Pig Heart Boy E-Book

Malorie Blackman

• Herausgeber: Nick Hern Books
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Serie: NHB Modern Plays
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 84

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

'I used to love swimming. Won medals for it. But when your heart has been affected by an infection it's like having a ticking time bomb inside you… tick… tick… tick… tick…' Cameron is thirteen, and all he wants is to be normal – have friends, go to school, and dive to the bottom of his local swimming pool. But he desperately needs a heart transplant and time is running out. When he's finally offered a new heart, Cameron must choose between a pig's heart that works… or a human heart that doesn't. How far will he go to get his life back? Malorie Blackman's celebrated novel Pig Heart Boy was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal and adapted by the BBC into a BAFTA Award-winning TV series. This stage adaptation by Winsome Pinnock was directed by Tristan Fynn-Aiduenu and first performed in 2025 at the Unicorn Theatre, London, in a co-production between Unicorn Theatre, Sheffield Theatres and Children's Theatre Partnership. The play won Best Show for Children and Young People at the 2025 UK Theatre Awards. 'A powerful story about friendship, loyalty and family'Guardian on the novel Pig Heart Boy

Leseprobe

Malorie Blackman

PIG HEART BOY

adapted for the stage by

Winsome Pinnock

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Original Production

Foreword

Characters

Pig Heart Boy

About the Authors

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

Pig Heart Boy was first performed at the Unicorn Theatre, London, on 26 January 2025, as a Unicorn co-production with Sheffield Theatres and Children’s Theatre Partnership. The cast was as follows:

CATHY/JULIE

Christine During

MALE UNDERSTUDY

Rhys Lanahan

DR BRYCE/ANDREW

Tré Medley

MARILYN/EHRLICH/ PRESENTER/OFFICER

Christina Ngoyi

NAN/TRUDY/MRS STEWART/ LEPAR LADY

Chia Phoenix

FEMALE UNDERSTUDY

Olivia Williams Freeman

CAMERON

Immanuel Yeboah

MIKE/RASHID

Akil Young

Director

Tristan Fynn-Aiduenu

Designer

Paul Wills

Lighting Designer

Andrew Exeter

Sound Designer & Composer

XANA

Movement Director

DK Fashola

Video Designer

Jack Baxter

Casting Director

Nadine Rennie CDG

Assistant Director

Amber Sinclair-Case

Assistant Lighting Designer

Susie Yi Su

Prop Supervisor

Lily Mollgaard

WHAM Supervisor

Teváe Humphrey

Dialect Coach

Hazel Holder

Company Stage Manager

Annette Waldie

Deputy Stage Manager

Ibraheem Hamirani

Assistant Stage Manager

Catherine Mizrahi

Production Manager

Lee Batty & Andy Fox from Setting Line

Creative Associates

Ella, Scarlett, Howard, Thandiwe, Suri, Jayvaughn, Jayda, Rhema, Amelia, Tolani, Sonja

ForewordMalorie Blackman

In the mid-1990s, I read a newspaper article that started me on my Pig Heart Boy writing journey. In the article, written by a doctor, he stated that we as a society are going to have to embrace the idea of using animal organs for transplants because of the shortage of human donors. I devoured the article, absolutely fascinated. What a great idea for a story, I thought.

Knowing next to nothing about transplant operations, I watched programmes on heart surgery and read books on all kinds of organ transplantation. I was determined to get my facts right. After months of research, I finally sat down to write.

A year later, the story was finished. Cameron, a thirteen-year-old, is facing his own mortality due to a virus that has weakened his heart. His only hope is a heart-transplant operation, but human donors are in short supply. In desperation, his dad writes to a pioneering doctor who is at the vanguard of xenotransplantation – the transplanting of organs from one species into another, in this case the organs of a pig into a human.

It was incredibly important to me that the story be entirely about Cameron’s choices, actions and decisions – not mine. I wanted readers to be with Cameron every step of the way as he steered a tricky course between his decisions and their consequences.

In January 2022, the world’s first pig-heart transplant took place in Baltimore, USA. Unfortunately the recipient only survived for two months but doctors at the time stressed that the transplant gave him those extra two months of life. He was the first to receive a pig-heart transplant. I don’t believe for a second that he will be the last.

And now Pig Heart Boy has been adapted for theatre by Winsome Pinnock and will play in London before touring England in 2025. I am so thrilled that audiences will have a chance to watch this drama unfold and make up their own minds about what they would do if they were in Cameron’s shoes.

Fiction – in all its forms – reminds us that we are not alone, nurtures empathy within us for others and their circumstances, and last but not least provides entertainment.

Enjoy!

January 2025

Characters

CAMERON, thirteen years old

CATHY, Cameron’s mum

MIKE, Cameron’s dad

NAN MARILYN, Cameron’s best friend

PROFESSOR BRYCE

DR EHRLICH

ANDREW, Cameron’s friend

RASHID, Cameron’s friend

JULIE, Cameron’s friend

MRS ‘STICKY’ STEWART, Cameron’s teacher

And TRUDY PIG, REPORTERS 1 and 2, TV PRESENTER, SHOWRUNNER, POLICE OFFICER, WOMAN FROM LEPAR

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

ACT ONE

A spotlight illuminates CAMERON as he moves slowly, as though suspended in water. We can hear underwater sounds. Underneath this, the quiet pulse of a heartbeat.

CAMERON. I look up through the shimmer of the swimming-pool water to the surface where the quality of the light changes. Cocooned in its coolness, I close my eyes and count: one second, two seconds, three seconds…

The sound of the heartbeat quickens.

