Chris Bush Plays: One

Since her play Steel opened in her native Sheffield in 2018, Chris Bush has rapidly become one of the UKs most successful and widely staged playwrights, with her plays on stage at the National Theatre, in the West End, and across Europe. Celebrated for her spirited dissections of power, female agency and northern identity, her work is infused with wit, empathy, and a powerful sense of place and belonging.

Included here are five of her plays, all first performed between 2018 and 2021, together with a revealing introduction in which she reflects on the tumultuous period from which they emerged.

Steel (Sheffield Theatres, 2018) is a political epic constructed from minimal resources, a two-hander spanning three decades of women in politics. Sharp, witty and uncannily topicalThe Stage

Faustus: That Damned Woman (Headlong, 2020) is a radical reimagining of the classic tale, asking what women must sacrifice to achieve greatness. Original, ambitious and fantastically revisionistGuardian

Nine Lessons and Carols(Almeida Theatre, 2020) is a play, with songs by Maimuna Memon, about connection and isolation, forged during the Covid pandemic, exploring what we hold on to in troubled times. A reminder of the power of theatre and our need for itTelegraph

Hungry (Paines Plough, 2021) is a pithy two-hander about food, love, class and grief in a world where theres little left to savour. Reconfirms Chris Bush as one of our greatest, most relevant contemporary playwrightsBroadway World

Not the End of the World (Schaubühne, Berlin, 2021) is a daringly theatrical investigation of the climate crisis through the perspectives of class, patriarchy and colonialism. Staggering… Bushs remarkable text melds a ruthless structural concept with exquisite lyricismGuardian

One of our most prolific and arresting writersEvening Standard

A writer of great wit and empathyThe Times