Yen (NHB Modern Plays)

By Anna Jordan

Anna Jordan's Bruntwood Prize-winning play, Yen explores a childhood lived without boundaries and the consequences of being forced to grow up on your own.

Hench is sixteen, Bobbie is thirteen. They’re home alone in Feltham with their dog Taliban; playing PlayStation, streaming porn, watching the world go by. Sometimes their mum Maggie visits, usually with empty pockets and empty promises. Then Jenny shows up.

Yen won the 2013 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting, and was first performed at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, in 2015.

This new edition published alongside the Royal Court Theatre production in January 2016.

'[a] brutal but tender study of brotherhood... the dynamic range of Jordan’s writing is extraordinary... achieves the uncommon feat of being difficult to watch yet easy to love' - Guardian

'very impressive... [Jordan] has a great ear for dialogue' - British Theatre Guide

'bring[s] to mind Philip Ridley’s Mercury Fur... [asks] lots of necessary and potent questions' - Exeunt Magazine

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Release date: Jan 21, 2015
• ISBN: 9781780015644

Anna Jordan

Anna Jordan's play Yen won the 2013 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting. Her other plays include Chicken Shop (Park Theatre, 2014), Freak (Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh, 2014), Closer To God (Best Play and Audience Award at the Offcut Festival, 2009) and Just For Fun – Totally Random (Best New Writing at the Lost One Act Festival, 2009). As a director her work has included Crystal Springs (Eureka, San Francisco, 2014) and Tomorrow I’ll Be Happy by Jonathan Harvey at the National Theatre Shed as part of the 2013 Connections Festival. She is Artistic Director of Without a Paddle Theatre, Associate Director at Theatre503, London, and teaches acting and playwriting.