For All I Care (NHB Modern Plays)

By Alan Harris

Clara and Nyri. Two very different women. Two complicated lives. Both having a very bad day.
Mental health nurse Nyri's woken up hungover with a younger man. Meanwhile, Clara has developed a compulsive wink and can't remember if she's taken her meds.
Nyri needs to get to Ebbw Vale Hospital via Greggs, and Clara's got to get cracking with her shoplifting list for The Devil.
Interweaving and unexpected connections collide in Alan Harris's fast-moving, touchingly funny play. Originally performed by one actor, as part of National Theatre Wales' celebration of the NHS, the play subsequently transferred to the 2019 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Release date: Aug 21, 2019
• ISBN: 9781788502481

Alan Harris

Alan Harris is a playwright and librettist. His plays include: For All I Care (National Theatre of Wales, 2018); Sugar Baby (Dirty Protest, 2017); How My Light Is Spent (Royal Exchange, Manchester / Sherman Theatre / Theatre by the Lake, Keswick, 2017; winner of the Judges’ Award at the 2015 Bruntwood Prize); Love, Lies and Taxidermy (Paines Plough UK tour, 2016); The Opportunity of Efficiency (New National Theatre Tokyo/National Theatre Wales); The Magic Toyshop (Invisible Ink/Theatr Iolo); The Future for Beginners (liveartshow/Wales Millennium Centre); A Good Night Out in the Valleys (National Theatre Wales); Re-Set (Mess Up The Mess); Marsha (Capital Fringe, Washington DC); Cardboard Dad (Sherman Cymru); Miss Brown To You (Hijinx Theatre); Orange (Sgript Cymru); Come To Where I’m From (Paines Plough). He has also written radio plays for BBC Radio 4 and Radio 3. Libretti include: Marsha: A Girl Who Does Bad Things (liveartshow/Arcola Grimeborn Festival); The Hidden Valley (Birdsong Opera/Welsh National Opera/Tête à Tête Opera Festival); The Journey (Welsh National Opera); Rhinegold, Manga Sister (liveartshow/The Yard, London).

Book preview

Clara

It started with winking. I’m lying in bed, listening to Jay-Z on the radio, trying not to think. Then… wink. Never been a winker. More of a blinker. If I try to close one eye the other is destined to follow. You see? I’ve always thought winking is for people with a swagger and what have I got to swagger about? Nowt.

Now and again my body gives me little messages, in different ways, and this time it happens to be winking.

A Thursday and I’m not thinking but winking. Sweating. It’s 7.58 a.m. and I’m dripping. Thirty degrees in Blaenau Gwent in a flat where all the windows are nailed or painted shut. Roasting. Believe me, it’s not a home, it’s a tomb.

The heat has built up for days and days, something my nan would have called ‘too hot for dogs’. Too hot to sleep, too hot for my head, in bed, in a corner of the globe called Green Meadows. Opposite the Flying Start Hub in Sirhowy, you knows? Who ever named it Green Meadows must have been on crack and I’m feeling strange cos of the heat and, on my back, in bed, my naked body stretched out, Despicable Me duvet flung long ago onto the brown-and-white Home Bargains rug, I can see the Artex swirls where they should be and my left eye… winks.

Every few seconds my left eye closes and opens without command. Shit. My brain is overheating.

But what can you do or say? Who do you say it to? Put on your sunglasses, have a bowl of Cheerios and prepare for the day.

Today’s going to be sticky, tricky, cos of the heat. Look up and out the skylight in the kitchenette, blue canvas in a picture frame. I ponder the challenges of that blue yonder, today, as the kettle struggles to catch up with the heat. I consider some toast but the toaster is broken.

I’m a shoplifter. And hot weather is the pits for shoplifting.

I steal to order for a girl called Diane. Diane scares the shit out of me. You know those types, not big but scary – her calmness makes me wary. Diane is The Devil and she must be obeyed or else she will burn me. Got orders from The Devil for three pairs of leggings, two spangly tops, a mohair jumper and a puffa jacket. In July. Only in Tredegar, I tell you. Dare not come back with anything less than the list. Diane hosts a get-together every week at her red-brick semi – sort of an Ann Summers party for shoplifted goods. She even puts on a golden spread of food stolen from M&S in Friar’s Walk.

I look out on to the back, and through my sunglasses I can