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    Growth (NHB Modern Plays)
    Growth (NHB Modern Plays)
    Growth (NHB Modern Plays)
    Ebook126 pages45 minutes

    Growth (NHB Modern Plays)

    By Luke Norris

    ()

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    About this ebook

    A comedy about growing up and manning up.
    Tobes is young, free and having a ball. Off. He's successfully ignored his lump for two years but it's starting to get in the way – cramping his style and, worse, affecting his sex life. So now there are pants to be dropped, and decisions to be made... it's a real ball ache.
    Luke Norris's play Growth was first produced by Paines Plough in their pop-up theatre, Roundabout, at the 2016 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, before touring. An earlier version of the play was seen at the Gate Theatre, London.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNick Hern Books
    Release dateAug 4, 2016
    ISBN9781780018003
    Growth (NHB Modern Plays)

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      Book preview

      Growth (NHB Modern Plays) - Luke Norris

      Growth was first commissioned and performed by the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in collaboration with Paines Plough. The play opened in Paines Plough’s Roundabout @ Summerhall, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, on 6 August 2016, in a new production by Paines Plough. The cast was as follows:

      ‘Growth is the only evidence of life’

      John Henry Newman

      Acknowledgements

      Thanks to all at Paines Plough and RWCMD for giving me the opportunity to write a new play in the first place, and to the original RWCMD cast – Ellie Heydon, Jonny Holden, Oliver Morgan-Thomas, Nina Shenkman, Melanie Stevens and Sam Ward – for the commitment and skill brought to bear on the play’s first incarnation.

      Special thanks go to Sean Linnen for directing that version with such sensitivity and conviction. Iowe you one.

      Thanks to Andy, Remy and Richard, George, Anna, and Caitlin for the relentless energy and goodwill showered on this version, and for putting up with the endless script changes.

      A particularly huge thank-you to Simon Bubb for the unwavering generosity and frankness in helping me research the play.

      And finally, as ever, thanks to Jo, for all the hours of enforced dramaturgy…

      I promise I’ll split the money this time.

      L.N.

      Characters

      TOBES

      BETH

      JARED

      ELLIE

      JOFF

      LILY

      JULIAN

      LISE

      JUSTIN

      BESS

      JACK

      BILLIE

      JERMAINE

      LIZA

      JAMIE

      IZZY

      JOEL

      A Note on the Punctuation

      Generally speaking, speeches should come quickly one after the next.To indicate and encourage this, many lines are written without a full stop at the end

      Full stops, meanwhile, don’t necessarily mean the end of a thought.Sometimes they do.But.Sometimes they just indicate

      a hiatus.

      Forward slashes (/) within speeches indicate the point at which the next character starts speaking.

      An ellipsis (… ) in place of a speech indicates a pressure or an attempt to speak.

      Beats are of varying length, relative to the pace of the scene.Long beats are longer.Obviously.

      A question without a question mark indicates a flatness of tone.

      I think that’s it.

      It’s probably not.

      This ebook was created before the end of rehearsals and so may differ slightly from the play as performed.

      One

      BETH’s flat.

      TOBES and BETH.

      TOBES. What?

      BETH. I don’t

      TOBES. …

      BETH. Don’t make me say it again

      TOBES. No, do. Do say it again. So I know you mean it

      BETH. I don’t, Tobes

      TOBES. Why?

      BETH. …

      TOBES. Why not?

      BETH. I just. I’m sorry, I don’t. Not like I should

      TOBES. But why?

      BETH. There’s not one reason

      TOBES. Then give me a few. Give me ten. Or twenty. Give me something, Beth

      BETH. It’s not about you, Tobes

      TOBES. No?

      BETH. No, not really, / no

      TOBES. Because it feels like it might be

      BETH. It’s not

      TOBES. Who’s it about then?

      BETH. Me. I suppose

      TOBES. You suppose?

      BETH. Yeah, mainly

      TOBES. What does that mean?

      BETH. …

      TOBES. I mean there’s no one else is there?

      BETH. No

      TOBES. Like. That, from your gym, / that

      BETH. No! No

      TOBES. You’d tell me?

      BETH. Yes

      TOBES. You would tell me?

      BETH. I am telling you

      TOBES. It’s not him, then? That meat-head?

      BETH. Who?

      TOBES. ‘Jermaine’, that meat-head from / your gym

      BETH. Don’t call him that

      TOBES. Why not?

      BETH. He’s a friend

      TOBES. He’s a meat-head

      BETH. He’s not a meat-head

      TOBES. He does star-jumps for a living

      BETH. And you sell pot plants. So

      TOBES. So what?

      BETH. So nothing

      TOBES. I like my job

      BETH. No you don’t

      TOBES. I do

      BETH. You said yourself: it’s a dead-end job with dead-end people, you said

      TOBES. Is that why you’re leaving me?

      BETH. What? No

      TOBES. You don’t like my job?

      BETH. You don’t like your job! And it’s nothing to do with that anyway

      TOBES. What then?

      BETH. It doesn’t matter,

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