Friday Play
The home of thrillers, mysteries, romance and detective stories. A real treat for lovers of a good story well told
Friday Play - 01/07/2005
Running away with the Hairdresser, by Helen Raynor. Nearly a year has passed since Catrin returned from Thailand after a bomb killed her boyfriend.
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Friday Play - 29/04/2005
King Trash: A story of menace, mendacity and malice set amongst the landfill sites of outer London, written and directed by Mike Hodges.
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Friday Play - A Hit to the Heart
By Rachel Joyce. The man with everything finds his perfect world blown apart when his daughter is linked to an act of terrorism.
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Friday Play - A Night with Johnny Stompanato
Jonathan Holloway's hard-boiled Hollywood drama is based on the true story of the stabbing of actress Lana Turner's boyfriend Johnny Stampanato by her daughter Cheryl.
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Friday Play - After the Accident
By Julian Armitstead. A couple's young daghter is killed in a head-on car crash. Four years later, the parents summon the courage to meet the young lad responsible.
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Friday Play - Albert's Bridge
Albert's Bridge: 1988 production of Tom Stoppard's comedy about a man whose chosen profession is painting a huge bridge.
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Friday Play - All American Boys
All American Boys: Paul Brodrick's dramatisation of the court martial which followed the My Lai massacre of March 1968 and America's reaction.
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Friday Play - Almost Blue
Almost Blue, by Carlo Lucarelli, dramatised by Judith Adams. Simon is a blind man with synaesthesia, a condition which enables him to hear sounds in colour.
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Friday Play - An Unhappy Countess
Documentary film maker Paul Watson's play is based on the story of Mary Eleanor Bowes, a sensual young woman who inherited a huge legacy in 1786.
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Friday Play - Ariel
Ariel, by David Spencer. Maggie and Elaine are volunteers for a rape counselling service. Their intention is to work with the police, but things are not that simple.
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Friday Play - Bad Dad
Bad Dad: Comedy by Colin Hough. Twenty years ago, Adam was a prolific sperm donor. Due to an administrative error, he suddenly becomes the proud patriarch of a very extended family.
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Friday Play - Bad Memories
A house holds murderous secrets in Julian Simpson's supernatural thriller. Can audio files solve the mystery?
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Friday Play - Banished: Mugabe of Zimbabwe
By Andrew Whaley. When the President asks Aurelia to make a film about him she is flattered. But does she really think she can make a difference?
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Friday Play - Binge Drunk Britain: The Musical
Comedy by Paul Dodgson about three men from Newport who wake up at Severn Bridge Services face down in bowls of salad. Gradually, the excesses of the night before come back to them.
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Friday Play - Blood, Sweat and Tea
Blood, Sweat and Tea: By Richard Monks, adapted from Tom Reynolds's book of the same name. Paramedic Paul Masters's night shift suddenly changes from boredom to high drama.
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Friday Play - Bloody Sunday: Scenes from the Saville Inquiry
Dramatic reconstruction of the hearings about the events of Sunday, January 30, 1972, focusing on the testimony of civilians who witnessed Bloody Sunday
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Friday Play - Breaking Point
Breaking Point: Philip Palmer's powerful drama tells the story of Jon Starkey, a career soldier with a young family, as he undergoes training to become a British Army interrogator.
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Friday Play - Breath
Drama by Michael Symmons Roberts, set in the aftermath of a fictional civil war.
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Friday Play - Broken English
Broken English: Frank Deasy's play tells the story of a Kurdish family detained in Dungavel for over a year and living under the constant threat of deportation.
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Friday Play - Buried
Steve Jacobi's play tells the story of his friend Mark Higson, a civil servant who blew the whistle on the Iraqi arms scandal in 1989.
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Friday Play - Consideration
Robert Messik. Eleanor did not hesitate to donate a kidney to her husband when he needed it, but now he has left her, she is suing him for its return.
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Friday Play - Cuba
Cuba: By Jennie Buckman and Ulises Rodriguez Febles. The ailing Fidel Castro presides over a unique society on the brink of change.
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Friday Play - Deep Cut
Adaptation by Philip Ralph of his own stage play about the four deaths at Deepcut army barracks and the subsequent judicial review in 2006.
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Friday Play - Des Res
Black comedy by Ed Jones. Scriptwriter Luke loses his TV job and has to downsize from a bohemian terrace in a leafy Manchester suburb to the dark heart of Salford.
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Friday Play - Flesh and Blood
By Gillies Mackinnon. Kenny's teenage son leaves home without explanation. Kenny does not tell his own elderly father, Roddy, who he visits every day. But the old man smells a rat.
