Left My Desk by Olivia Hirst
"one part police procedural, one part emotional tear-jerker, and one part pithy political commentary...director Lucy Wray astutely shifts the action from hospital, to speeding car, to hospital visiting room, to over-crowded council office, using just three shimmering glass-panes and Hector Murray’s intelligent lighting.
It’s compact. It’s compelling. It’s exactly the sort of quality work that crops up consistently at the New Diorama, and exactly the kind of company that needs a wider audience."
THE STAGE
New Diorama 29 May - 16 June 2018; HOME Manchester July 2018
by NDT Associate Ensemble Lost Watch
http://www.lostwatchtheatre.co.uk/
Cast: Jennifer Daley, Rianna Dearden, Rachel Hosker, Adam Langstaff, Jamie Samuel
Lighting Designer: Hector Murray
Sound Designer: Fergus Waldron
The Stage
WhatsOnStage
Everything Theatre
Attitude
Breaking the Fourth Wall
The Spy in the Stalls
Becca leaves the office at 8.56am. Uniform is waiting. They speed across the city, blues and twos blaring, on the trail of a missing woman.
This is like a police drama! Except Becca is a social worker, and they never put social workers in police dramas.
Budgets across councils are at breaking point, making a difficult job increasingly impossible. Demand is high, wages are low, and burnout is common. Based on research, interviews and testimonial, Left My Desk is a play about social care in England today, exploring the crisis unfolding throughout our system.