matthewturner.info

Come and see my new short play A Waste of Time at the Arcola Theatre on Tuesday 6 and Wednesday 7 February.

The play is part of a fantastic line-up for Utopia/Dystopia, a showcase for new work exploring visions of the not-so-distant future, produced by Brave New Word.

A Waste of Time is about the weight of the past upon the present and the future, and stars Dominic Jones and Alex Harvey.

You can see the full programme for Utopia/Dystopia here, and get tickets directly from the Arcola here.

With appalling immodesty I’ve also added some recent comments to the Reviews section. Well, it bucks my spirits up.

Much of my time this year has been spent developing my new play Dead Yard. This includes an Arcola Lab residency in May and a performance at the Arcola PlayWROUGHT festival in July.

The year draws to a close with welcome news that the play reached the final 40 in the longlist for this year’s Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting.

Dead Yard has been in development since 2015 and is a real passion project, drawing on family history and my own grief at losing loved ones. Really I feel that all my writing to date has been leading to this play, and it’s by far my proudest achievement.

So what is Dead Yard all about? Four siblings try to come to terms with the loss of their father while confronting their domineering mother. This is a play about family secrets, despair and hope, and the struggle to forge a new future under the weight of tradition.

On the back of our incredible feedback this year I plan to take Dead Yard into full production in 2018. If you’re interested in getting involved with this exciting project please contact me.