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Friday Play - Forgiving
Forgiving: Tina Pepler's story of a family torn apart by one act of violence explores the journey from grief, shock and anger to the possibility of forgiveness and reconciliation.
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Friday Play - Fragile!
Fragile! Croatian author Tena Stivicic's darkly witty play about the reality of the immigrant experience in London. A traumatised foreign correspondent tries to rebuild his life.
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Friday Play - Fragments
Fragments: By Julian Simpson. Kelly and her parents move to an exclusive village. They are affluent and she has a good education. Yet two months later she has become a murderess.
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Friday Play - God's President: Mugabe of Zimbabwe
By Kwame Kwei-Armah. Lucian Msamati as Robert Mugabe and Richard Cordery as Lord Carrington in the story of the negotiations to achieve Zimbabwean Independence in 1980.
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Friday Play - Greed All About It
Satirical take on the working practices of the newspaper industry and the 1986 Wapping dispute by Ian Hislop and Nick Newman.
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Friday Play - Guardian Angel
Guardian Angel: Gill Adams's drama is set in Hull, during the floods. Jo is looking forward to meeting the son she has never known. Her old schoolfriend Elaine's son has run away.
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Friday Play - How Now TV
By Paul Watson. The extraordinary idea for a programme which effectively started TV presenter Daniela Cross' career was so awful that it was bound to succeed.
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Friday Play - I Am Emma Humphreys
Dramatisation by Shelley Silas of the true story of Emma Humphreys, who in 1985, aged 16, murdered her pimp, who had found her homeless on the streets of Nottingham.
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Friday Play - I'm the Boss
By Karen Brown. HR manager Diane's life is turned upside down by an online bullying campaign, and when she finally discovers the culprit, her world begins to disintegrate.
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Friday Play - In Denial: The Story of Paul Blackburn
Kevin Fegan's play tells the true story of a man wrongly imprisoned at the age of 15 in 1978. His conviction was overturned 27 years later.
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Friday Play - Landscape
Two plays by Harold Pinter. 1: Landscape. A man and a woman sit deep in recollection. 2: The Examination. A man about to be questioned summons up every mental resource.
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Friday Play - Let's Murder Vivaldi
A radio production of David Mercer's 1968 BBC TV Wednesday Play. An unsettling study of destructive relationships.
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Friday Play - London, This Is Washington
London, This Is Washington: By Mark Lawson. The encounters between a middle-aged prime minister and America's sexiest ever president take a remarkable turn.
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Friday Play - Lorilei
By Thomas Wright. A powerful drama telling the true story of a Louisiana mother, Lorilei Guillory, who testified to keep her son Jeremy's killer from death row.
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Friday Play - Martha's Metamorphosis
Permanently changed by a devastating illness, Martha is waiting to hear whether her Primary Care Trust will agree funding for treatment.
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Friday Play - Mia and Maia
Mia and Maia are conjoined twins who long to be separate. As their twenty-first birthday nears, they approach American surgeon Dr Browne to take up their challenge.
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Friday Play - Money Magic
A pyramid investment scheme first draws in and then bankrupts the women in one street, setting friend against friend.
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Friday Play - Murder Every Monday
Mark Gatiss' adaptation of Pamela Branch's comedy. Clifford Flush and the Asterisk Club move to the country and establish themselves as 'homicide consultants'.
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Friday Play - Number 10
Series of plays by Jonathan Myerson depicting life inside 10 Downing Street
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Friday Play - Ob'owa
Director Christiana Ebohon was taken to Nigeria aged eight. What began as a holiday, lasted eight months, in a bitter custody battle. This story is inspired by real events.
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Friday Play - OK Computer
By Joel Horwood, Chris Perkins, Al Smith and Chris Thorpe. A man wakes up in a hospital in Berlin. He has no memory of who he is, or where he comes from.
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Friday Play - One Chord Wonders
Series of plays by British screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce looking at the punk generation three decades on, with each play telling a different, but connected, story
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Friday Play - Porshia
By Ed Harris. Thomas is a no-hope poet obsessed with Porshia. When one day he literally wakes up inside her head, he begins to experience her life from closer than he might like.
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Friday Play - RIP Boy
By Neil McKay. Eleven years ago, Robert Stewart killed his cellmate in Feltham. Why were they in the same cell? Have lessons been learned?