My chest gets tighter. Just a few more seconds… fifteen, sixteen, seventeen… The chlorine stings my eyes. My chest feels tighter, but I must stay here at the bottom of the pool. Twenty-three… twenty-four… twenty-five… I can’t hold any longer – I need to take a breath. Just one breath. (Takes a breath.) Water fills my nostrils, my lungs. (Frantic, afraid.) I try to kick, kick, kick. But the surface gets further away.

We hear the sound of beautiful music.

Then suddenly I am surrounded by the most beautiful sound: silence. I let go. Give in to the water. Am I drowning?

We hear the sound of someone shouting CAMERON’s name, as though through water. Suddenly the shouting becomes clearer as though the voice has finally burst out of the water.

The lights go up and we find CAMERON sitting on the floor of his classroom, with his classmates sniggering around him. MRS STEWART stands in front of him.

STEWART. Cameron! Cameron! What on earth are you doing?

CAMERON. Sorry, miss. I must have fallen asleep.

STEWART. I hope you’re not implying that my lesson is boring.

CAMERON. I dreamt I was at the swimming pool.

CAMERON’s classmates laugh and snigger.

STEWART. Well, you’d better swim yourself back to your desk. I will not have you disrupt the class with your stupid comic antics.

CAMERON sheepishly goes back to sit at his desk.

Silence, class. Now, where were we?… As the discriminant is sixteen, we have to add it to forty-eight… (Starts to talk gobbledegook.)

CAMERON (to audience). So, I’m not at the swimming pool after all. I’m in another boring maths lesson with Mrs Stewart. Also known as Sticky Stewart because we think she looks like a stick insect. What do you think?

STEWART. The product of forty-eight and sixteen is sixty-five – (Waits to see if anyone will correct her.)

CAMERON. It’s not sixty-five, miss. It’s sixty-four.

STEWART. I’m glad to see that you’re still awake… sixty-four. (Turns to the board and starts to talk gobbledegook again.)

ANDREW (loud whisper). Hey, Cameron, what was that all about?

RASHID. That was pretty weird, Cameron. Even for you.

MARILYN. Leave him alone. It’s not his fault he fell asleep.

JULIE. Yes, leave him alone. You know how tired he gets.

CAMERON (dreamily). Thanks, Julie.

RASHID/ANDREW (teasing). Thanks, Julie.

RASHID and ANDREW laugh and stop abruptly as MRS STEWART turns around.

STEWART. I’m just going to fetch your homework from the staffroom. See how many of these quadratic equations you can complete until my return.

The students wait until MRS STEWART leaves the room. Then all hell lets loose.

RASHID. Dance battle!

MARILYN (looks at CAMERON). Can’t we play something we can all join in? Hangman or…

RASHID. I’m sick of Hangman. I want to moooove!

RASHID pushes MARILYN into the centre of the room.

MARILYN executes a dance move. It goes into slow motion as CAMERON describes MARILYN.

CAMERON (to audience). That’s Marilyn. We’ve been best friends since primary school. Isn’t she amazing?

Everyone is chanting ‘Go, Marilyn!, Go, Marilyn!’ as she dances.

The most loyal friend you could have.

CAMERON stands in front of MARILYN in the hope of her picking him. She ignores him.

MARILYN tags ANDREW.

ANDREW executes a dance move. It’s not great and the others laugh as he does it.

ANDREW. This is like Fezziwig’s Ball in A Christmas Carol.

ANDREW trips over himself, but gets up and carries on dancing.

CAMERON. Andrew. Loves books so much that he can only understand the world through novels.

ANDREW ignores CAMERON, who gets in his face to be picked, and tags RASHID instead.

RASHID is a brilliant dancer.

Rashid is so good at football he’s been signed to the youth team of a famous club.

RASHID executes some fancy footwork. He avoids tagging CAMERON.

(To audience.) It’s like this every single time. Whatever game we play: Dance Battle, Freeze Tag or Daredevil Dive. They all avoid me.

They all go back to normal speed. RASHID tags JULIE who just stands there.

MARILYN. Go on, Julie.

JULIE. I can’t dance to this.

The music changes and JULIE starts a ballet-style dance to the tune of Tchaikovsky’s ‘Dance of the Little Swans’.

CAMERON. Julie. The best-looking girl in the school, the area, London, England, the world. You get the picture. She’s also pretty smart. Almost as smart as me.

MARILYN, RASHID and ANDREW join JULIE in the pas de quatre. CAMERON keeps trying to join in, but they won’t let him.

(To audience.) See what I mean? They’re scared that if I exert myself I’ll have a heart attack and die. Like this…

CAMERON suddenly clutches his chest and falls to the floor, writhing in agony.

MARILYN (screams). Cameron. Oh my God. He’s had a heart attack.

They all panic and surround CAMERON while he lies on the ground.

RASHID. What shall we do?

ANDREW. You’re going to be a doctor, aren’t you, Julie?

JULIE. Not a medical doctor, silly. I’m going to be a PhD.

MARILYN (worried). Why isn’t he moving? Cameron?

JULIE. Is he dead? He’s dead. (Starts to cry and wail.) Oh, Cameron. I’m sorry I didn’t invite you to my pool party.

RASHID/ANDREW. You had a pool party?

JULIE looks away, embarrassed.

JULIE. It was close family only.

RASHID. You’ve got a swimming pool?

MARILYN. Shut up, everyone. Call an ambulance. Do something.

JULIE starts to cry again.

RASHID. Someone give him the kiss of life.

ANDREW. What you all looking at me for? You’ve all done first aid, you do it.

MARILYN. I’m his best friend. I’ll do it.

A frightened MARILYN gets down and puts CAMERON in the recovery position. She is about to start pumping his heart when he jumps up, howling with laughter.

CAMERON. Gotcha!

MARILYN. That’s not funny, Cameron.