Since her play Steel opened in her native Sheffield in 2018, Chris Bush has rapidly become one of the UK’s most successful and widely staged playwrights, with her plays on stage at the National Theatre, in the West End, and across Europe. Celebrated for her spirited dissections of power, female agency, and northern identity, her work is infused with wit, empathy, and a powerful sense of place and belonging.
Included here are five of her plays, all first performed between 2018 and 2021, together with a revealing introduction in which she reflects on the tumultuous period from which they emerged.
Steel (Sheffield Theatres, 2018) is a political epic constructed from minimal resources, a two-hander spanning three decades of women in politics. ‘Sharp, witty and uncannily topical’ The Stage
Faustus: That Damned Woman (Headlong, 2020) is a radical reimagining of the classic tale, asking what women must sacrifice to achieve greatness. ‘Original, ambitious and fantastically revisionist’ Guardian
Nine Lessons and Carols (Almeida Theatre, 2020) is a play, with songs by Maimuna Memon, about connection and isolation, forged during the Covid pandemic, exploring what we hold on to in troubled times. ‘A reminder of the power of theatre and our need for it’ Telegraph
Hungry (Paines Plough, 2021) is a pithy two-hander about food, love, class, and grief in a world where there’s little left to savour. ‘Reconfirms Chris Bush as one of our greatest, most relevant contemporary playwrights’ Broadway World
(Not) the End of the World (Schaubühne, Berlin, 2021) is a daringly theatrical investigation of the climate crisis through the perspectives of class, patriarchy, and colonialism. ‘Staggering… Bush’s remarkable text melds a ruthless structural concept with exquisite lyricism’ Guardian
‘One of our most prolific and arresting writers’ Evening Standard
‘A writer of great wit and empathy’ The Times
About the author
Chris Bush is a playwright, lyricist, and theatre-maker.
Her plays include: Rock/Paper/Scissors (Sheffield Theatres, 2022); an adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, and New Vic, Newcastle-under-Lyme, 2022); Hungry (Paines Plough, 2021); Faustus: That Damned Woman (Headlong, Lyric Hammersmith and Birmingham Rep, 2020); The Last Noël (Old Fire Station, Oxford, 2019); Standing at the Sky’s Edge, a musical with music and lyrics by Richard Hawley (Sheffield Theatres, 2019, revived 2022 and at the National Theatre in 2023, West End 2024); The Changing Room (National Theatre Connections, 2018); Steel (Sheffield Theatres, 2018); an adaptation of Pericles (National Theatre, London, 2018); The Assassination of Katie Hopkins, written with Matt Winkworth (Theatr Clwyd, 2018); What We Wished For and A Dream.
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