National Theatre Connections 2011

Plays for Young People: Frank & Ferdinand; Gap; Cloud Busting; Those Legs; Shooting Truth; Bassett; Gargantua; Children of Killers; The Beauty Manifesto; Too Fast

Sam Adamson, Alia Bano, Helen Blakeman, Noel Clarke, Molly Davies, James Graham, Carl Grose, Katori Hall, Nell Leyshon, Douglas Maxwell

• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9781408131794
• eBook ISBN: 9781408145685
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

This brilliant new collection of ten plays for young people will prove indispensable to schools, colleges and youth theatre groups. Specially commissioned by the National Theatre for the Connections Festival 2011 involving 200 schools and youth theatre groups across the UK and Ireland, each play is accompanied by production notes and exercises.

The Pied Piper re-imagined, the aftermath of genocide in Rwanda, witches in seventeenth century Norfolk, a giant baby on the rampage, an extraordinary day in an ordinary school are just some of subjects covered in the thrilling and varied new plays created by talented writers for young actors to perform in National Theatre Connections 2011.

The plays in this anthology offer a huge variety of stories and styles to ignite the imagination of young casts and creative teams. Themes are both teenage and universal - ambition, dashed hopes, fear and confidence, loyalty and betrayal. These new plays embrace a huge range for their inspiration: they plunder classics and imagine the future.

Molly Davies

Shooting Truth

Characters

From the present day:

Alice

Liam

Sid

Leanne

Jake

Sadie

Luke

From the seventeeth century:

Freya

Billy

John

Len

Sal

Lou

Marley

Gran

Scene One

The present. A classroom. All is quiet. Alice sits alone at a desk, staring into space. Her peace is disturbed by a hubbub outside, which sounds as if it’s making its way towards the classroom. She quickly grabs some exercise books and keeps her head down.

Liam, Leanne and Jake enter, closely followed by Sid, Luke and Sadie. They don’t notice Alice.

Liam Anyway, glad you all could make it.

Luke How long this gonna take, mate?

Sid Yeah, I’ve got a game in a minute.

Luke Against Reckinhull Village?

Sadie Reckon I need to get at least sixty per cent or it ent worth me doing.

Leanne So. Me, Jake and Liam had this idea for the project. Basically, I’m gonna be the female lead and –

Liam Leanne, leave it to the director, yeah? (Sees Alice.) Oh, Alice, we booked this room for a meeting, sorry.

Alice I think I booked it actually, for Homework Club.

Leanne Oh you’re Homework Club.

Alice Maybe you booked 2 L, instead?

Jake Let’s just get on, we don’t have time to be traipsing round for another room. There’s enough space.

Leanne Unless all the others in Homework show up.

Liam So. As I was saying: welcome. I’ve asked you here today because I believe each of you have a unique set of skills.

Leanne What skills did we say Luke has?

Luke I got the best camera, baby. No me, no film.

Liam Anyway, welcome –

Jake And congratulations.

Liam Yes, welcome and congratulations. You’ve made it into the most exciting event of the summer: Liam Rayner’s ‘Untitled Film Project, 2011’.

Leanne Excuse me?

Liam Until, you know, we get a proper title.

Luke Ent gonna be like Liam Rayner’s ‘Unsigned Band Project, 2010’, is it?

They all laugh.

Leanne Don’t be stupid, this’ll be good.

Sadie What grade was it you got for that again, Liam?

Sid I ent gonna be no laughing stock.

Liam Listen, no one’ll be laughing, trust me. Crying, maybe. Quaking in their boots, definitely.

Luke We ent just gonna be bossed around all day?

Leanne No, this is a real group effort. We got the (gestures to Liam) director, the (gestures to Jake) producer-stroke-art-director-thing, the (gestures to herself) talent, the (gestures to others) … cast and crew.

Sadie Are we even allowed to work as a group, though?

Leanne Yeah, the twins are doing that Post Office made out of Pot Noodle thing.

Sadie What?

Luke It’s about the Post Office in town going to pot and all that.

Sadie Yeah, but they’re twins, ent they, it don’t count as a group.

Luke Could be a laugh.

Sadie Ent heard of anyone else making a film, which means it’s easier to get a good mark, I suppose.

