‘Well, answer your own question. I did 1,800 miles in the caravan and drank three gallons of cider. So I’ll ask you whether or not it was a good weekend.’
Overheard conversations from across the length and breadth of the country form Craig Taylor’s humorous and poignant look at modern Britain in One Million Tiny Plays About Britain.
Laugh-out-loud funny, and sometimes heartbreakingly moving, these miniature insights into other people’s lives reveal the triumphs, disasters, horrors and joys of life in the twenty-first century.
Originally published in The Guardian, this collage of scenes now form a hugely entertaining and addictive evening in the theatre. It will change the way you listen to the world around you, and train journeys will never be the same again.
'One Million Tiny Plays About Britain reads like a digest of the nation’s soaps, with a little bit of Alan Bennett and The Vicar of Dibley thrown in’. Times Literary Supplement
See pictures of the cast in rehearsals here
Watermill outreach touring is generously supported by The Dr. Mortimer and Theresa Sackler Foundation.
Performance Times
First Act: 50 mins
Interval: 20 mins
Second Act: 40 mins
Touring to village halls and small theatres from Wednesday 6 April to Saturday 7 May.
See the full tour schedule here.
Directed by Laura Keefe
Designed by Fly Davis
Lighting designed by Andy Purves
Sound designed by Nick Lodge
Emma Barclay
Emma trained at The Drama Centre London and studied at Cambridge University.
Theatre includes The Comedy of Errors and Doctor Faustus (Cambridge Arts Theatre); People You May Also Know (Theatre503); Female Personality of the Year (Edinburgh Fringe); Much Ado About Nothing and Measure for Measure (American Tour); Perfect Strangers (Cambridge Footlights International Tour); Doctor Faustus (The Nave, Islington); Summertime (Arts Theatre); Brecht and Weil Night (Kommedia, Bath).
Alec Nicholls
Theatre includes: Under The Blue Sky (Duke of Yorks), Twelfth Night (David Ball Productions); The Pleasure Principal (Tristan Bates Theatre), Tunes of Glory (Middle Ground Theatre Company), Friday, 4pm (Arcola Theatre), Tennessee Williams' The Lady of Larkspur Lotion and This Property is Condemned (Occam's Razor Theatre Company), Sticks and Stones (Bridewell Theatre), Ghosts (Jermyn St Theatre).
Alec trained with the Actors Company at the London Centre for Theatre Studies (LCTS).
Television includes: Code Of A Killer (ITV), The Mimic (C4), Catherine Tate’s Nan (BBC), Broadchurch (ITV), Life’s Too Short (BBC), Doc Martin (ITV), The Golden Hour (ITV), Holby City (BBC), Without Motive (ITV).
Film includes: Mindhorn (Scott Free & BBC Films), The Decoy Bride (Ecosse Films).
'Emma Barclay and Alec Nicholls are incredibly versatile and brilliantly funny in every scene, playing characters of both sexes and capturing different accents. Their facial expressions are a delight.' **** The Stage
Read the full Stage review
'Think of those snippets of conversation you overhear on the bus and imagine them taken further and fashioned into playlets with swiftly, deftly-drawn characters.' ****Whatsonstage
'Frenetically donning or tearing off layers of clothing and delving into bags and boxes for props and wigs, or nipping out the back for a ‘sex change', cast members [Emma Barclay and Alec Nicholls] simultaneously transform the set and morph into new characters, instantly establishing new relationships.' **** Whatsonstage
Read the full Whatsonstage review
'Laura Keefe’s joyful, quirky production becomes a mosaic of brief British encounters in the four nations None is especially dramatic, but each is loaded with meaning.' theatreCat
'You could relate it to sketch comedy, but because it is free from the need for unrelenting laughter or smart punchlines, it can embrace pathos and disturbance as well.' theatreCat
Read the full theatreCat review
‘Craig Taylor’s snapshots of everyday situations shouldn’t work as drama but they do – and brilliantly’ The Observer
‘Brilliant on the page, it sort of shouldn’t work as performance – too bitty, too intense, too disparate, too bite-sized. But work it does.’ The Observer
‘The atmosphere becomes saturated with awareness of shared humanity: so fragile, so glorious, so hilarious, so understandable, so inexhaustible. The million tiny plays take shape, every day, all around us.’ The Observer
Read the full Observer review