Morgan is stingy with her facts. At the beginning of their marriage, Maggie and Billy emigrate to an unnamed part of America, as if the playwright wants to separate them from family and friends. The times are only lightly suggested when, in what must be the ’70s, Billy objects to Maggie taking a job in the local library … While Morgan struggles to avoid sentimentality, the production, with its musical underscoring and evocative images, is less restrained … Apart from the occasional clumsy piece of choreography, Frantic Assembly and Morgan have created a highly emotional, tender piece, in which the intensity is remarkably sustained over 90 minutes. It feels as if one is holding one’s breath from the first line to the last. Ageing, memory and the passage of time are powerful themes that affect us all. No wonder it’s a case of tissues at the ready.” A staunch opponent of Brexit, Morgan was one of nine leading playwrights to contribute to a series of online dramas in 2017 responding to the causes and consequences of the EU referendum result. Entitled Brexit Shorts, Morgan's monologue, The End, starred Penelope Wilton as a woman on the brink as she faces the consequences of the end of her 43-year-old marriage. [11] Non Fiction [ edit ]

Index entry". FreeBMD. ONS. Archived from the original on 14 July 2022 . Retrieved 25 February 2020. Sam Cox's recent stage work includes Anne Boleyn, All's Well That Ends Well (both Shakespeare's Globe), Inherit the Wind (Old Vic), Arcadia (West End), God in Ruins (RSC/Soho), Macbeth and King John (both RSC). His film and TV work includes Doctor Who (BBC TV), Prime Suspect (Granada) and Hippy Hippy Shake. Morgan, Abi (2022). This is Not a Pity Memoir. London: John Murray Press. ISBN 978-1-5293-8833-6. OCLC 1313596963. Growing old and dying are two things that haunt us all. I fear that as I get older, the person I once was will begin to disappear. I worry about the fragments of my life that I will leave scattered behind me – will they be worth it? I worry that I won’t be remembered and that growing old will only bring me closer to my death. This, in many ways, is a direct reaction to Love Song, Frantic Assembly’s latest production at Lyric Hammersmith. I feel sure that many members of the audience had the same experiences, because Abi Morgan’s play so naturally captures universal fears.a b Lewis, Helen (15 October 2015). "Abi Morgan on Suffragette: "These were voiceless women. We gave them a voice" ". New Statesman. Archived from the original on 17 February 2017 . Retrieved 16 February 2017. The high-concept premise is that the same couple is portrayed by Sam Cox and Sian Phillips over a few days late in life, and in their 20s and 30s by the younger actors. Each pair of actors almost always interacts only with each other, but all four are frequently on stage at the same time: the end of one scene overlaps with the next, and Morgan skillfully sets up plot points and themes in one frame that are supplemented or advanced by information provided in the other. Older Billy opens the fridge in his spacious middle-American kitchen, and out pops Margaret in a ’60s outfit, gleefully exploring the home they’re just moving into. Going through boxes of stuff from the attic, Maggie wonders why they ever needed those silly Chinese lanterns — and the lanterns then appear in a climactic scene in the earlier plot. Love Song is a piece of theatre that is about growing old and falling in love. About the endurance of relationships and the decaying of the human body. It’s a refreshing, more distilled Frantic Assembly production, and one that will be sure to strike an emotional cord within each and every one of its audience members. If Love Song has anything to teach a younger audience, it is to enjoy life to its fullest, to accept love when it happens, and to understand that relationships are about being in a constant flux, even if you’re nearing ‘the end’. Nothing is a given, and everything is to play for. A caring and weepy night of theatre.

Morgan gained her first television writing credit in 1998 on the continuing ITV drama series Peak Practice, following that with a television play My Fragile Heart (2000) and a BBC2 drama Murder in 2002, starring Julie Walters. [4]Abi Morgan is an award-winning writer whose plays have been widely performed across the country. Her hit drama The Split recently aired its final series on the BBC. Directed by Frantic Assembly's artistic directors Scott Graham and Steven Hoggett, the production will tour the UK, beginning on 30 September 2011 at the Drum Theatre, Plymouth, with a three week London run at the Lyric Hammersmith from 11 January 2012 (Plymouth press night 3 October; London press night 12 January). Leanne Rowe's theatre credits include Dirty Dancing (West End), Talent ( Menier Chocolate Factory) and Mysterious Skin (Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh). Her film credits include Jane Eyre (dir. Franco Zeffirelli) and Oliver Twist (dir. Roman Polanski.