Scuttlers (NHB Modern Plays) - Softcover

Rona Munro

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1848424817 ISBN 13: 9781848424814

Publisher: Nick Hern Books, 2015

Synopsis

A dynamic new play for young people from the award-winning writer of The James Plays.

It's 1885 and the streets of Manchester are crackling with energy, youth and violence. As workers pour into Ancoats to power the Industrial Revolution, 50,000 people are crammed into one square mile. The mills rumble thunderously day and night. The air is thick with smoke. Life is lived large and lived on the street. This is the world's very first industrial suburb and the young mill workers who are the living cogs in its machines form the very first urban gangs, fighting over their territory with belts, fists and knives.

Invisible in history their lives, deaths, loves, lusts and defiant energy tell stories that will repeat and repeat over the decades that follow. Inspired by the Manchester riots of 2011 and the stories of all the Manchester gangs between the nineteenth century and today, Rona Munro's new play smashes the nineteenth century against a twenty-first century sensibility to bring the young Scuttlers back to vivid, potent life

With nine leading roles and a large cast of mill workers and gang members, Scuttlers is well suited to performance by schools and youth groups, who will enjoy its physical energy and dramatic storyline.

About this title

About the Author

Rona Munro has written extensively for stage, radio, film and television including the award-winning plays Iron (Traverse Theatre and Royal Court, London), Bold Girls (7:84 and Hampstead Theatre) and The Maiden Stone (Hampstead Theatre).

Other credits include The James Plays for the Edinburgh International Festival and National Theatre, The Last Witch for the Traverse Theatre and the Edinburgh International Festival, Long Time Dead for Paines Plough and the Drum Theatre Plymouth, The Indian Boy and Little Eagles for the Royal Shakespeare Company and Pandas for the Traverse in Edinburgh. She is the co-founder, with actress Fiona Knowles, of Scotland s oldest continuously performing, small-scale touring theatre company, The Msfits. Their one-woman shows have toured every year since 1986.

Film and television work includes the Ken Loach film Ladybird Ladybird, Aimee and Jaguar and television dramas Rehab (directed by Antonia Bird) and BAFTA-nominated Bumping the Odds for the BBC. She has also written many other single plays for television and contributed to series including Casualty and Dr Who. Most recently, she wrote the screenplay for Oranges and Sunshine, directed by Jim Loach and starring Emily Watson and Hugo Weaving.

She has contributed several radio plays to the Stanley Baxter Playhouse series on BBC Radio 4.

Edition details

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1848424817
• ISBN 13: 9781848424814
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 64