Sparks [Paperback]

Remember you saying you could speak to anything if you wanted to. Right? Did you say that? Remember that. Said you could speak to the stars. Just had to know how to do it.

It's raining in the Midlands. Again. It won't stop. Someone's standing in it. They're shivering. They're cold. They're waiting for someone they haven't seen in a very long time. They've got a rucksack full of alcohol. And a fish.

A touching play about abandoned responsibilities, what we choose to remember and what we thought we'd forgotten.

This programme text edition was published to coincide with the world premiere at the Old Red Lion theatre, London on 10 November 2015.

Simon Longmangrew up in the West Midlands. He studied Drama and Theatre Studies in the rain in Manchester before moving to London. He has had work performed at the Arcola Theatre and the Lost Theatre and is currently part of the Royal Court Young Writers Programme. Simon won the 2014 Channel 4 Playwrights Scheme (formerly the Pearson Playwrights' Scheme), and is currently writer in residence at Pentabus Theatre Company.Milkedpremiered in November 2013 in a production by Pentabus. His first play,Milked, was published by Bloomsbury Methuen Drama in 2015.

words pour out in a torrent in this new play by former Royal Court Young Writer Simon Longman. . . . A funny, dreamlike, but also achingly sad, new play about loss, hurt and the ties that bind us Stage

A moving new play about the importance of family . . . a beautifully low-key family drama that purrs with feeling. . . . Simon Longman's sparkling new play . . . Longman's dialogue flows like water: it's natural and fresh and ripples with energy. . . . packed with subtle moments that brim with bruised meaning. . . . the despair and joy, loneliness and connection, which family can provide is bundled up in the very fabric of this show. Time Out London