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    England & Son (NHB Modern Plays)
    England & Son (NHB Modern Plays)
    England & Son (NHB Modern Plays)
    Ebook120 pages1 hour

    England & Son (NHB Modern Plays)

    By Ed Edwards

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    About this ebook

    'A nation that devours another will one day devour itself.'
    Set when the Great Devouring comes home, England & Son is a kaleidoscopic odyssey, where disaster capitalism, empire, Thatcherite politics, stolen youth and stolen wealth merge into the tale of a working-class boy who just wants his dad to smile at him.
    With some deep, dark laughs – and some deep, dark love – England & Son is a one-man play by Ed Edwards, first performed by the celebrated political comedian Mark Thomas.
    It was first produced by HOME Manchester and Tin Cat Entertainment, and premiered in Paines Plough's Roundabout during the 2023 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, directed by Cressida Brown, where it won a Fringe First Award.
    This edition also features an illuminating essay by the author, 'Writing the End of Empire'.
    'A triumph… Ed Edwards' play has a terrifying force as it charts the story of a homeless man… it unfolds in fragmentary snapshots, kaleidoscopic images that build a picture in shards… The play's observations are fierce and sharp; its empathy, profound and moving' - WhatsOnStage
    'A funny and ferocious telling of a lost childhood that frames the story of a juvenile offender through the lens of colonialism… powerful and moving' - Guardian
    'Tremendous energy and real pathos' - The Stage
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNick Hern Books
    Release dateAug 10, 2023
    ISBN9781788507073
    England & Son (NHB Modern Plays)
    Author

    Ed Edwards

    Ed Edwards is a writer who has published five novels, a children's book and worked for various continuing TV dramas. His plays include England & Son (Edinburgh Fringe & Manchester HOME, 2023) and The Political History of Smack and Crack (Edinburgh Fringe & Soho Theatre, 2018). He has had several original plays broadcast on Radio 4 as well as short films on Channel 4 and BBC2. He is co-artistic director of Most Wanted Theatre, which he runs along with Eve Steele.

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      Book preview

      England & Son (NHB Modern Plays) - Ed Edwards

      Ed Edwards

      ENGLAND

      & SON

      NICK HERN BOOKS

      London

      www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

      Contents

      Dedication

      Original Production Details

      Notes

      England & Son

      ‘Writing the End of Empire’

      Endnotes

      About the Author

      Copyright and Performing Rights Information

      Special thanks to Eve Steele,

      without whose play, Life By The Throat,

      England & Son could not have been conceived.

      England & Son was first performed, in an abridged version, in Paines Plough’s Roundabout at Summerhall, as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, on 2 August 2023, with the following cast and creative team:

      Notes

      Dialogue or thoughts in italics.

      (Occasional stage directions or clarifications in brackets.)

      Lines can be taken as stage directions as seen fit.

      Occasional Headings Or Announcements In Title Case.

      This edition features the full-length version of the play. A slightly abridged version was first performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

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

      1.

      Beep, beep. Vehicle reversing. Beep Beep… !

      Shit!

      Dover.

      Five a.m.

      Paper and carboard piled on top of me. I can’t move.

      Industrial paper bin. Me inside. Paralysed.

      I’ve got to get out!

      Beep, beep!

      Bin lorry!

      I try to stand.

      The clang-clang of death approaching.

      What’s wrong with my legs? Come on!

      I’m in hell again. Back of Wetherspoons.

      I push the lid up. Heave myself over the side. Scrape my shins. Crack my shoulder. Crawl away. Lie there.

      Relief.

      No one about. Just this yellow jacket looking at me.

      Are you alright, mate?

      I can’t speak.

      Yellow jacket calls his mate over.

      He must’ve been sleeping in the bin.

      They stare down at me like I’m an insect.

      Behind them the giant bin – hotel for the night – ascends above the lorry’s crushing jaws.

      Industrial boom.

      The bin shoots its load.

      But sudden glimpse.

      My best friend Paul – like litter – giant rag doll – still out cold – tumbles into the crusher.

      I shout and point. Try to stand.

      Arms hold me.

      It’s all right, mate. Phwoar – he stinks!

      My voice grates over the grinding clang.

      He’s in the lorry! My friend Paul!

      They run. Get there too late.

      I’m on the ground crying.

      Banging my head.

      I’m in the shit again.

      And I’m not getting out of this one!

      Or am I?

      Fuck! Vehicle reversing, reversing, reversing…

      2.

      My Dad at the Yard.

      To distract myself when I’m in the shit, I sometimes try to solve the mystery of my dad when I’m little. When all I want from life is for him to smile at me and ruffle my hair.

      Which is hard fucking work.

      Example.

      (Gradually becoming his younger self.)

      Me and him – just the two of us – knocking down a building.

      My dad does the demolition with a crowbar and a lump hammer while I – aged eight – burn the lead off the brass fittings with a blow torch.

      It’s great. You hold the brass with tongs and drip the molten lead onto a ladle and make little smooth domes.

      I love the blow torch so much I want to burn everything at the yard.

      Dad says he knows the feeling but we have to ‘show some restraint’.

      The lump hammer’s good too. It’s like a sledgehammer but with a short handle and I can smash whole bricks with it in one go. Booff!

      Mum says you should always wear goggles when you smash bricks, but Dad says it’s fine.

      My other jobs – aged eight – are:

      Break the mortar off bricks the size of my head. Stack the clean ones and make a mound of rubbish. Sort the zinc and aluminium gullies – butterfly clips – C-clamps – D-clamps…

      All day. Nothing goes to waste. Everything will end up in one of Dad’s lock-ups.

      Three lock-ups he’s got. A mile from our house.

      One for bricks, slates and masonry. One for ladders and scaffold. One for things Dad calls ‘miscellaneous’, which I know how to spell and he doesn’t.

      England used to build things, son, he says. Now we knock everything down.

      I laugh because England’s our name.

      England and Son. If we ever go ‘legit’ Dad says that’s what we’ll be called.

      In the third lock-up he’s got an oil drum. If anything is rusty or won’t come undone – into the oil it goes. Four months later out it comes. Bingo. Working again.

      Anyhow. Back at the yard. Lunch comes. We eat a sandwich. Nothing.

      My dad. Silent as a mountain. Staring at nothing. Definitely not smiling or ruffling my hair.

      Sometimes he nods like he’s thinking something. Sometimes he looks over at me.

      Eat up, son.

      If his workmates are there they argue about Margaret Thatcher who’s the prime minister.

      My dad voted for Margaret Thatcher because he was in the army once. But he says she betrayed him because she stole his job when she said she was all about England.

      I don’t laugh at that England.

      Anyhow. By five o’clock the building’s gone. I’ve sorted several mountains of everything that can be salvaged and put it in the van. We’re covered in muck, I’m proud of myself and I’m waiting for my reward.

      Dad says, Burn the rubbish. Gives me some matches. Goes off to talk money.

      The rubbish pile is huge. It’s gonna take ages to burn all that.

      So I get the petrol can I saw earlier behind the old outhouse and pour it on the pile.

      Over the back. Round the side. The rest on top. And you know, it’s a big can. Almost as big as me.

      I don’t know my dad’s already done this.

      And then… (Strikes a match.)

      How do you describe that sound?

      Four streets away they think it’s a meteorite.

      Next thing I know I’m lying on my back and my dad’s staring down at me.

      He picks me up. Plonks me on my feet. Probably checking I can stand.

      The flames are going up to the sky.

      Then it comes.

      The smile. Beaming. Laughing smile. Fills up the whole world.

      I’ve got no fucking eyebrows and my dad and everyone from the yard is laughing at me.

      But

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