Ordinary Decent Criminal

This is what it feels like to have something to lose. This is why people only fight when theyve got nothing to lose.

Its the early 1990s and recovering addict Frankie Donnelly has just been sentenced to three and a half years in jail for dealing drugs.

None of Frankies fellow convicts are what they seem. In the most unexpected of places, he discovers that the revolution is not dead. Its just sleeping.

Ordinary Decent Criminal by Ed Edwards is a one-man story of freedom, revolution and messy love. It was first performed on a tour of the UK in 2025 – including a run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where it won a Fringe First Award – directed by Charlotte Bennett and starring renowned political comedian Mark Thomas. It was produced by Paines Plough, Live Theatre, Theatre Royal Plymouth and Ellie Keel Productions, in association with Synergy Theatre Project.

This edition also includes the stirring short play Sanctuary which explores the true-life story of Sri Lankan communist Viraj Mendis, who spent two years seeking sanctuary in a Manchester church in the 1980s.