun beats down on their cramped North London flat, and the head of the family arrives from Ethiopia for the funeral, tensions rise, cultures clash and past betrayals are unearthed.

A tense, funny and explosive drama exploring what it means to belong, and what happens when a family’s secrets shake its foundations.

House of Ife premiered at the Bush in April 2022, directed by Artistic Director Lynette Linton.

Beru Tessema is an Ethiopian-British writer based in London. His stage play, Exile in North Weezy, was shortlisted for the prestigious Papatango Playwriting Prize 2020. He began his relationship with the Bush on their Emerging Writers' Group, and House of Ife was written on commission.

How To Curse

by Ian McHugh

Marooned in Great Yarmouth, Nick and Miranda are two intensely bright, funny and volatile young people. They may be best friends but Nick is searching for something else. Obsessed with The Tempest, he is convinced that, if only they can find their own Arid, they'll be able to conjure a storm. When Will arrives, it looks like all the elements are in place but none of them really understand the powers they are about to release

I Caught Crabs in Walberswick

by Joel Horwood

Wheeler is a high-flying comprehensive kid destined for university, while football-mad Fitz is struggling to cope with his dysfunctional father and his schoolwork. They live in Walberswick, a sleepy Suffolk village best known, only known, for hosting the British Open Crabbing Championship.Set on a sweltering summer's day on the eve of their last GCSE exam, they are ambushed by Dani, the fittest (and poshest) girl on the beach. So begins a crazy twenty-four hours that will change the lives of the three sixteen-year-olds for ever.Joel Horwood's exhilarating new play presents the realities of rural life from a teenager's perspective.

I Wanna Be Yours

By Zia Ahmed

I move clockwise. You move counter clockwise. In the middle we meet. We kiss. Ella is from Yorkshire. Haseeb is from London. They order a pizza. House red for Ella. Hot chocolate for Haseeb. People and playlists. Christmas and Eid. Travelcards and Megabuses. London to Leeds. Love is more than just a game for two. Especially when there’s an elephant in the room. A tender, funny, lyrical play about finding love and holding onto it with everything you’ve got.

Islands

by Caroline Horton

Islands is an illuminating, absurd and powerful new show about tax havens, little empires, enormous greed and the few who have it all. Hilarious and unnerving, this ink black comedy with music plunges you into a monstrous, secretive world where it really seems that no-one has to pay.... for anything. Head off-shore and frolic with those who have it all worked out, as they feed their addiction to wealth, power and material stuff.

Kingfisher Blue

by Lin Coghlan

'Gives a voice to those whose lives are constantly ignored and devalued.'-Guardian

Four London lads, doing their best to keep afloat, have big plans for getting on; but things take a turn for the worse when one of their scams dangerously backfires. An urban tale of stuffed weasels, avocado sandwiches and dreams of escape.

Lands

by Antler

2 performers, a mini trampoline and a 1000 piece puzzle.

Leah and Sophie have been together, here, for a long time. They are happy here.
But there’s a problem. There’s a fucking massive problem and soon they’re going to have to talk about it.

The award winning Antler return with a playful, intimate dissection of a relationship teetering on the edge of collapse. An absurd tragicomedy, Lands explores the impossibility of relationships, our inability to understand one another and the hills we’re willing to die on.

Lava

by Benedict Lombe

Winner of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize

Benedict Lombe’s Lava is an explosive debut that will turn the way you see the world on its axis.

"This is nice, init? I like it. Good little set-up to tell you the story of my name. The story of my true name."

When a woman receives an unexpected letter from the British Passport Office, she is forced to confront an old mystery: why does her South African passport not carry her first name? Armed with the wisdom of favourite 90s TV shows, she sets out on a journey that will take her back to the turmoil of Mobutu’s Congo, growing up in post-Apartheid South Africa, moving to Ireland and finding love in a hostile England. As her journey becomes inextricably linked with the tides of global history, how far will she go to unravel the truth?

★★★★ “Brilliant, blistering theatre.” The Times
★★★★ “Wry, magnetic and urgent.” Evening Standard

Little Platoons

by Steve Waters

A group of West London parents are driven by desperation to take the new government up on their offer and start their own ‘free school’. They want to create an education that their children will enjoy rather than endure. But as they find their lives given over to a disturbing version of the Big Society, their fervour turns to panic.

