Stuff, a new play from NE writer Alison Carr, launches an online series, The Painkiller Project, from London-based Bitter Pill Theatre.
The Painkiller Project is a way of trying to produce new writing until theatres in the UK reopen. Bitter Pill invites submissions once a fortnight and will produce each winning play in The Painkiller Podcast on all podcast platforms. There is a small £150 prize for each winning play and each winning playwright will also get the chance to have a "video coffee" with a line-up of established theatre-makers over the coming weeks, including Laura Wade, Ryan Craig, Anne-Louise Sarks and David Eldridge.
Alison Carr’s Stuff, the first to be produced, will star Sophie Thompson (Present Laughter at The Old Vic; Four Weddings and a Funeral) and will be directed by Max Elton with sound by Piers Sherwood-Roberts.
When a woman’s bath falls through the floor into the flat below, she meets her downstairs neighbour for the very first time.
This unforeseen meeting raises plenty of questions. Why is the bath full of tabloids and celebrity magazines? Where are all of the downstairs neighbour’s belongings? Is it possible to have too much stuff? Is it possible to have too little?
It’s a surreal reminder that we never know what the insides of other people’s homes look like and asks how far we might go for some space.
It will be released across all podcasting platforms on Monday 4 May 2020 and will last approximately 5 minutes.