Written by Luke Hayes
Directed by Nicholas Barton-Wines
July 2013

Joseph Frayel is has been hosting a chat show for years. He thinks it will be alright. He’s come off his meds. But who are those people? The ones with the blurred faces? Is the man the tabloids have dubbed the “Working Class Oprah” beginning to crumble?

RUBY (reading)
You were asked if on the night in question you told our daughters you loved them before you – (she sobs despite herself) – you replied yes. The test shows you were lying.

The audience gasps. This time she stabs him in the eye with the red crayon. He screams.

Joseph howls in to his hands.

The lights flicker a little.

My role was to lead the development of a new play by an emerging writer, culminating in a work-in-progress performance at Menagerie’s new-writing Hotbed Festival at the Mercury Theatre in Summer 2013 using East-Anglian based actors. Using vivid metaphor, prickly text, and Haye’s unflinching depiction of surreal violence, the sharing opened the festival’s final day.