Free schools are getting ready to transform from policy idea to classroom reality. But what do we know about them?
This dark new comedy takes the pulse of Coalition Britain, by exploring what the retreat of the state and the growth of people power might actually mean. Moving from satiric comedy to poignant family drama, it asks why we’re all so obsessed with education and what happens when we get what we wish for.

Mammals

by Amelia Bullmore

I've had it with telling. I never want to be told anything either. Not even the time?

Jane and Kev don't have secrets, there's no room for them. Their children take up all the space. Dirty laundry and weekend guests just have to be squeezed in. But when Kev comes home from a business trip with something on his mind he starts a confessional chain reaction, which has shattering consequences.

My Romantic History

by DC Jackson

“If you haven’t met someone by the time you graduate, you’re going to marry some idiot from your work. It’s that simple. Do you know how they get animals to breed in captivity? They put them in the same cage.”

Office romances are tricky. One moment you’re colleagues, then a quick grope after Friday night drinks and suddenly you’re in a relationship. When Tom and Amy get together after an office social, they find themselves living in each other’s pockets. But it’s not their lack of chemistry that’s the problem: it’s that neither of them can quite get over their childhood sweethearts.

Old Bridge

by Igor Memic

The Olivier Award winning Old Bridge is a beautiful, heart-wrenching play by British-Bosnian writer Igor Memic.

‘One day all you care about is music, fashion, and boys. The next day there’s no food. Piece by piece your world starts to change so you change with it.’

Mostar, Yugoslavia, 1988. Mili, a boy from out of town, dives from the famous Old Bridge. Mina, a local girl, watches. As he falls, she begins falling for him.

Mostar, Bosnia, 1992. In a town of growing divisions, Mina and Mili never doubt that their future lies together. But nor can they imagine the dangers that future will bring.

This love story is a bold, fresh and contemporary take on real events. An epic story exploring the impact of a war that Europe forgot and the love and loss of those who lived through it. It won the 2020 Papatango New Writing Prize.

Overflow

by Travis Alabanza

Club toilets have taught me more about sisterhood than any book.

Cornered into a flooding toilet cubicle and determined not to be rescued again, Rosie distracts herself with memories of bathroom encounters. Drunken-heart-to hearts by dirty sinks, friendships forged in front of crowded mirrors, and hiding together from trouble.

But with her panic rising and no help on its way, can she keep her head above water?

From internationally acclaimed writer and one of the UK’s most prominent trans voices, Travis Alabanza (Burgerz), comes a hilarious and devastating tour of women’s bathrooms, who is allowed in and who is kept out.

Paradise Now!

by Margaret Perry

Gabriel Dolan's never been up to much. That's what everyone says. Until she meets Alex, a young, ambitious woman who sells essential oils for a multi-level marketing company called Paradise - and overnight, Gabriel is drawn into a bright, new, floral-scented world.

In Paradise, you're your own boss. In Paradise, you could make a fortune. Embraced by a new community of women just like her, Gabriel rises through the ranks of the company like a shooting star. But when she gets to the top, it doesn't quite feel like she thought it would.

Margaret Perry's Paradise Now! is a funny and raging play about ambition, exploitation and the search for connection in a fractured world. It was first performed by an all-female cast at the Bush Theatre, London, in December 2022, directed by Jaz Woodcock-Stewart.

Pink Lemonade

by Mika Onyx Johnson

Was the juice worth the squeeze?

Just when Mika was starting to feel at home in their own body, they find themselves caught between Simmi, who’s sweet like sugar but ain’t a lesbian, and Token Toni, who loves a bitta bashment and only dates black and brown butches. How can they catch a break when straight women are like junk food?

In Mika Onyx Johnson's Edinburgh Fringe 2019 smash hit Pink Lemonade, original beats collide with poetry and movement to create an explosive autobiographical piece of storytelling.

Pump Girl

by Abbie Spallen

There's one in every town, and they call her the Pumpgirl. She works in the garage, changes the oil and thinks she's one of the lads. She's sweet on 'No-helmet' Hammy, but he loves no-one but himself. He's out all night with his racing boys, whilst wife Sinead's off on a joyride of her own, with an ache that's about to be cured. A turbo charged race through the diesel fumes and country music of the Armagh badlands.

