When You Cure Me (NHB Modern Plays)

By Jack Thorne

A painful - and painfully funny - play about being very young and in love - and coping with serious illness at the same time.

Rachel and Peter are seventeen. They have been going out for six months. It's love's young dream. Then Rachel gets ill - seriously ill. She doesn't want her mum to fuss; she doesn't want Alice to pretend she's her best friend; and she certainly doesn't want Alice's boyfriend telling bad jokes at her bedside. The only person she wants is Peter, but Peter doesn't know what it is that he wants.

When You Cure Me premiered at the Bush Theatre, London, in 2005.

'In one of the year's finest pieces of new writing... a compassionate, gripping portrait of a fledgling relationship that is asked to bear more than many well-established marriages' Evening Standard

'painstakingly honest... acutely observant of the petty rivalries and jealousies that sickness provokes' Guardian

'[has] a merciless precision... a brave piece of writing that, with its damaged and angry heroine, unflinchingly shows us not a vision of saintly suffering, but a far more engagingly human struggle for survival' The Times

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Release date: Aug 21, 2014
• ISBN: 9781780012421

Jack Thorne

Jack Thorne is a playwright and BAFTA-winning screenwriter. His plays for the stage include: When Winston Went to War with the Wireless (Donmar Warehouse, 2023); The Motive and the Cue (National Theatre and West End, 2023); After Life, an adaptation of a film by Hirokazu Kore-eda (National Theatre, 2021); the end of history... (Royal Court, London, 2019); an adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol (Old Vic, London, 2017); an adaptation of Büchner's Woyzeck (Old Vic, London, 2017); Junkyard (Headlong, Bristol Old Vic, Rose Theatre Kingston and Theatr Clwyd, 2017); Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Palace Theatre, London, 2016); The Solid Life of Sugar Water (Graeae and Theatre Royal Plymouth, 2015); Hope (Royal Court, London, 2015); adaptations of Let the Right One In (National Theatre of Scotland at Dundee Rep, the Royal Court and the Apollo Theatre, London, 2013/14) and Stuart: A Life Backwards (Underbelly, Edinburgh and tour, 2013); Mydidae (Soho, 2012; Trafalgar Studios, 2013); an adaptation of Friedrich Dürrenmatt's The Physicists (Donmar Warehouse, 2012); Bunny (Underbelly, Edinburgh, 2010; Soho, 2011); 2nd May 1997 (Bush, 2009); When You Cure Me (Bush, 2005; Radio 3's Drama on Three, 2006); Fanny and Faggot (Pleasance, Edinburgh, 2004 and 2007; Finborough, 2007; English Theatre of Bruges, 2007; Trafalgar Studios, 2007); and Stacy (Tron, 2006; Arcola, 2007; Trafalgar Studios, 2007). His television work includes His Dark Materials, Then Barbara Met Alan (with Genevieve Barr), The Eddy, Help, The Accident, Kiri, National Treasure and This is England ’86/’88/’90. His films include The Swimmers (with Sally El Hosaini), Enola Holmes, Radioactive, The Aeronauts and Wonder. He was the recipient of the Writers' Guild of Great Britain Award for Outstanding Contribution to Writing in 2022.