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Friday Play - Second to Midnight
Two-part contemporary thriller set in Nigeria, in which an oil company geologist is forced to bury his claims that the world is close to exhausting its oil supply
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Friday Play - Series 2
Series of political dramas following the fortunes of MP Bobby Khan and his family two years after being elected as an MP, with Bobby's sights set on a ministerial post
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Friday Play - Shirleymander
Tragic comedy by Gregory Evans depicting the principal events of Shirley Porter's time as leader of Westminster city council in the 1980s.
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Friday Play - Siege
Tragi-comic drama about a hostage siege at a residential care home. Based on an idea by Francesca Joseph, and improvised by the cast.
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Friday Play - Sins of the Grandfathers
Sins of the Grandfathers: Dan Tetsell's comedy show about the perils of having a grandfather who was an officer in Hitler's SS. With Alex Lowe, Rachel Atkins and Ben Graves.
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Friday Play - Slaughterhouse 30,000
Slaughterhouse 30,000, by Judith Kampfner and Mike Walker. A young film-maker sets out to expose the dangerous working conditions in a large American slaughterhouse.
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Friday Play - Solomon
Solomon, by Peter G Morgan. A professional ethicist and media pundit has to deal with a case of a woman in a persistent vegetative state. Should she be allowed to die?
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Friday Play - Sound Barriers
Sound Barriers: By Sarah Daniels. What is wrong with Mel's baby? And why does she suddenly befriend her neighbours, a profoundly deaf man and a lonely widow?
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Friday Play - Stone
Detective series created by Danny Brocklehurst, featuring the investigations of DCI John Stone
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Friday Play - Sunny Afternoon
By Doug Lucie. The normality of a sunny London afternoon is shattered when a man is killed in the street, and the lives of those who witnessed it will never be the same again.
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Friday Play - Talking to Strangers
Talking to Strangers: Comedy by Charlotte Jones. A perennially shy man sets himself a challenge - to switch off his mobile phone, disregard his email and put aside his iPod.
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Friday Play - The Accountant of Solyanka Square
By Sebastian Baczkiewicz. When Andrei is kidnapped by his estranged son Victor, he is forced to reveal how he made his millions.
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Friday Play - The Angel of Covent Garden
The Angel of Covent Garden, by Colin Bytheway. Having been hurt too many times, Lee doesn't believe in love. But then he meets an Angel.
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Friday Play - The Birds
Melissa Murray's dramatisation of Daphne Du Maurier's classic horror story. Nat battles to protect his family as birds begin to ruthlessly attack humans.
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Friday Play - The Black Bono
By Gabriel Bisset-Smith. Gideon Gordon, film star and celebrity human rights campaigner, is murdered in Africa and the main suspect is his brother. What can have driven them apart?
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Friday Play - The Day King Hammer Fell from the Sky
The Day King Hammer Fell from the Sky, by Gregory Whitehead. A headless body falls to earth at the centre of one of America's most prestigious universities.
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Friday Play - The Dependent
By Angela Clarke. When Sonia, full-time carer to her disabled son Jack, injures herself and is forced to call on support services, Jack gets a taste of what he's been missing.
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Friday Play - The Dinner Party
As the King family settle down to a celebratory dinner party, a stranger arrives with a claim to the family name.
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Friday Play - The Employee
Sebastian Baczkiewicz's dark comedy. Iain Adam is Head of Maintenance in the intelligent building, The Elm, and his life is beginning to unravel.
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Friday Play - The Forgotten
Exploration of the onset of dementia by Anne Devlin. Alarming lapses of memory lead to Bee losing her home and career. Then she meets a strange creature in the park.
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Friday Play - The Friday Play: Life after Scandal
Life after Scandal: Robin Soans' play offers a dramatic reconstruction of the private stories behind public scandal using verbatim accounts and observations from those involved.
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Friday Play - The Goldilocks Zone
The Goldilocks Zone: Lucy Catherine's play is a modern day Brief Encounter showing how when we are lost, only a true connection with another human can bring us back to ourselves.
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Friday Play - The Harder They Fall
The Harder They Fall: Kerry Shale's dramatisation of Budd Schulberg's classic novel, recorded in New York City. A budding playwright is fatally drawn into the world of boxing.
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Friday Play - The Heroic Pursuits of Darleen Fyles
The Heroic Pursuits of Darleen Fyles: Esther Wilson's drama is inspired by a true story. Darleen is a young woman with learning difficulties who occasionally sets fire to things.
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Friday Play - The Johnny Cash Hi-Jack Roadshow
By Michael Butt. When two out-of-work Sheffield lorry drivers steal a petrol tanker and set off for the Houses of Parliament, past events begin to set them against each other.
