Redundant

Synopsis

"You will come back though won't yer, Darren? Yer will come back? Say yer'll come back. Come back." Lucy is 17. She dreams of love, security and a bright future. But first she must confront reality - and reality means deciding who to trust. Leo Butler won the 2001 George Devine Award for Redundant. His first play Made of Stone was produced in the Royal Court Young Writers' Festival 2000, 'rock-hard characterisation with buzzing dialogue' (Evening Standard).

Our Review:

17 September 2001

I thought that Judy Upton's Sliding with Suzanne, at the Royal Court's Theatre Upstairs and then on a national tour, was bleak; but next to Redundant, now being premiered in the downstairs main house, it is Noises Off.

Leo Butler could, in fact, have easily titled his play Sliding with Lucy, since it charts a similar downward spiral for its lead character, a 17-year-old girl called Lucy, in the meagre Sheffield council flat she calls home.

Complete with a granny-bashing that puts it in a Royal Court tradition that stretches back to Edward Bond's Saved and its infamous baby stoning, this portrait of a year in the life of the emotionally and financially impoverished Lucy is not comfortable or enjoyable viewing.

Butler, a 26-year-old writer who just two years ago was ushering at the theatre, has created a convincing set of characters around Lucy and has expertly echoed the harshly streetwise dialog...

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Latest User Review

USER: Whatsonstage.com - 25 September 2001:

Good contemporary play although it needs "tightening up" Excllent individual performances and production...

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