Abbie Spallen's explosively comic new play takes us deep into the unspoken thoughts and darkest desires of three lives destined to collide. The Bush Theatre's world premiere production of Pumpgirl opened at the Traverse Theatre, in the 2006 Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Red Pitch

by Tyrell Williams

Definitive 2023 Edition

The way they’re changing endz is nuts.

A coming-of-age story about what it means to belong somewhere, Tyrell Williams’ fast-paced and sharp-edged play tells a powerful story about gentrification, regeneration and the impact of this relentless change on London’s communities.

Red Pitch received an ecstatic critical and audience response when it was first performed at the Bush Theatre, London, in February 2022, directed by Associate Artistic Director Daniel Bailey. The production was revived at the Bush in September 2023, with this definitive version of the text.

Right Now

by Catherine-Anne Toupin

As Alice and Ben settle into their beautiful new flat they realise that the family across the hall hope to be more than just good neighbours.

Soon, Juliette, Gilles, and their son François are wearing out the welcome mat; suggesting drinks, hors d’oeuvres and dancing. Things begin to heat up as innocent invitations lead to passionate encounters and unsettling revelations.

Written by award-winning Quebecois playwright Catherine-Anne Toupin, Right Now is a play with a dark heart, a disquieting exploration of one woman’s crisis and darkest desires. It walks a delicate line between playful laughter and deep trauma, teasing and thrilling audiences from beginning to end.

Sleepova

by Matilda Feyiṣayọ Ibini

Join Rey, Elle, Shan and Funmi who have finally convinced their parents to let them hold their very first sleepova. Armed with sugary snacks, school gossip, and secret questions they can only ask each other, their sleepovas become pretty much a sacred space for them.

As each year tugs them further into adulthood and life doesn’t pan out quite as they imagined, they struggle to hold on to a friendship that they swore would last a lifetime. A frank, funny and moving coming-of-age story, Sleepova is an ode to black women, their boundless spirits and wild dreams.

Sleepova premiered at the Bush Theatre, London, in February 2023, directed by Jade Lewis.

Matilda Feyiṣayọ Ibini is an award-winning bionic playwright and screenwriter of Nigerian heritage from London. Matilda’s debut play Muscovado won the Alfred Fagon Audience Award in 2015. Matilda’s next play Little Miss Burden premiered at the Bunker Theatre in 2019, was a finalist for Best New Play at the Off West End awards and won a Popcorn Finalist Award in 2020. Screen credits include the BAFTA-nominated CripTales for BBC America and BBC4.

St Petersburg and other plays

by Declan Feenan

St Petersburg, the longest of the three plays in this volume, is an atmospheric and elliptical piece which comprises three scenes involving three characters: an old man, his middle-aged daughter, and a ten-year-old boy. In Limbo, a monologue, a 17-year-old girl tells us the story of her relationship with an older man and what it led to. While Catherine Medbh is a bittersweet and hesitant duologue in a bar between a youngish man and woman who are ex-lovers.

Straight

by DC Moore

Lewis and Waldorf were inseparable at university. Ten years on and a lot has changed. In the middle of a drunken night out, they make a bet that will take their friendship to whole new level.

Adapted for the stage by award-winning writer DC Moore and directed by Richard Wilson, this is the world première of Straight, a razor-sharp new comedy.

You’ll never look at your best friend in the same way again…

Based on the motion picture Humpday, written & directed by Lynn Shelton. Contains adult content and scenes of a sexual nature.

Strange Fruit

by Caryl Phillips

Alvin and Errol can’t picture much of a future for themselves. They’re young, Black and living in England in the 1980s, with an entire country and political system set against them. Instead they focus firmly on their past – the sunny Caribbean and heroic father they left behind when their mother brought them to England twenty years ago. But when Alvin returns home from his grandfather’s funeral a new version of their past emerges and the two brothers are caught in a desperate struggle to unearth the truth about their existence.

Take Me Away

by Gerald Murphy

A dark but very funny comedy about the collapse of a family of feckless chancers and no-hopers.

