Book description
In a place where everyone knows your name you can't forget who you are.
Life, love and loss in a picture postcard town is laid bare in this
heart-breaking but darkly comic new play. Through a series of
interweaving accounts For Once cuts to the heart of a family, and a
community, turned upside down by unimaginable tragedy. For Once examines
the fallout after a car crash on a country lane takes the life of two
local teenagers, through three interlaced monologues by their surviving
friend Sid and his parents, April and Gordon, exposing the pre-existing
faultlines in the family. Sid has been left partially sighted by the
crash, and his account of his life before and since the accident gives
an insight into why young people living in what seems like 'ideal'
communities are driven to seek thrills elsewhere, sometimes with
horrifying consequences. However, far from being depressing, Tim Price's
skill at capturing the revealing inarticulacy of the teenager, as well
as his troubled parents, makes for unexpected humour. For Once is a
powerful and incisive look at life and death in a small market town and
premiered on 8 July 2011 at the Hampstead Theatre in a production by
Pentabus Theatre. 'It's not hard to see why Price's price is running
high, as this elegant, elegiac three-hander winds, with wry humour and
the occasional mineshafts of buried feeling, through the aftermath of a
terrible accident.' Fiona Mountford, Evening Standard, 27. 7.11 'Wry,
compassionate and thought-provoking.' Caroline McGinn, TIme Out London,
21. 7.11 '...this is sharp-eyed writing, full of humanity and
compassion.' Sam Marlowe, The Times, 13. 7.11 Tim Price is a writer on
the cusp of major recognition, with For Once being the first of three
major premieres of his work planned over the next year. His next play,
Salt, Root and Roe will be seen at Trafalgar Studios in November as part
of the Donmar West End season, and in 2012, his play The Radicalisation
of Bradley Manning will open for the National Theatre of Wales in
Haverfordwest. He was shortlisted for this year's Verity Bargate Award
with his play Will and George.
