Chicken Shop: NHB Modern Plays

A dark and twisted coming-of-age story by the Bruntwood Prize-winning author of Yen.

Hendrix is growing up. Or at least he’s trying to. He’s sick of his mother and her constant preaching on the virtues of an organic lifestyle. And he’s sick of her girlfriend, a twentysomething stunner who winds him up relentlessly. But most of all he's sick of the bullies at school, who think if his mum is gay then he must be too.

In a desperate attempt to prove his masculinity, Hendrix enters a very adult world - but gets more than he bargained for. He meets Luminita, a young girl enslaved in an unbearable life, and their secret friendship grows in snatched moments in a room above a chicken shop.

Chicken Shop premiered at the Park Theatre, London, in September 2014.

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, and teaches acting and playwriting.

'a fine piece of challenging theatre' - WhatsOnStage

'utterly convincing... crackle[s] with menace... [Anna Jordan is] a talented and deeply compassionate new writer' - Time Out

'Playwright Anna Jordan is the coming thing' - Guardian