Iron (NHB Modern Plays)

An intense psychological drama set in a women's prison, in which a mother and daughter try to break through the barriers of time, memory and punishment which separate them.

Josie is seeing her mother Fay for the first time in a while – she's never walked into a prison before, and she's been putting it off for fifteen years. Fay is serving life for murdering her husband with a kitchen knife. Her daughter needs to find out why she can't remember anything that came before that terrible night, why her own mother would kill her father. Uncovering the memories they share is going to be more perilous than either of them can imagine...

First staged at the Edinburgh Festival,

Iron won the John Whiting Award in 2003.

'exceptionally gripping and deeply moving... psychological drama at its best'

Telegraph

'quietly impressive... a love story about how women love men unwisely and too well, and about the painful, twisted, sacred love between mothers and daughters'

Guardian