INSPIRE WRITERS SHOWCASE 2024
Monday 25 March
2PM: abel and cain by lanaire aderemi
Two ambitious sisters, abel and cain are tasked with creating a song for an award-winning film director in eight hours. A seemingly exciting challenge brings decades of rivalry and childhood trauma to the surface. This compelling allegory from lanaire aderemi, explores what happens when sibling rivalry turns rancorous.
This play will be directed by Jennifer Davis.
Running time: Approximately 1 hour 10 minutes
Content warnings: reference to sexual assault and grief.
4pm: OPERATOR BY Angus Harrison
Operator is a play about decisions. Making them or choosing not to. When Declan’s life falls to pieces, he employs the services of an ‘operator’ – a remote life coach, audible to him through headphones – to make all future decisions for him. But what starts as a relief from responsibility gradually becomes a trap of his own making.
This play will be directed by Alice Hamilton.
Running time: Approximately 1 hour 10 minutes
Content warnings: This production contains explicit language, references to suicide and mental illness.
Tuesday 26 March
11am: RAGDOLL by Katherine Moar
“A glass of flat water. Do you remember you called me that? Every time I see a glass of flat water, I think of you. Flat or sparkling. Because it follows that if you think I’m flat, then you must be sparkling.”
In 2017, disgraced celebrity lawyer, Lee, calls on an old client, Holly, to help redeem his reputation.
In 1974, a young heiress is kidnapped from her apartment. Two years later, she is put on trial for her role in a bank robbery gone wrong. Her representation? An up-and-coming lawyer with a penchant for infamous clients.
As Lee tries to convince Holly to come to his aid in the present, the fractious relationship between the heiress and her lawyer in the past threatens to undo him completely.
This play will be directed by Alice Hamilton.
Running time: Approximately 1 hour 10 minutes
Content warnings: This production contains depictions of sexual assault, kidnapping, abduction, violence and death.
2PM: ALL THINGS TO ALL PEOPLE BY LUCY ROSLYN
Welcome to the Constellation Programme, a series of personal and professional development courses to overcome your limiting beliefs and allow the absolute realisation of your full potential.
Free Yourself.
Arlen and Neil are looking for something to help their marriage. After a lifetime of communication problems they turn to an online self-help course known as “Constellation”, a sympathetic betterment program with a seemingly open-hearted community led by celebrated psychologist Gil, alongside charismatic program leader Lydia.
“All Things to All People” is a love story set amongst the methods and manipulations of high-demand groups: How they prey on people’s insecurities and hopes and how easy it can be to get sucked in.
This play will be directed by Ed Madden.
Running time: Approximately 1 hour 10 minutes
Content warnings: This production contains the threat of violence, depictions of emotional abuse, and references to suicidal ideation.
4pm: VOYTEK BY Mark Vegh
VOYTEK is inspired by Buchner’s Woyzeck. It is a howl of rage, and a plea: Stop The Hate.
It is the summer of 2023. Thousands of migrants and asylum seekers are landing on British shores. Politicians speak of invasions and swarms, the far-right are up in arms. The tide seems unstoppable. In this hostile environment, two migrants, Voytek and Marie, eke out an existence. They live in a dilapidated caravan, at the edge of a forgotten town in Southern England. They are clinging on. Just. Voytek is fighting to survive, to make a better life with the woman he loves, but the forces against him are strong. Can he prevail?
VOYTEK is a story of love in a hostile environment. It is a personal response, from the son of migrant refugees, to the dehumanising vilification of immigrants.
This play will be directed by Jennifer Davis.
Running time: Approximately 1 hour 10 minutes
Content warnings: This production contains use of strong language throughout, racial slurs and racist language, themes and discussions of racism, suicide, sexual abuse and mental illness and descriptions of violence (specifically gendered base violence), violent acts and sexual abuse
Wednesday 27 March
11am: ON THE BLOCK by Alfie Neill
The residents of a tower block in East London raise concerns about the redevelopment and future of the estate. Grappling with the ever-changing landscape of their home, neighbour's lives intertwine. The residents seek the guidance of Patsy, an ex - caretaker and proclaimed father of the estate who is determined to halt the redevelopment, but is it at his own detriment? Especially whilst he battles with his own demons.
