Never Have I Ever E-Book

Deborah Frances-White

• Herausgeber: Nick Hern Books
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Jacq and Kas's boutique restaurant has gone bust, and telling their oldest friends Adaego and her rich husband Tobin that his investment is toast is only the start of the evening. Cash, class, identity and infidelity are all on the menu. As the last of the expensive wine flows, a dangerous drinking game reveals long-hidden truths and provokes an unspeakable dare. Never Have I Ever is an explosive, savagely funny play which brilliantly skewers the contradictions of contemporary society, and the shifting sands of power and sexual politics. It premiered at the Minerva Theatre, Chichester, in 2023, directed by Emma Butler and starring Alex Roach, Amit Shah, Greg Wise and Susan Wokoma. Deborah Frances-White is a comedian, screenwriter and host of the global hit podcast The Guilty Feminist. This is her first play. '[Deborah Frances-White's] mixture of wit, fallibility and inclusivity is immensely appealing'Sunday Times on The Guilty Feminist 'Hilarious, irreverent, eternally surprising, classy as hell, genius' Phoebe Waller-Bridge

Leseprobe

Deborah Frances-White

NEVER HAVE I EVER

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Original Production Details

Acknowledgements

Dedication

Characters

Never Have I Ever

About the Author

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

Never Have I Ever was first performed at the Minerva Theatre, Chichester, on 1 September 2023, with the following cast (in alphabetical order):

JACQ

Alex Roach

KAS

Amit Shah

TOBIN

Greg Wise

ADAEGO

Susan Wokoma

Director

Emma Butler

Designer

Frankie Bradshaw

Lighting Designer

Ryan Day

Sound Designer

Alexandra Faye Braithwaite

Movement Director

Chi-San Howard

Intimacy and Fight Director

Claire Llewellyn for RC-Annie Ltd

Casting Director

Lotte Hines CDG

Associate Director

Dubheasa Lanipekun

Dramaturg

malakaï sargeant

Additional Dramaturgy

Kate Bassett

Production Manager

Chris Hay

Costume Supervisor

Laura Rushton

Props Supervisor

Marcus Hall Props

Wigs, Hair and Make-up Supervisor

Shelley Gray

Company Stage Manager

Lou Ballard

Deputy Stage Manager

Olivia Roberts

Assistant Stage Manager

Georgia Dacey

Acknowledgements

I was highly privileged to have artists in our cast and creative team – both in development and in this first production – who contributed openly and generously about their identities and experiences and helped shape the script in extremely important ways. Without these collaborators and others who shared their insights on the characters, I would not have been able to write this play. I have also worked alongside many incredible co-hosts and guests of The Guilty Feminist (far too many to name!); I have learned so much from them, and my listeners, that has shaped my world view and I am indebted to them all.

Deep thanks to all the actors, dramaturgs and associates who worked on the play (named below) in development or production. And of course our very talented director and my incredibly generous collaborator who invited me to write this play for a development workshop at the Almeida Theatre – the wonderful Emma Butler.

Alex Roach

Amit Shah

Greg Wise

Susan Wokoma

James Lance

Stephen Mangan

Samuel West

Sian Clifford

Bethan Cullinane

Sara Pascoe

Milly Thomas

Nathaniel Curtis

David Mumeni

Akshay Shah

Sophie Duker

Kate Bassett

Hart Fargo

Yasmin Hasefji

Myah Jeffers

Dubheasa Lanipekun

Tom Salinsky

malakaï sargeant

Juliet Stevenson

Wesley Taylor

Huge thanks to everyone who worked on the first production and brought their talents to it and our excellent producers Francesca Moody and Eleanor Lloyd and their teams. Big thanks also to Daniel Evans and Justin Audibert and their incredible team who welcomed us to Chichester Festival Theatre and gave this text life.

D.F-W.

For Keith Johnstone, who we lost this year, aged ninety. He discovered so much of what I know about story, play, comedy, drama, improvisation and the magical invention of pretend that is the theatre – and shared it generously all his life.

