Paines Plough’s 50th Birthday Gala

Posted on: November 5th, 2024 by ppEditor

A bumper celebration of new writing and writers, to celebrate Paines Plough’s 50th birthday and raise funds to secure our future.

The evening featured an exclusive new piece entitled ‘The Next 50’, written by our patron James Graham and performed by Monica Dolan.

Followed by extracts from some of Paines Plough’s seminal productions, performed by guest stars:

Appearances will also include Indhu Rubasingham (Director Designate of the National Theatre), and playwrights James Graham, Roy Williams, Mark Ravenhill and Ryan Calais Cameron.

This event is part of Paines Plough’s 50 for 50 Campaign which aims to raise £50,000 to support its work at at time when new writing is under threat. There are so many stories in danger of never being heard, and we want to make sure we can spend the next 50 years finding them.

Every Brilliant Thing

Posted on: June 1st, 2024 by ppEditor

Ten years on from the play’s debut, a new production of the smash-hit comes to Roundabout, directed by Duncan Macmillan and performed by Jonny Donahoe.

You’re seven years old. Mum’s in hospital. Dad says she’s ‘done something stupid. She finds it hard to be happy. So you make a list of everything that’s brilliant about the world. Everything worth living for.

Ice cream.
Water fights.
Staying up past your bedtime and being allowed to watch TV.
The colour yellow.
Rollercoasters.
People falling over.

A play about depression and the lengths we go to for those we love.

Roundabout at Summerhall 2024

Posted on: May 9th, 2024 by ppEditor

This year, Paines Plough celebrates its 50th birthday, and this big joyous yellow dome celebrates its 10th.

So here it is: our celebration.

We have another packed programme showcasing some of the very best new writing that the country has to offer. Just like the plays and the writers we have championed across our 50 years, these are stories that blaze with laughter, hope, love and fury.

They come from voices and perspectives you might never have heard before, speak about the world in new ways, and hold a mirror to our relationships with ourselves and one another.

We hope you love them just as much as we do.

Scroll down to see the full Roundabout at Summerhall programme…

My Mother’s Funeral: The Show

Posted on: March 2nd, 2024 by ppEditor

Abigail’s mum is dead. But it turns out she can’t afford her to be.

Did you know how expensive it is to die? It’s £4000 for the funeral. Extra for flowers. And even more if you want sausage rolls. Otherwise, she will get a council funeral and an unmarked grave.

Then, when a theatre suddenly pulls out of Abigail’s new project, she is asked to write about something else. Something more raw, from her ‘unique working class lens.’ Something that will make the audience feel really, really bad about themselves. Audiences like that, apparently.

Yep. To afford the funeral, she has to write about her mum.

Winner of the Scotsman Fringe First at the Edinburgh Festival 2024, with power and playfulness, Kelly Jones’s new play tackles the inequalities around death, and the cost of turning your loved ones into art.

Dissonance

Posted on: February 19th, 2024 by ppEditor

A rave, a protest to ‘kill the criminal justice bill’ and a night that will have consequences for decades to come.

Moving between 1994 and 2023, Dissonance is a play exploring the importance of protest, how each generation gets blamed by the next for not doing enough, and why we need to listen to each other.

This Is Not A Coup

Posted on: May 19th, 2023 by ppEditor

An international group of young democrats are working for an NGO called Democracy in Action in Zimbabwe in the run up to the elections.

Their goal, to educate and help register voters, but an increasingly violent run up to elections brings chaos their way testing the very reason for their commitment and presence in the country.

Bullring Techno Makeout Jamz

Posted on: May 11th, 2023 by ppEditor

Trim? Fresh.
Skin? Glowing.
Vibes? Immaculate.  

Nathaniel is a serious romantic who sees love as a fine art. He’s looking for the Mona Lisa to his da Vinci, and tonight is the night: his date with Destiny…’s Child. 

Winner of the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting 2022, Nathan Queeley-Dennis’ debut play is a love letter to Birmingham, exploring Black masculinity through Beyonce lyrics, techno raves and the deeply intimate relationship between a man and his barber.

Roundabout at Summerhall 2023

Posted on: May 11th, 2023 by ppEditor

Scroll down to see the full Roundabout @ Summerhall 2023 programme.

Welcome back to Roundabout, Paines Plough’s pop-up amphitheatre with state-of-the-art lighting and sound, and where every seat is the best seat in the house. 168 people are wrapped around the stage, watching new plays from the UK’s most exciting writers, in a thrillingly atmospheric, spaceship-like theatre.

Since its beginning, the big yellow tent has existed to serve our mission as a company; to showcase the breadth of new writing talent that the country has to offer, and to platform stories from all sections of society. There will be deep reflection, hope, righteous fury, and lived experiences you might never have considered before.

Oh, and there will be laughter as well. Lots of it.

We’d like you to take these stories home with you, to keep them with you for a while, and hopefully you will fly the flag for new writing wherever you are.

Read more about all the productions in the e-Postcard Pack here (scroll down to view pages):

Strategic Love Play

Posted on: May 10th, 2023 by ppEditor

So they’ve both swiped right. Now they’re meeting for the first time. Facing each other. As if that’s a normal thing to do.

But she’s being uncomfortable, and he’s a total bore. The vibe is horrific and the banter is even worse. But something is keeping them in their seats. Something is making them stay.

With acid wit, Miriam Battye’s award-winning new play takes a scalpel to modern romance.

A U.S. production of Strategic Love Play opened at the Minetta Lane Theatre in November & December 2024, produced by Audible and Chase This Productions. It was directed by the show’s original director Katie Posner, starring Michael Zegen and Heléne Yorke.

One Off

Posted on: October 27th, 2022 by ppEditor

Born in Denton Burn, Ric Renton had a troubled upbringing that led to him spending his young adulthood in prison. Whilst in HMP Durham he learned to read and crucially to write. This is his story. Relived and performed by him.

Three young men Knox, Brown and Shepherd pass their time in a prison with the highest suicide rate in the country. Energised by their friendship but with the walls around them getting smaller, haunted by the repeated pronouncements of another life lost, the arrival of a nightwatchman, Jock, offers Shepherd an unexpected way through the darkness.

Rich with emotion but sizzling with high energy and the blackest humour, One Off is one of the most urgent pieces of new writing you will likely see.

‘One Off was all the dignity afforded to those who could take no more. No names. Not even their number. One off.
I am DV7786.
And I write this for all the dead boys, and for night watchman Jock, who, without his invisible, persistent presence, unseen in the corridors of HMP Durham, I too may have just been another One Off.’
Ric Renton