Lucy Kirkwood

Lucy Kirkwood has swiftly made a name for herself as one of Britain’s leading young playwrights and is widely considered to be the natural successor to the great Caryl Churchill. Kirkwood’s plays are infused with a sharp wit and a fierce intelligence, taking an unflinching look at the issues affecting our world today. This collection gathers together five of Kirkwood’s plays, including Chimerica, Tinderbox, it felt empty when the heart went at first but it is alright now, small hours, and NSFW.

"Kirkwood is the most rewarding dramatist of her generation.” —Independent

Noah and Celeste Quilter met on a blind date organized by a newspaper, fell in love, got married and had a baby. But from the very earliest days of their relationship, they were under surveillance. And when they started a fight for their future, they never guessed it would cost them their lives.

In a modern world where reality is whatever we imagine it to be, how do we know the stories we tell ourselves are true? What happens when there's only one person in the whole world you can truly trust?

Rapture is a slippery thriller about love, power, and belief which premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in June 2022, directed by Lucy Morrison. It was promoted under the title That Is Not Who I Am by Dave Davidson, a pseudonym.

“A richly suggestive and beautifully written piece of work, provoking questions that will continue to nag and expand in your mind…The genius of the play is to embed its pressingly topical preoccupations in a humane, tragicomic scenario that is never, despite the circumstances, portentous or clangingly apocalyptic in tone…The Children consolidates my view that Kirkwood is the most rewarding dramatist of her generation.” —Independent

“Sly, gripping, darkly funny…This is sci-fi kitted out with real people, real dilemmas, real scope. It’s really good.” —The Times

“Grips compulsively…Genuinely disturbing…Leaves you an abundance of ideas on which to ruminate.” —Guardian

“A far-reaching, unsettling play about legacy, survival and responsibility…Deceptively lightly written and often tartly funny…Kirkwood tackles huge themes and poses tough, even shocking questions, but weaves them into a droll script that both chastises and sympathises with her characters…” —Financial Times

“Retired people are like nuclear power stations. We like to live by the sea.”

Two retired nuclear scientists in an isolated cottage by the sea as the world around them crumbles. Then an old friend arrives with a frightening request.

“At our time of life we simply cannot deal with this shit.”

Lucy Kirkwood’s previous plays include Chimerica (winner of the Olivier Award for Best Play, the Evening Standard Award, the Critics’ Circle Best New Play Award and the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize), small hours, NSFW, and it felt empty when the heart went at first but it is alright now. The Children premiered at the Royal Court, London, and will receive its US premiere at Manhattan Theatre Club in the fall of 2017.

Rural Suffolk, 1759. As the country waits for Halley’s Comet, Sally Poppy is sentenced to hang for a heinous murder. When she claims to be pregnant, a jury of twelve matrons are taken from their housework to decide whether she’s telling the truth, or simply trying to escape the noose. With only midwife Lizzy Luke prepared to defend the girl, and a mob baying for blood outside, the matrons wrestle with their new authority, and the devil in their midst.