Spoonface Steinberg

Description

An award-winning play which took the nation by storm when first heard on BBC Radio 4, now in a new stage version Lee Hall's extraordinary, award-winning play about faith, love and the meaning of life was first broadcast on Radio Four in 1997 to unprecedented acclaim. A monologue by an exceptional autistic seven-year-old girl called Spoonface Steinberg, who is dying of cancer, touched the hearts of all who heard it. It is a moving, funny and exhilarating piece of drama. The radio version was immediately repeated due to popular demand and a cassette of the play was rushed into shops and has sold over 80,000 copies. This play edition was performed in Sheffield's Crucible Theatre in December 1999 and then in London's West End in January 2000 at the Ambassador's Theatre. The production starred Kathryn Hunter."And what was the meaning of all these things? And the meaning was as if you found the spark - and it was finding the sparks inside you and setting them free" (Spoonface Steinberg)

Lee Hall has won numerous awards, including a Sony award for his phenomenally popular radio play Spoonface Steinberg, which later transferred to the stage in a production with Kathryn Hunter. His play Cooking With Elvis had a sell-out run at the Whitehall Theatre throughout 2000, after his stint as Writer in Residence at the RSC. His adaptation of A Servant to Two Masters was a smash hit for the RSC and the Young Vic, and continues to tour worldwide. His two Brecht adaptations, Mr Puntilla and his Man Matti and Mother Courage and her Children were both sell-out successes in the West End. Lee Hall was Oscar nominated for his screenplay Billy Elliot.

Hall uses the oddball honesty and eccentric speech patterns of savant autism to explore immense philosophical and aesthetic themes, without losing the earthy practicality of a child going through medical and family troubles ... he links her small individual experience to all great tragedies in art and history, to the Holocaust and the indomitable universal spark of life. -- Libby Purves * The Times *