Eddie and his three sons work nights. It could be said that they're a pretty dysfunctional family, but they don't care because they don't like each other very much. And when Eddie arranges for them all to pay a visit to their mother, the whole family starts to disintegrate in spectacular fasion...

The Aliens

by Annie Baker

KJ and Jasper are professional slackers and best friends. They spend their days outside the back of a small coffee shop in Vermont, talking music and Bukowski. 17 year old Evan is just getting ready for life, eking out his Summer working at the café. KJ and Jasper draw him into their world of magic mushrooms, philosophical musings and great-bands-that never-were.
One of the freshest voices to come out of America in recent years, Annie Baker’s gentle, engaging and deeply funny play introduces two new cult heroes in the shape of KJ and Jasper, and puts modern day America under the microscope to ask what happened to the generation who never grew up.

The Arrival

by Bijan Sheibani

I’ve spent so much of my life wondering…passing people on the street… and now, yeah… you’re here

When Tom and Samad meet for the first time, they are stunned by the similarities they share. In spite of Tom’s adoption and all the years spent apart, the two brothers are joined by an undeniable biological bond.

But as they become closer and their lives entangle, they realise that finding each other comes at a price.

The Green Man

by Doug Lucie

'Cause to be a real angler you got to have soul.'

When Mitch offers his men the fishing trip of a lifetime, they're prepared to stay up till dawn. But while the whisky flows, the intimacy turns sour and the man with the fishing gear fails to show up.

The Green Man is a poignant and vicious portrait of a team of builders and their pub landlord through a night of cards, jealousy and angling.

The P Word

by Waleed Akhtar

‘I’m not in your Britain. I’m in another Britain.’

Zafar flees homophobic persecution in Pakistan to seek asylum in the UK. Londoner Bilal (or Billy as he prefers to be known) is ground down by years of Grindr and the complexity of being a brown gay man.

In Soho, at 2 a.m., parallel worlds collide – and Zafar and Billy’s lives are about to
change forever.

The P Word is Waleed Akhtar’s sharp-witted and devastating play charting the parallel lives of two gay Pakistani men as they negotiate everything from casual hook-ups to the UK’s hostile environment.

A story of who wins in the luck of life’s draw, it was premiered at the Bush Theatre, London, in 2022, directed by Anthony Simpson-Pike.

Waleed Akhtar is an actor, writer and director. His other plays include Kabul
Goes Pop: Music Television Afghanistan (HighTide/Brixton House/Mercury Theatre Colchester), which received critical acclaim.

Tinderbox

by Lucy Kirkwood

Fast, wild and farcically funny, Lucy Kirkwood's first full-length play is a disturbing vision of a dystopian future.

Sometime in the 21st Century, England is dissolving into the sea. Amidst the chaos, one man clings to his traditional British values and his love of meat. For Londoner Saul Everard, his butchers shop is an empire that he will do anything to preserve, including moving it to Bradford. An outlaw Scottish artist swims Hadrian's Channel from Scotland to England and seeks refuge in Saul's shop. There's rioting on the streets and the police are onto him but Saul's meaty little realm may be the last place to seek sanctuary. . .

Trad

by Mark Doherty

A fable about tradition in a mad place, Trad is the hilarious tale of the very old Thomas and his even more ancient 'da'.

When Thomas reveals that he once fathered a son in a long-ago fling, the pair set off across the Irish countryside to seek the unknown child, with nothing more than a hobble and a limp to help them

Visitors

by Barney Norris

In a farmhouse at the edge of Salisbury Plain, a family is falling apart. Stephen can't afford to put his mother into care; Arthur can't afford to stop working and look after his wife. When a young stranger with blue hair moves in to care for Edie as her mind unravels, the family are forced to ask: are we living the way we wanted?

We are Proud to Present...

by Jackie Sibblies Drury

"I'm not doing a German accent
You aren't doing an African accent
We aren't doing accents"

A group of actors gather to tell the little-known story of the first genocide of the 20th Century. As the full force of a horrific past crashes into the good intentions of the present, what seemed a far away place and time is suddenly all too close to home.

Just whose story are they telling?

Award-winning playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury collides the political with the personal in a play that is irreverently funny and seriously brave.