First Run

Five significant debut plays – first staged in the UK in the late eighties – from writers who have gone on to establish their reputations in major theatres.

Selected and introduced by Kate Harwood, the then Literary Manager of the Royal Court Theatre.

Prickly Heat by Simon Donald
A surreal and sensuous comedy by a young Scottish writer/performer.

Inventing a New Colour by Paul Godfrey
A war-time Exeter family takes in an evacuee from London.

Low Level Panic by Clare McIntyre
Looks at the effect of pornography on three young women.
Also published in the volume My Heart's a Suitcase and Low Level Panic.

Leave Taking by Winsome Pinnock
About the conflict between a West-Indian woman and her English-born daughters.
Also published in a separate edition.

A Handful of Stars by Billy Roche
Rituals of male supremacy are played out in a Southern Irish billiard room.
Also published in the volume The Wexford Trilogy.

See individual plays for more information.