PLOT - A One-Act Play
PLOT - A one-act play...but with two acts!
The action takes place in November, backstage in a small town hall. The local arts festival has commissioned a new musical titled PLOT, expecting to see a historical drama about the events of 1605. Starring, written and directed by former resident wild child Jamie King, the show re-imagines the gunpowder plot as a revenge tragedy led by the King’s spurned lover, Gay Fawkes. The script is as terrible as it sounds, and the songs are even worse. The actors fear for their reputations, and plot in secret to sabotage opening night. Ten minutes before curtain up, they decide to set off the smoke detectors, forcing an evacuation of the building. What could possibly go wrong?
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Cast 3M 2F minimal set
Jamie King (m) Actor writer, director
Jon (m) Actor, younger brother of Jamie
Richard (m) Actor, friend of Jon
Susan (f) Actor
Alison (f) Actor, friend of Jamie
Running time 35 mins
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PLOT was written in 2019 and performed at The Lighthorne Festival in Warwickshire on 7 June 2019. The nationally recognised festival hosts a dozen plays over four nights. Previous winners have gone on to become national champions at the NDFA British All-Winners Final. The festival audience loved PLOT and we received a very positive critique from the festival adjudicator who called it "a masterpiece of kitsch".
PLOT (full length play )
Plot is designed to be performed either as a stand-alone one act play suitable for festivals, or as a full length play in two acts. The full length version has 4M& 3F and uses the same basic set.
Act two (subtitled The Plot Thickens) takes place one year after the arts festival fiasco. The characters are reluctantly reunited to perform a Christmas pageant at the re-opening of the Town Hall. Jamie arrives with his new boyfriend in tow, and proceeds to take over the production in his usual style, reimagining the nativity story as a gritty urban drama.
Cast 4M 3F
Jamie (m) Actor writer, director
Jon (m) Actor, younger brother of Jamie
Richard (m) Actor
Susan (f) Actor
Alison (f) Actor
Guido (m) Jamie’s boyfriend
Yvonne (f) Mother to Jamie and Jon
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JAMIE: Art is provocative, Alison. It’s challenging and daring. I’m demanding their attention. I want the audience to leave the theatre with their heads turned.
ALISON: They’ll leave all right. With their stomachs turned and demanding their money back. You have to change it - or better still cut that whole scene.
JAMIE: I’m not rewriting that scene, it will spoil the whole show.
ALISON: Too late. Even Nigella couldn’t make this turkey appealing. PLOT Act 1 Scene 4
Testimonials
A “broad, scurrilous comedy with “sharp writing and good gags” that “hit the right tone”. “Outrageously camp… with more shades than I expected” - Mike Kaiser, GoDA 2019 Lighthorne Festival
"30 minutes of non-stop comedy, lewd and rude, Plot takes the line between funny and offensive and uses it as a skipping rope"
- Ben T.
“Original, funny and fast paced script with strong, well written characters. Very adult, very witty and thought provoking" - Emily V.
“The rudest play I ever saw at Lighthorne" -Rod Chaytor, Lighthorne Festival Chair
