Wish List

Katherine Soper

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781780018270
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

A sensitive, delicate and powerful play that asks what our labour is worth and how life can be lived when the system is stacked against you.

'I dreamt about this last night. I dreamt that I was packing boxes in boxes in boxes.'

Tamsin packs boxes in a warehouse, on the clock, to a target, with a zero-hour contract. Her brother Dean is housebound, working to obsessive-compulsive rituals of his own.

When Dean is declared fit for work, their benefits are cut. There are phone calls to make, appeals to lodge and endless forms to fill in. Tamsin must pack faster, work harder, and fight to get the support she and her brother so desperately need.

Katherine Soper's play Wish List won the 2015 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting and was co-produced by the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, and the Royal Court Theatre, London. It premiered at the Royal Exchange in September 2016 and the Royal Court in January 2017, and Katherine Soper was named Best Writer in the 2017 Stage Debut Awards.

'The play has such eloquence, such quiet craft, such dignity and such compassion' Sir Nicholas Hytner

Scene One

A flat in Oldbrook, Milton Keynes. August.

DEAN is in the bathroom, applying gel to his hair. He does it very precisely and meticulously, applying far more than an average amount and twisting his hair into spikes. It should not be a hairstyle that seems familiar or attractive.

TAMSIN knocks on the door, deliberately gently.

TAMSIN. Hey.

Sorry about earlier.

Do you want any help?

I’m just gonna be in my room, so let me know.

She retreats to her own room.

The loud ringing of a phone on the top of the loo startles DEAN, and breaks his concentration. He looks at it as though it might attack him. He breathes in and out a few times.

He gingerly picks it up and tries, mentally, to prepare himself to answer, but puts it back down almost the moment he lifts it to his ear.

He returns to the sink.

TAMSIN rushes into the room and picks it up for him.

Hello, Carmody residence?

No, this is Tamsin. I should be on the –

Yeah.

He’s here but you can talk to me.

She notices DEAN,paralysed at the sink, glaring at her.

(Mouthing.) Sorry.

DEAN. You didn’t knock.

TAMSIN. Sorry, just a second –

(Whispering and covering the phone.) We have to take this.

DEAN. Can’t you take it in your room?

TAMSIN. I might need to ask you things.

Okay?

I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t need to.

DEAN (gesturing to his hair). I’m – doing this.

TAMSIN. Yeah, yeah, I know, but – I just think it sounds better if you’re here. I won’t make you talk to her, promise. You just – get on with your things. I won’t look.

(Back into the phone.) Okay, sorry, I’m back.

Mm-hmm. Yeah yeah yeah.

So –

DEAN tries to continue with his previous movements, but his hands are halting and he can’t continue. It’s gone wrong.

Wait, hang on, I thought you – have you already decided?

DEAN puts his head into the sink, and washes all the gel out of his hair.

I thought that was gonna be a different assessment though.

Okay – okay, yeah, but –

Okay. I didn’t know you were allowed to do that.

No, like, I get that and that’s good of you to save him the time but no one told us that was the –

But you’re using one assessment to stop three totally different –

Three, they said Carer’s Allowance is linked to – yeah. Yeah yeah yeah.

But they’ve still got different – requirements and –

Yeah I know, they said about the backlog but I just said, no one told us that –

Okay. I’m not – how soon are they gonna – stop?

Right. Okay. Um.

No that’s just way – sooner than I –

DEAN begins from scratch; same process as before.

I’m aware of that.

Yes I’m aware we can do that but that’s not what I’m –

No I’m calm, I’m totally calm, just that – look okay, I know this isn’t anything to do with you but cos it’s all of them at once, things aren’t gonna add up unless –

Okay.

But that – he won’t be able to do that though –

Look, why do you think it’s me talking to you right now instead of him? He can’t even use the phone, how do you expect him to do that consistently?

She mouths ‘sorry’ to DEAN again. She tries to touch his shoulder and he dodges her.

He tries to make for the door, but she swats him back to the sink and blocks his way.

He ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Original Production
• Acknowledgements
• Epigraph
• Characters
• Scene One
• About the Author
• Copyright and Performing Rights Information