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Present day, it's the Women's Cricket World Cup: England vs India. There's a rain delay. Tensions mount, ambitions are laid bare and a whole new tactical game begins.
Calcutta, in the eighteenth century. Two British colonial administrators encounter challenges on the field of play that threaten the entire regime. In this game of integrity and power, past and present collide…
Kate Attwell's funny, provocative play explores and explodes the mythology of fair play. First performed in 2019 at American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, it received its British premiere in 2024, produced by the Orange Tree Theatre, ETT and Octagon Theatre, Bolton, and directed by Diane Page.
“Genuinely funny, refreshingly unusual, accomplished... Split into two acts, wildly contrasted on the surface but each informing the other to sometimes surprising effect, Testmatch often recalls Caryl Churchill at her most absurd and mould-breaking... tremendously entertaining.” —WhatsOnStage
“A play that bristles with ideas.” —The Stage
“Kate Attwell's journey through cricket wittily interrogates wilful ignorance in the face of corruption and brutality... her taut writing coils [her characters'] emotions tightly, pinpointing their urgent, full-bodied need to win... a smart, messy, angry reckoning with history and the idea of good sportsmanship.” —Guardian
“Lively and energetic.” —Reviews Hub
“Enjoyable... a satire on colonialism that starts off light and builds to something rather more bleak and damning... Attwell’s text is witty and impressive.” —Time Out
“You don't need an encyclopedic knowledge of cricket in order to watch this play, just an interest in the wide-ranging effects of empire and the sexism embedded into multiple aspects of everyday life.” —Broadway World
“Riotous, explosive, superbly witty.” —Fringe Review
“Provokes much-needed thoughts about why the soi-disant culture wars of today matter.” —Arts Desk
Kate Attwell is a playwright, television writer and devised theatre maker, working between London and New York.
Her plays include Testmatch (American Conservatory Theater, San Francisco, 2019; Orange Tree Theatre / English Touring Theatre / Bolton Octagon, 2024).