A contemporary tale of collective fear and anxiety in a post-Grenfell London.
This play will be directed by Alice Hamilton.
Running time: Approximately 1 hour 10 minutes
Content warnings: This production contains themes of addiction, strong language, mental health.
2pm: UNSQUASHABLE BY Azan Ahmed
A sports history play about the rivalry between JAHANGIR KHAN & JANSHER KHAN, Pakistan's last two Squash legends. Taking place between 1986 - 1993, this play is about squash and about being squashed. It's about masculinity, pride, patriotism and the pressure to perform all these things under the watchful eyes of an expectant nation, a military dictator and traditional families. What do we lose at the cost of winning?
This play will be directed by Ed Madden.
Running time: Approximately 1 hour 10 minutes
Content warnings: This production contains themes of grief, racism and references to sexual assault.
4pm: BROTHER WITCH BY Lucy Hayes
1731. In restless, pre-revolution France, Catherine Cadière is about to be made a saint. But when her brother arrives with a startling revelation, Catherine's life is thrust into chaos and threatens to destroy everything she thought to be true. Brother Witch is the true, remarkable story of the trial of France's last witch.
This play will be directed by Ed Madden.
Running time: Approximately 1 hour 10 minutes
Content warnings: This production contains strong language, references to sexual assault, abuse, pregnancy, abortion, child loss, and suggestions of homophobia.
Thursday 28 March
11am - ANGEL MAKERS BY Ric Renton
In the heart of 19th century Hungary, a secret pact among a villages women unfolds under the guidance of the enigmatic midwife, Auntie Sorcha. Bound by desperation and a yearning for liberation, the women take fate into their own hands, transforming from oppressed housewives to murderous authors of their own destinies. In a time when love is dictated, and freedom is a mere dream, the women find a sinister path to autonomy, poisoning those who have made their lives unbearable. What begins as a desperate act of survival spirals into an epidemic of murder. As the body count rises, their secrets unravel, leading to an investigation that threatens to expose them. Authorities close in, exhuming truths buried beneath the village's soil, and the fate of the Angel Makers hangs in the balance. Will justice claim its due, or will the whispers of the Angel Makers fade into the annals of history, leaving only shadows and silence behind?
This play will be directed by Ed Madden.
Running time: Approximately 1 hour 10 minutes
Content warnings: This production contains: strong language, displays of misogyny and misandry, sexual references, displays of violence, threats of violence, sexual objectification and the depiction of murder.
2pm - PHANTOM BY Aneesha Srinivasan
In an unexpected national curfew, an unlikely drug deal brings Sim, Lo and Box together in an abandoned house, in an abandoned town, in the dead of night. Tobacco has been banned, people who break curfew disappear, most of the town’s population has abandoned it, and who knows what monsters roam the streets when darkness falls? Armed with a list Lo found online of 6 Ways To Stop Smoking and stuck with each other until the sun rises again, they struggle through addiction, grief, and this new, sudden loss of control.
This play will be directed by Alice Hamilton.
Running time: Approximately 1 hour 10 minutes
Content warnings: This production contains the depiction of violence, self-harm, addiction, sexism and misogyny, blood, swearing and nudity.
4pm - THE VESSEL by Hugo Timbrell
After high-earning, loner scientist Morgan is diagnosed with an incurable, life-shortening auto-immune disease, he sets about building a robot body to house his mind, in the face of a crumbling health and social care system and fading family unit. But as his own body starts to fail him, building a robot willing to sacrifice their own chance of a life seems to become the hardest thing of all. A sci-fi thriller about end-of-life care, artificial intelligence, and the lengths you’ll go for a second chance.
This play will be directed by Jennifer Davis.
Running time: Approximately 1 hour 10 minutes
Content warnings: This production contains depictions of death, and grief.