Liam Listen, I don’t want you to see this as just another school project. We’re gonna show people somethin’ they’ve never seen before. I’m thinking Polanski, I’m thinking Lars von Trier and the Dogme 95 collective – (Silence, blank faces.) I’m thinking, something along the lines of Saw VI?

Sadie I’m thinking Miss Rusk’s never gonna pass us for making a film.

Liam Right. What was the brief?

Sadie I dunno. ‘Respond to your local area’ or something.

Liam Exactly.

Leanne (sarcastic) What do that even mean, ‘respond’? Like our local area ask us a question. Stupid, ennit.

Sadie It’s like, say something about it or be affected by it or whatever.

Leanne My boots have been affected by cow pat, she can mark them.

Liam Well, we’re gonna show our local area in a way it’s never been seen before. We’re gonna show the horror in it. Yeah, we’ll make the sickest film known to man. Seriously, right, not to sound like a tosser, but this is gonna change our lives. Believe me. This film is gonna turn the world upside down.

Sadie Hang on, wait, it was‘ artistically’. Respond artistically to your local area.

Jake Well, if this ent art, I dunno what is. (To Liam.) Do yer mind?

Liam Go ahead.

Jake It’s gonna be a huge creative challenge, inventing this atmosphere of, like, sheer terror, using smoke machines and fake blood and wigs and that. Just picture the blood, the entrails, the bits of mashed-up hair in the mud – this is all just off the top of my head. It’s really technical. All the small details you probably don’t even think about. All the ways our local area get mixed up in the horror.

Sid So what actually happen?

Liam What?

Sid The story?

Liam Well, there’s you – actually, the character’s name is Bronx. And Bronx is strong, he’s decent, he’s, supposed to be, you know, smouldering and that. Anyway. He gets his leg cut off by the murdering village psycho –

Jake I’m working on a realistic leg substitute.

Liam Hang on – get this, right – then he has to eat his own leg.

Pause.

Jake Can you imagine?

Sid What’s the plot?

Liam Uh. You’re trapped. You’re tortured. Your leg get cut off, you have to eat it.

Luke That’s not a plot, mate.

Liam I mean, there’s a lot leading up to the leg incident. A lot of torture and just mental sort of messed-upness and then –

Leanne Thought the main part was female?

Jake Uh, yeah: Murdering Village Psycho.

Sid What about the story? What’s it actually about?

Jake Just told yer, a bloke eating his own leg.

Liam No Jake, what it’s about is how a man’s immediate surroundings make him –

Sid I dunno if I wanna do it. Can’t it be something like, there’s a bloke and … he seem normal, but you can tell right, you can just tell he’s got a past. He’s fighting some kind of demon.

Liam Now, demons I like.

Sid I mean, you know, demons within himself. And his journey is –

Jake Oh, we can’t have more locations than one. Let’s just say, whatever we end up doing, there will be no journeying around.

Sid Emotional journey.

Leanne Oooh. I get it. He’s stuck in a state of of of, you know, when yer stuck in a rut?

Alice Inertia?

Luke In what?

Alice Well … this character, maybe he wanna change. Connect with people. Have them see him the way he see himself, but he can’t ’cause he’s inert.

Jake Huh?

Alice Maybe he’s really funny and interesting but no one even know it. Remember doing it in Chemistry? It mean something ent reactive with other elements and can’t form any compounds.

Sadie Yer mean he can’t make friends?

Alice (shrugs) Inertia.

Leanne Yeah, that. And he’s looking for something to get him out, to make him feel again, right?

Sid Right.

Leanne And then, when he’s at his lowest point, he find her – me – and he completely fall for me. Her.

Sid What?

Luke This sound like a total girl’s film.

Liam We’re not doing a rom com. There has to be some sort of supernatural element or –

Sid Gotta have a plot, though, or it’ll be rubbish.

Jake Well, I...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Frank & Ferdinand by Samuel Adamson
• Gap by Alia Bano
• Cloud Busting by Helen Blakeman, from the novel by Malorie Blackman
• Those Legs by Noel Clarke
• Shooting Truth by Molly Davies
• Bassett by James Graham
• Gargantua by Carl Grose
• Children of Killers by Katori Hall
• The Beauty Manifesto by Nell Leyshon
• Too Fast by Douglas Maxwell
• Participating Companies
• Partner Theatres
• Performing Rights
• Acknowledgements
• Imprint