We’re delighted to announce that James Graham (writer of Dear England, Boys from the Blackstuff, Best of Enemies, Quiz, This House) is Paines Plough’s new Patron.

The prolific, Olivier-award winning playwright’s 2015 play The Angry Brigade was produced by Paines Plough. In this role as Patron, James will be a continued advocate for the company’s numerous strands of work, including our touring productions, their 50th birthday fundraising campaign, and contributing to our writer development programme, Tour the Writer. We can’t wait to continue working with James to develop our own work and to help to create a stronger ecology for new writing in the country.

James Graham said today:

“Paines Plough was utterly instrumental on my path to becoming a playwright. Not only in the opportunities it offered me early on but in the training, confidence, and the sense of community it gave me. It is the UK’s one true national new writing theatre company, and to become patron in its 50th year – particularly to champion its Tour The Writer programme, linking up with seven partner venues across the country – is a massive honour, and honestly, a responsibility too given the extremely difficult climate and ever-decreasing options for emerging artists. PP, and Charlotte and Katie and their team, are to be applauded over their unrelenting passion and commitment for writers and writing.”

It’s been 50 years since Paines Plough was established over a pint of Paines bitter at the Plough pub.

It’s 10 years since our magical spaceship theatre Roundabout was born.

Feels like a pretty epic, landmark year, doesn’t it?

So here it is: our celebration.

Just like the plays and the writers we have championed across our 50 years, we are hosting another Roundabout at Summerhall with a programme that blazes with laughter, fury, love and hope. They are voices you might never have heard before. They speak about the world in new ways. They hold a mirror to our relationships with ourselves and one another. We hope you love them just as much as we do.

ROUNDABOUT AT SUMMERHALL 2024 is:

• NATION by Sam Ward. Presented by YESYESNONO
• EVERY BRILLIANT THING by Duncan Macmillan with Jonny Donahoe. Presented by Paines Plough and Second Half Productions.
• BELLRINGERS by Daisy Hall. Presented by Atticist, Ellie Keel Productions and Hampstead Theatre, in association with the Women’s Prize for Playwriting.
• MY MOTHER’S FUNERAL: THE SHOW by Kelly Jones. Presented by Paines Plough, Mercury Theatre, Belgrade Theatre, Landmark Theatres, and Royal & Derngate, Northampton.
• HOW I LEARNED TO SWIM by Somebody Jones. Presented by Prentice Productions in association with Brixton House.
• PLAYFIGHT by Julia Grogan. Presented by Grace Dickson Productions and Theatre Uncut.
• TONES: A HIP HOP OPERA by Gerel Falconer. Presented by Wound Up Theatre.
• VL by Kieran Hurley and Gary McNair. Presented by Francesca Moody Productions.
• MAIN CHARACTER ENERGY by Temi Wilkey. Presented by Temi Wilkey and Bobby Harding.
• REFUGEE! by Aisha Zia. Presented by 62 Gladstone Street, in association with Landmark Theatres and The Upsetters.
• LATER by Paines Plough and friends.

We have had many, many conversations about the landscape for new writing and new writers. A lot of them are difficult conversations, with quite a few harsh truths about the challenging environment for writers to flourish within the industry as it currently is.

But, in true Paines Plough style, we are holding on passionately to the dreams and ambitions of brilliant unheard writers that have guided us for half a century. This passion led us to Kelly Jones, a writer we met through our open submissions process in 2021. We were blown away by Kelly’s voice, which juggles so many meaty underrepresented issues with a deftness of touch, highlighting the problems of turning your loved ones into a product for cultural consumption and the serious financial inequalities and deeply embedded class issues surrounding grief.

The play will be joining our incredible Edinburgh programme, and meet audiences around the country in the Autumn, whilst also continuing with our Tour the Writer programme where we will mentor 68 writers in partnership with six theatre organisations around the country.

Whether you’re buying a ticket to one of the Roundabout shows, visiting us on tour, or donating to our 50 for 50 fundraising campaign, we warmly invite you to be part of this landmark year for Paines Plough; to celebrate the future of new writing, to laugh, cry and want to change the world with us. We want to be a part of a positive shift today and for the next 50 years.