Idyll (NHB Modern Plays)

By Matt Hartley

Tempers are fraying in the scorching heat as a rural village is overwhelmed by noise, cars and day trippers… Scratch the surface and you'll find danger bubbling away.
Matt Hartley's captivating short play Idyll was first presented as an open-air production by Pentabus Theatre Company in 2021.
'A compelling rural portrait put across with vigour' - Guardian

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Release date: Mar 16, 2024
• ISBN: 9781788507837

Matt Hartley

Matt Hartley grew up in the Peak District and studied drama at the University of Hull. His first play Sixty Five Miles won a Bruntwood Award in the inaugural Bruntwood Competition and was produced by Paines Plough/Hull Truck in 2012. Other work for theatre includes: The Wife of Cyncoed (Sherman Theatre, Cardiff, 2024); Idyll (Pentabus Theatre tour, 2021); Eyam (Shakespeare's Globe, 2018); Here I Belong (Pentabus tour, 2016); Deposit (Hampstead Theatre Downstairs, 2015); Microcosm (Soho Theatre, 2014); Horizon (National Theatre Connections, 2014); The Bee (Edinburgh Festival, 2008); Punch (Hampstead/Heat and Light Company); and Epic, Trolls and Life for Beginners (all at Theatre503, London). He has written for TV's Hollyoaks and his radio plays include The Pursuit and Final Call.

Book preview

Matt Hartley

IDYLL

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Original Production Details

Acknowledgements

Idyll

About the Author

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

Idyll was first produced by Pentabus and performed at Stokesay Court, Onibury, on 18 August 2021 before touring. The company was as follows:

Acknowledgements

Deepest thanks to Elle While, Sophie Motley, Harry Egan and the entire Pentabus team. I had the privilege of growing up in a village similar to the one in this play, so thanks to all those I went to school and grew up with for their unwitting inspiration, and of course my wife, daughter and family.

M.H.

The performer welcomes people, smiles hello, it’s informal, friendly. When ready…

THE STORY

Hello.

I want you to imagine you are looking at a map.

An Ordnance Survey map.

If it helps close your eyes. I promise I won’t use this as a chance to steal your bags and do a runner, leaving you with your eyes closed for fifty minutes.

Now, you can feel the map in your hand.

You can hear it crinkling as you unfold it, as you spread it out, onto your lap, your desk, your car bonnet, your…

(A gesture, whatever you’d do it on.)

Key thing is, this is not Google Earth, it’s not Street View. Not on your phone or computer.

You are not zooming in to see if it really is a swimming pool in that back garden.

It is paper.

It is tangible.

Real.

It has a universal language. Symbols that as you recognise them tell you a story of the land.

Of its geography.

Now, if you are that person who unfolds the whole map out.

Takes up all the space around you, or what you have spread it out on.

(They demonstrate the act.)

We all know that person, might even be sat next to them. They will be a man.

Well curb your natural instincts – less in this case is definitely more.

What is in front of you is a map that is about eight squares across and twelve upwards – sounds like I’m describing a game of battleships – imagine the size