Artefacts

Description

Sixteen-year-old Kelly has never known her Dad. Turns out he's from Iraq, which her mum never mentioned, and he's brought an ancient Mesopotamian vase as some kind of present. But Kelly doesn't want a vase. She wants her dad to stay and get to know her. It's not the reunion either of them expected and for Kelly, it's the beginning of an epic and dangerous journey. Mike Bartlett has been described as 'One of the most exciting new talents to emerge in recent times'. (The Stage). His first play My Child was called 'Brutal, thrilling, unmissable' (Evening Standard) and 'the theatrical equivalent of a firecracker'. (Metro).

Mike Barlett's debut, My Child (Royal Court, May 2007) saw him hailed by The Stage as 'one of the most exciting new talents to emerge in recent times'. He is a winner of the Old Vic New Voices Award for Artefacts (Bush Theatre, February 2008), and is currently participating in the prestigious Pearson Playwrights Scheme. He won the Writer's Guild Tinniswood and Imison prizes for his radio play, Not Talking.

Mike Bartlett, still only in his mid-twenties, is a dramatist of rare economy and dramatic power. The Telegraph I was left full of admiration for this dramatist's combination of power and precision this is dramatic writing of a very high order indeed. The Telegraph You would be hard pressed to find its equal playing in London Financial Times I cannot recall when I last saw so much, on both narrative and thematic levels, crammed into a one-act 80-minute play without the whole thing bursting messily under the strain. Financial Times This is a play teachers, Education Ministers and advertising agency executives should see, to grasp what an immature country they are creating Daily Mail