The Legend of Ned Ludd

Machines can make our work easier. They can also make it vanish overnight.

Joe Ward Munrow's play The Legend of Ned Ludd weaves together stories from around the world and takes us on a whirlwind global commute, from the Luddites' nineteenth-century war against new technology through to London, Liverpool, Lagos and beyond...

But we're all at the mercy of The Machine. And, in this powerful exploration of work, automation and capitalism, The Machine selects the scenes for each performance, resulting in 256 possible versions of the play, spun from all the stories included in this published edition. It premiered at the Liverpool Everyman in 2024, directed by Jude Christian.

Note to Performers: There are twenty-three scenes included in the published script, but in each performance the audience will only see fifteen of them. Eight of the scenes that are performed are randomly selected by a machine or random-choice algorithm or app. The other seven scenes are played in every performance of the play. The machine that selects the scenes can be as simple or as complex as required. All of the characters in the play should be played by a cast of three performers. They can be of any race or gender, the only important thing is that the cast is diverse.