Book description
"This is my first tax return. Thank you...erm for offering
to...for helping. I realise it's a bit weird. It's just. This is...it's
the only way I can think to make it better. The only way I can think to
do it. With other people. Like this." Tax is really, really taxing
for Ben Edwards. Self-employed. And afraid...And now he must face his
dreaded self assessment form, with every receipt evoking the good times
and the bad - memories of things gone wrong, gone right, the journeys
he's been on, the relationships that have begun and ended and the people
he has lost. As Ben begins to stitch together the patchwork quilt that
was the Tax Year 2009/2010, he relives a year that was both hilarious
and tragic, all mixed up in one shoe box of receipts. Award-winning
playwright James Graham presents an affectionate and funny portrait of
one man's year-long experience, pieced together from receipts, shopping
and commercial transactions. With a web of narratives, the play's
structure is innovative and flexible. In performance, each receipt
triggers a unique story and the actor plucks the receipts from the
audience's hands at random. James Graham won the Catherine Johnson
Award for the Best Play 2007 for Eden's Empire. His previous plays
include Albert's Boy (recipient of a Pearson Playwriting Bursary) Little
Madam (Finborough), Tory Boyz (Soho Theatre) and The Whisky Taster (Bush
Theatre). He is writer-in-residence at the Finborough Theatre.