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Friday Play - The Last Time I Saw Richard
Drama documentary about the life and death of Sri Lankan journalist and TV newsreader Richard de Zoysa, who was abducted and killed in February 1990. Some scenes are fictional.
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Friday Play - The Late Mr Shakespeare
By Robert Nye, dramatised by Jonathan Broadbent. A former boy actor in Shakespeare's company reminisces in old age and finally discovers what it means to fall in love.
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Friday Play - The Listener
Julian Simpson's fast-paced psychological thriller about a man trying to uncover his true identity, set against the backdrop of a war on terror.
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Friday Play - The Loved One
By Evelyn Waugh, adapted by Jonathan Holloway. Waugh's black comedy set around a Memorial Park in Hollywood among the world of morticians and embalmers.
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Friday Play - The Monkey's Mask
Detective tale set in Sydney, adapted from the verse novel by Dorothy Porter. Street-smart private investigator Jill Fitzpatrick is hired to work on the case of a missing student.
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Friday Play - The Monstrous Mother
The Monstrous Mother: Comedy chiller by Mike Harris. 12-year-old Cathy has a vivid imagination which can sometimes get dangerously out of control.
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Friday Play - The Mother Of...
The Mother Of... By Georgia Fitch. Two years ago, 18-year-old Jay became a suicide bomber. Seeking peace, his mother sets out on the road to discover what drove him to it.
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Friday Play - The Wild Ass's Skin Reloaded
The Wild Ass's Skin Reloaded. Modern re-imagining of Balzac. Investment banker Rupert has been sacked. As he waits to throw himself into the Thames, he is given a magic skin.
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Friday Play - Then We Came to the End
Dramatisation by Jeff Young of the comic novel by Joshua Ferris. A dysfunctional company of misfits in an advertising agency try to come to terms with the effects of the downturn.
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Friday Play - They Have Oak Trees in North Carolina
By Sarah Wooley. In 1986, Ray and Eileen's five-year-old son Patrick vanishes in Florida. 22 years later, a man arrives in their small village, claiming to be their missing son.
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Friday Play - This Is a True Story
Howard Neal, who has a low IQ, has been in prison for 25 years. Proceedings will soon be completed in the US courts to have him finally removed from death row.
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Friday Play - Tough Love
Andrea Gibb's drama about a mother's discovery that her youngest son, Danny, is a heroin addict and her attempts to save him.
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Friday Play - Trouble with Caves
Ian is hearing voices, distant voices, apparently coming from underground. Who is down there? Are they trapped? Can they be helped?
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Friday Play - Twenty Cigarettes
Twenty Cigarettes, by Marcy Kahan. As smoking becomes increasingly outlawed, Oscar attempts to give up the habit and win the woman of his dreams, using a highly unusual method.
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Friday Play - Vent
Comedy drama by Nigel Smith. Ben has survived a crippling brain lesion but he won't engage with the world around him, preferring to stay safely in his own fantasy world.
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Friday Play - Walking the Line
Taut drama-documentary by Stephen Phelps. A prison officer finds himself caught between a vulnerable young prisoner and a senior colleague who believes in discipline and control.
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Friday Play - Wasted
By Shelagh Stephenson. Martha heads up the marketing campaign for an alcopop, aimed unashamedly at the teenage market.
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Friday Play - We Outnumber You
By Ed Hime. A hand-held horror, reconstructed from amateur recordings discovered after the event, in which a major oil company is humiliated at the gala opening of their new zoo.
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Friday Play - Well
A doctor becomes obsessed with his patient's need to feel well. With Lia Williams, Robert Glenister, Katherine Parkinson, Tracy Wiles.
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Friday Play - Wes Bell
Matthew Broughton's dark and compelling play about a lonely young man who finds a home amongst eccentric strangers.
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Friday Play - What I Heard about Iraq
Eliot Weinberger's prose poem draws on reports, newspapers, official utterances and eye-witness accounts to paint a terrifying picture of the war in Iraq.
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Friday Play - When The Bough Breaks
Julia Hollander's play, inspired by her own experience, about the dilemma she faced over whether to put her badly brain-damaged child up for adoption.
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Friday Play - Y.T. and the Soprano
Y.T. and the Soprano by Penny Woolcock. Hip hop star Sway plays a rapper who sets out to woo a soprano by stealing her Puccini aria and setting it to his beats. Will it work?
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Friday Play - You Need Changing
Jackie Pavlenko's play is set in the mother and baby unit of a prison. Young mother Diane is forced to hand out her baby when he reaches the age of six months.
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