6 Page 39.

7 Jim Cartwright, Road (London: Samuel French, 2014).

8 Michael Billington ‘Road review – raucous look back at a divided Britain still hits home’, Guardian, 30 July 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/jul/30/road-review-royal-court [accessed 10 February 2019].

First Production

1 Kathleen O’Grady, ‘Dancing Outdoors: DiY Ethics and Democratised Practices of Well-being on the UK Alternative Festival Circuit’, Dancecult: Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 7, no. 1 (2015): 76–96.

Wasted

Wasted premiered at Latitude Festival on 15 July 2011 and the cast was as follows:

The play toured in 2012 to twenty-six venues. The role of Ted was played by Cary Crankson and the role of Danny by Bradley Taylor.

Direction James Grieve

Design Cai Dyfan

Lighting Design Angela Anson Sound Design Tom Gibbons Music Kwake Bass

Film Design Mathy Tremewan and Fran Broadhurst

A blank line of speech indicates a character does not have the words.

These stage directions are open for interpretation.

Dark stage. Sounds of London play out the speakers. Drunks singing. Sirens. Market men. Television hosts heard through living room windows. Traffic. People laughing. School kids screaming. All field recordings, actual London sounds. Projections of London play on the screen. Lights come up gently, like sunrise, revealing each character one at a time.

Ted is at a shitty little desk, really small, with a massive phone on it and a chunky old computer monitor and loads of files. He looks like he feels sick. He is smiling politely. To either side of him are cardboard cut-outs of middle-aged women with immaculate hair, something about them is hideous. They have oversized heads. They are blown up, monstrous versions of work colleagues. The sounds now are of phones ringing, call centre type voices, not clearly saying anything, but polite, sickly tones, pretending to be helpful, also women talking about celebrity couples, their next door neighbours. Mindless gossip. Teddy stares straight ahead.

Charlotte is in the staff room. Sounds of boiling kettles, laughing teachers, inaudible bullshit conversation. The tones are sarcastic, tired. People show off and compete for the upper hand. The conversations are dominated by exaggerated bellowing, the arsehole teacher slagging off the kids to make themselves feel better. Bells ringing. Photocopier sounds. Charlotte stands between two cardboard cut-outs of teachers with massive eyebrows, ears, lips, a woman in drab clothes – ill fitting leggings type – and a balding man in glasses and liverspots. Charlotte is smiling along, but looks

like she might faint, or cry, or something. She looks completely alone, despite all the noise.

Danny is sitting on a dingy sofa, in front of a coffee table. Power ballads playing from a cheesy radio station. Magic FM.¹ Bullshit conversation, sound of loud, exaggerated sniffing, people doing lines. To either side of him are two cardboard cut-outs of 25-year-old London men, they are both wearing very similar jeans and

t-shirts. They are bulky. Their heads are monstrous, especially their nostrils and mouths. Also two women, laughing hysterically, massive eyelashes, lips, perfect hair. Over-exaggerated laughing. Inaudible