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Darts time at 'The Frog & Duck Pub' with a middle-aged woman sipping a glass of Pinot

Playing Away

Janet Shaw

Genre: Black Comedy

Cast size: 13

Duration: Two Act

Janet Shaw | Black Comedy | Full-length | 5m, 8f

Short synopsis

Kath and Alan are the landlord and landlady of a Northern pub. Kath discovers that she's pregnant, but Alan has had a vasectomy and he can't believe that he is the father. Could it be that someone at the pub other than the darts team has been playing away? Alan might be the father, but the pub's regulars provide a host of fascinating characters for him to wonder about. This is a play that allows for some deep emotional questioning but that is balanced with some very funny dialogue and some bizarre characters for your cast to inhabit and your audience to enjoy.

It's darts time again at the Frog and Duck in downtown Barnsley (or wherever). The girls' team have made the final again and the lads, well the lads are struggling. The excitement of the competition is overshadowed when a routine medical examination jeopardises the rock-solid marriage of landlord Alan and his wife Kath.

Kath is pregnant, but Alan has had a vasectomy. Could it be that someone at the pub other than the darts team has been playing away?

On the lads team, it's honesty time for Gary, when he has to face the truth about himself, and it's crunch time for compulsive liar Danny, when he meets his match in socialite Tara Smythe-Hamilton. Meanwhile on the girls team, Dawn realises that years of unrequited love are finally over.

Throw in an interfering mother-in-law for Alan, an unintelligible Irish man and the town's worst dieters and you have the recipe for a night of hilarity fused together with just the right amount of pathos.

(5m, 8f)

  • Danny- 18-30 years old, a local at the pub
  • Alan- mid 40's, landlord of the Frog And Duck
  • Kath- 39, Alan's wife
  • Claire- 18-30 years old, a local at the pub
  • Dawn- 18-30 years old, a local at the pub
  • Gary- 18-30 years old, a local at the pub
  • Simon- 18-30 years old, a local at the pub
  • Sarah- 17-18 years old, the daughter of Alan and Kath
  • Joyce- 30-50 years old, a barmaid
  • Velma- 30-50 years old, a barmaid
  • Gwen- 60-65 years old, a snob, knows her own mind, doesn't suffer fools gladly
  • Seamus- 40-50 years old, Irishman, a local at the pub, admires Velma
  • Tara- Danny's posh new girlfriend. Mid 20's, a 'sloane ranger'

"The Hampton Amateur Theatre Society had great fun performing 'Playing Away' and we received a fantastic review both from our NODA Rep and from our special invited guest, the Mayor of Peterborough. The audience said it was our best production yet!"Giselle Rawlins, HATS Secretary & Publicity Manager

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Playing Away

Free
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