Inside the walls of HMP Drummond, Baxter, Norton and Lenny pass the time with poker, banter, and the kind of gallows humour only lifers can muster. When Lenny's body starts to give out, young prison officer Mark keeps an eye on him. What begins as a duty of care becomes an unexpected friendship, exposing the cracks in a system built to punish, not to support. Darkly funny and unflinchingly honest, Evan Placey's Lifers challenges what we think we know about crime, punishment, and redemption. Do some crimes make a second chance impossible? And when the world moves on without you, what does justice really mean? A compelling look at ageing, and the stories we tell ourselves to survive, Lifers is premiered at Southward Playhouse, Borough, in 2025.
Autorentext
Evan Placey is a Canadian-British playwright who grew up in Toronto and now lives in London, England. His plays include: Lifers (Synergy Theatre Project at Southwark Playhouse, 2025); Peter Pan with Vikki Stone (Rose Theatre, Kingston, 2023); Jekyll & Hyde (National Youth Theatre, 2017 West End season); Consensual (National Youth Theatre, 2015 West End season); Girls Like That (Synergy/Unicorn Theatre; first produced and commissioned by Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Theatre Royal Plymouth and West Yorkshire Playhouse, 2013; winner of the Writers' Guild Award for Best Play for Young Audiences); Mother of Him (Courtyard Theatre; winner of the King's Cross Award for New Writing, RBC National Playwriting Competition, Canada, and the Samuel French Canadian Play Contest); Banana Boys (Hampstead Theatre); Suicide(s) in Vegas (Canadian tour; Centaur Theatre Award nomination); Scarberia (Forward Theatre Project/York Theatre Royal); How Was It For You? (Unicorn Theatre); Holloway Jones (Synergy Theatre Project/schools tour/Unicorn Theatre; winner of the Brian Way Award 2012 for Best Play for Young People; Writers' Guild Award nomination); WiLd! (tutti frutti/UK tour and USA); and Pronoun (National Theatre Connections festival, 2014). Work for radio includes Mother of Him (BBC Radio 3/Little Brother Productions). Evan is a Creative Fellow and Lecturer at the University of Southampton, and also teaches playwriting to young people for various theatres, and also in prisons.