Join the People’s Theatre for the world premiere of brand new dark comedy NOT FROM CONCENTRATE!
Selected from nearly 200 entries, this People’s Play Award winner is a black comedy with a twist by Doncaster writer P.W Sowerby.
“They say you should write what you know…but I don’t know anything!”
Meet Benjamin, a writer who can’t write. His manager and his PA are desperate to help him. His sister can’t be ignored. His best friend has a favour to ask, and his orange juice is not from concentrate!
The play is Sowerby’s first, and the idea came from him struggling to write a play!
“So I thought, why not write a play about that”, he comments. “So I did. And it was really boring. So then I started adding crazier and crazier things happening, and ‘Not From Concentrate’ blew up out of that!”.
The drama, which has been described as ‘Stranger than Fiction meets Tarantino’, is certainly full of twists and surprises that promise to keep audiences on their toes!
About seeing his play in rehearsals, Sowerby – who performs himself as part of award-winning acoustic duo Rita Payne – comments: “To see it and to hear my words being said by actors, it’s incredible. They make my words three million times better than they seem looking at them on a laptop!”
The People’s pride themselves on bringing great theatre to the community, and this includes celebrating and championing exciting new writing.
The People’s Play Award is for playwrights from the North of England who are yet to have a full-length play performed professionally, and many past winners have gone on to successful writing careers. These include Alison Carr (Finalist, Women’s Prize for Playwriting; ‘Iris’, Live Theatre), Carina Rodney (‘Hell Cats’, Audible; ‘Best in the World’, Unfolding Theatre); Mike Yeaman (‘Kathmandu or Bust’, Radio 4; ‘Canoeing For Beginners’, Customs House) and BAFTA-winner and Oscar-nominee Peter Straughan (‘The Men Who Stare at Goats’; ‘Tinker, Tailor Soldier, Spy’.)
For his writing future, Sowerby says: “winning the award has proven to me that my writing might be okay! Cos when you’re just sat there and it’s only you reading it, you don’t know if it’s any good or not. This has given me the nudge to go ‘actually, I might be able to do this’. I’m working on a couple of new projects right now and I hope to see more of my plays on stage with more amazing people like the cast of this!”
NOT FROM CONCENTRATE by P.W Sowerby opens on Monday 5th June. Tickets are available from the People’s Theatre Box Office on 0191 265 5020 (option 2) and online at www.peoplestheatre.co.uk