The latest example of this problematic switch from stage to screen is the strongly acted Shook, Samuel Bailey’s debut play, which won the 2019 Papatango New Writing Prize and had a run at the Southwark Playhouse in November of that year.
‘It’s a noise that is well worth your time’: SHOOK (Online review)
Following a critically acclaimed run at Southwark Playhouse, a transfer to the West End’s Trafalgar Studios was in progress when lockdown intervened. Shook has now emerged in a filmed version so we can see what the “noise” was all about. And it’s a noise that is well worth your time.
‘Driven by explosive characterisation & dialogue’: SHOOK – Touring ★★★★
Spectators will go away wiser and sadder from this encounter with Shook, but most of all they will go away remembering Samuel Bailey’s dialogue and Josh Finan’s barnstormer of a performance as Cain.
‘You have the information. Just get on with it’: Play writing books
I am gradually amassing quite a pile of books about writing plays. Collecting and reading them is probably a displacement/procrastination activity. One of these days I really am (or so I keep telling myself) going to write a play. Just don’t ask me when.
HANNA – Arcola Theatre ★★★★
Hanna written by Sam Potter is a true modern text; its witty, dramatic, humorous and surprising.
TALK RADIO – Old Red Lion Theatre
Eric Bogosian’s play Talk Radio may date from 1987, but in its dissection of shock jocks and their role in manipulating media and fomenting the rise of the kind of right-wing ideology, it can’t help but ring with resonance today.
TALK RADIO – Old Red Lion Theatre
Thirty years ago in the USA, the parents and grandparents of today’s Twitter trolls and YouTube conspiracy video makers had no choice but to call up their local talk radio station if they wanted a mass audience for their hateful and/or mad views.
NO VILLAIN – Old Red Lion Theatre
It’s my first World Premiere. After years spent extrapolating meaning and nuance from the wonderful plays of Arthur Miller with English Literature students, I was privileged to witness the first ever performance of his first ever play. Written while he was still at college, and which gained him his first award, No Villain sees a family, stricken by the Wall Street crash which forces them to move from an expensive lifestyle to struggling through on bank loans and cramming the entire family (including Grandpa) into a small room in Brooklyn.