And for Patti Stiles who taught me Keith’s discoveries, and many of her own, with heart, patience and brilliance.

Without these two – there is no play.

Characters

JACQ, thirty-something, white

KAS, thirty-something, British Asian

ADAEGO, thirty-something, British Nigerian

TOBIN, forty-something, white, English

MAN IN A BASEBALL CAP

This ebook was created before the end of rehearsals and so may differ slightly from the play as performed.

ACT ONE

Masada Restaurant, East London. Night.

Masada is Turkish for ‘on the table’ and an iconic Jewish symbol that means ‘Never Surrender’. There are four counters with bar stools behind them and a food preparation and cooking station at each of them.

JACQ, thirty-something, white, working class, jeans, T-shirt and an apron, is preparing a fabulous meal at just one station (with her back to the audience, facing the high stools where the diners would be sitting on the other side of the counter). She’s dancing to Alicia Keys’ ‘If I Ain’t Got You’ as she works. Her movements are decisive, like a surgeon, and she has a lot of natural swagger in her hips and shoulders, and not just when she dances.

JACQ has natural authority. The kind you’re born with. She’d make a great Mother Superior if she hadn’t lost her faith in God and a great MP if she hadn’t lost her faith in politics. She runs a restaurant because she’ll never lose her faith in food.

Just as she and the music build to a climax, A MAN IN A BASEBALL CAP knocks on the glass door (upstage) and points at his watch.

MAN IN A BASEBALL CAP (through the glass). What time do you open?

She smiles and points at the ‘Closed’ sign. He looks confused.

JACQ (shouting through the glass). We’re closed tonight! Sorry!

MAN IN A BASEBALL CAP. Why are you in there making food then?

She kills the music with a remote.

JACQ (shouting through the glass). Um. Because it’s my place, mate, and I can do what I want.

He stands there. She presses a button on the counter and shoots a jet of fire into the air. Restaurant pyrotechnics. The guy takes the hint and leaves.

(Joshing to herself.) Yeah, you better run!

She chops vegetables and turns the music back on and continues dancing and singing into a wooden spoon. A man’s voice booms up from a hole in the floor.

KAS (offstage). Is the 2003 Château Pontet-Canet too much or not enough?

She kills the music again.

JACQ. What?

The man pops his head up through the hole, he has a bottle of wine in his hand.

It’s JACQ’s partner (both romantic and business), KAS, thirty-something, lower-middle-class, British Asian. He wears an open-neck, very white shirt. He’s so eager to please you, it’s a bit annoying. He’s also a bit vain but in the kind of way where you look at him and think ‘fair enough’.

He’s shelved his dreams because JACQ’s were so much better thought out than his and he spends more money on his hair than she knows or they can afford. He went on a course to learn about wine. All this makes him the perfect maître d’ for Masada.

KAS. I was just saying, is the 2003 Château Pontet-Canet too much or not enough?

He waves the bottle at her.

We need to give them a good time and make them feel we appreciate them but we also need to make them not think we’ve spaffed their money up a wall.

JACQ. We do appreciate them. We haven’t spaffed their money up a wall.

KAS. Yeah but what wine says that? I feel like a 2003 Pontet-Canet might say, ‘We’re drinking your losses’ but the house red might say, ‘Fuck you and the motorbike you rode in on.’

JACQ laughs.

JACQ. Christ. Drink every time he mentions his fucking ‘Ducati Scrambler’.

KAS. Deal… But drink what?

He disappears momentarily and reappears with a case of wine. He heaves himself out of the hole and pops the manhole cover across.

Seriously. This is a sensitive evening. We’ve got to make them understand we did everything we could –

JACQ. – We did! Everything!

He lays the countertop as she prepares food.

KAS. And also… real talk?

JACQ. Real talk.

KAS. Okay, seriously, Jacq – I think we’ve just got to say they’ll get their money back.

JACQ. Kas! It was an investment! Not a loan! His investment failed. So he doesn’t get it back.

KAS. But –

JACQ. – But what about the other investors? You’re not offering them a money-back guarantee.