Brian Coyle - Playwright
TIMELESS
If you can't trust your memory, what can you trust?
Martin has a problem - he can’t make new memories since he went to the dentist ten years ago. He's a cabbie with the Knowledge, but he can't remember yesterday. It’s not only strange and upsetting for him, his wife has the unenviable task of explaining what’s wrong with him every single day - and the strain is beginning to show.
A production by Mixed Up Theatre of this 60 min single-hander was performed in London in 2018 at the Hen & Chickens in Islington (as part of the Camden Fringe) and also at Theatre N16 in the same year.
In 2021, a further production (with the same team) performed it at The Space (London) and then took it on a mini-tour to Manchester (53Two Theatre) and Bristol (The Alma Theatre).
★★★★★ "Outstanding... a must see!" North West End
★★★★★ "an absolute treat" London Theatre 1
★★★★ "a masterwork of understated wit and humanity" Everything Theatre
★★★★ "thought-provoking and human" The_Upcoming
TIMELESS was performed again by the same team in 2024 at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
You can buy the script to read here.
THE BOX
Tom and Kate have a large square box sitting in the middle of their living room. What’s in it and why does it matter to them?
Relationships aren’t always easy. Couples negotiate, compromise – and even lie to each other. Most of these lies don’t have consequences, but some do; some have serious consequences.
It was first performed at The egg theatre part of Theatre Royal, Bath in 2018 directed by Jenny Davies and starring Alice Grace and Tom Turner.
This 70min two-hander was performed again in July 2024 at The White Bear Theatre in London. Starring Martin Edwards and Sarah Lawrie. Directed by Jonathan Woolf. Reviews for this production below.
★★★★★ "a beautifully layered play" London Theatre 1
★★★★ "a strikingly original piece of new writing" The Reviews Hub
★★★★ "moving and visceral" Lou Reviews
★★★★ "not a word wasted" Love London Love Culture
★★★★ "Lawrie is heartbreak personified" Breaking the Fourth Wall
★★★★ "the suspense is unrelenting" North West End
WELCOME TO PARADISE ROAD
In a society where nothing is private and no one knows who to trust, a woman’s partner has disappeared. She is visiting her neighbour, head of the local Neighbourhood Watch, to find out if she’s heard anything about his disappearance. Will her neighbour help her or is she the person she should be most afraid of?
WELCOME TO PARADISE ROAD is a 60min play about creeping state control and the dangers of our surveillance society. It was first performed in Apr 2016 at the Page to Stage Theatre Festival in Liverpool. It won several awards at the festival including Best Script (Brian Coyle), Best Director (Emma Bird) and Best Female Actor (Emily Heyworth). The same company performed the play in Jul 16 at the Greater Manchester Fringe.
You can find out more about the play here.
KING OF THE WORLD
What happens when the man who has everything is still not satisfied?
In a kingdom ruthlessly ruled over by a paranoid King, one of his lowliest subjects has had enough of his madness. Can he survive defying the King, especially when he can't even trust the loyalty of his best friend?
KING OF THE WORLD is a dark comedy that looks at the ramifications of "strong man" leaders on ordinary people within a society.
It was performed at the Liverpool Fringe in June 2018 and the Greater Manchester Fringe in August 2018. Starring Keith Hyland, Pea Lee and Sean McGlynn. Dir Emma Bird.
It was nominated for: Best Actor, Best Director, Best New Writing and Best Overall Production at the Liverpool Fringe Awards 2018. You can find out more about the play here.
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OFFSHORE
A troubled young man standing on a cold deserted beach stares out at the uninviting sea and spots something magical out there. What is it he sees?
In this play three lost souls meet on the same beach every day. They each have their own issues and they each can't seem to move forward with their lives. Can they help each other to find their way?
OFFSHORE is an 80min play about loss, longing, mental health and about the mystery of our natural world. It's a story of three ordinary people and their connection to each other and to the infinite.
THE SHIRES
A young woman from a small left-behind rural town, Perry, is lost and drifting. It's a year since her dad's death and she spends most of her time hanging around the local shopping centre (The Shires) drinking cider and smoking dope with her rightwing mate Spencer. When she strikes up an unlikely friendship with Graham the Carry-Bag-Man, a local character who usually speaks to no one, Spencer isn't happy – he has it in for Graham, and for some other people in the town. But could the weird old man be Perry’s saviour?
Within the context of a town (and country) that seems to be losing its way, the play's three characters grapple with personal tragedy, social isolation and an uncontrollable rage towards a "rigged system".
THE SHIRES is a 90min three hander.
LIFEFORCE
Alex has a lot to live for: their friendship with their flat-mate Serena, their lovely mum, their passion for Bake Off, their budding stand-up career and their fledgling romance with the beautiful Barista from Pret. So why have they taken an overdose and are in hospital, with a medical team fighting for their life? Will they survive and do they even want to?
In this 50 min single-hander about grief, mental health and the meaning/point of life Alex tells us their story, as we find out how they got to this frightening point in their life.
You can read this script here: LIFEFORCE
ON BOWER HILL
Four youngsters spend much of their free time drinking cider on Bower Hill. One of them has recently joined the army to move on from his chaotic teenage years and help set him and his girlfriend up with a new life. The army has made him grow up fast, but having escaped one chaotic life he now finds himself in another – an active war-zone thousands of miles away.
This 90min play is about four teenagers on the cusp of adulthood; it's about surviving in a small left-behind town; and it’s about masculinity – especially its destructive aspects – and how it affects the men who have to live up to it and the women who have to live with it.
A 30min extract was performed at the Theatre Royal Bath (egg Theatre) in 2018 (dir: Stephanie Kempson).
THE STANDING STONES OF LANGASH
Three siblings. One cottage. One storm. Finn left the remote Scottish island he was brought up on years ago and has since become a bestselling novelist. Now his sister Cath has summoned him home to see their dying father, along with their brother Danny, a charming, broke fantasist who has never let the truth get in the way of a good story. As a storm shuts the ferries, the whisky comes out, and the Milligans do what they do best: talk about everything except what matters.
Who owns the memories shared within a family? And if these memories are contested how can we ever get at the real truth? THE STANDING STONES OF LANGASH is a 90 min darkly comic exploration of memory, family secrets, grief, the ethics of turning your family into fiction and how to navigate a way of accepting each others' truths.
LOCKED IN
On Monday 23rd of March 2020, as the spread of Covid became increasingly deadly and the strain on the NHS unsustainable, the country entered Lockdown.
In a reaction to those first fearful weeks Brian wrote twelve short monologues about how it felt to be in the middle of that extraordinary time. Twelve actors recorded them on their phones and they were released online.
Five years later he wondered whether it might be time to revisit how we all felt during those times. He spliced together the twelve monologies into a 60min minute single piece of drama for four actors. The piece captures the raw emotions we were all feeling then and how in times of mortal danger what is important in life becomes crystal clear.
You can see the original videos here: We Will Not Be Silenced.
GLADNESS
What if the most dangerous thing you can do is to feel something?
GLADNESS is a 100min play set in a near-future state governed by an AI superintelligence that has concluded that human emotion is the source of all society’s ills. Its solution is merciless: any strong feelings are considered illegal, citizens are permitted only a mild contentment, a "gladness".
Into this world two women start an illicit relationship that can surely only end badly. As the two women try to unknow what they feel for each other, the play asks: in a society where we have surrendered our governance to an unhuman “higher intelligence”, what will remain of what makes us human.