Radiant Boy by Nancy Netherwood

Directed by Bex Bowsher

January 1983. Trainee singer Russell has abruptly left his prestigious conservatoire in London following a strange incident, and returned to his home – and his volatile mother Maud – in the North-East of England. Considered high-strung and ‘sensitive,’ Russell is prone to periods of inexplicable illness, but the symptoms have never been so strange and severe – rooms go cold, lights flicker, and Russell goes into trances, knowing things he can’t possibly know. When doctors, priests and therapists fail to offer a solution, Maud calls in a specialist: Father Miller, a young priest who specialises in ‘psychodivinity’ and believed Russell is suffering from a spiritual sickness that manifests as a form of demonic possession.

Through interviews, exercises and ‘cleansing rituals,’ the cause of Russell’s illness and the story of his departure from the conservatoire and intense friendship with a fellow student are gradually revealed – as is the hypocrisy of Miller’s practice and the messy, complex love between Maud and Russell that might be the only thing that can keep Russell from losing touch with his humanity in the depths of his exorcism.

The Filleting App by Alex Oates

Directed by Bex Bowsher

In the late 1970s, Tom Haddaway wrote the Filleting Machine, a play set in a council estate in the North East looking at the challenges capitalism and industrialisation pose to a working-class family on the breadline. My play is set 50 years later and looks at a family with the same make up facing the same challenges and asks how much has changed in the intervening years.

In my play, Da is trying to make a living working as a deliveroo driver and finding his place as a man in the gig economy by gaming the system. He is renting out one of his apps to an immigrant who becomes a legal citizen, thus depriving him of an income stream. Alice wants to go to university but is pregnant, and Davy wants a future of his own; Ma wants to go on a cruise. It’s a play that looks at the real hopes and dreams of working-class families in the North East and the looming crisis of capitalism reaching its inevitable conclusion.

37 Plays

37 Plays is a nationwide search for the most exciting new voices of today. Produced by the RSC in partnership with regional theatres across the country, 37 Plays attracted more than 2000 submissions, exploring themes including class, faith, race, war, consent, the climate crisis and living life online. The chosen 37 plays will be performed, script-in-hand, across the UK and online this autumn. Find out more at https://37plays.co.uk/