The Small Things

Two chairs, a table, a high window. An old woman, an old man. Prompted by their alarm clocks they tell their story. They tell of a village in which people's tongues are cut out, making them 'the Silent'. They tell of a ten-year-old boy lying in the woods, battered to death, his tongue cut out. They tell of children lined up outside the local pool - blue with cold in their swimming costumes - waiting to have their tongues cut out, then to be immersed in the pool. It's clearly a story they need to tell...The Small Things, the new play by the author of Disco Pigs and Bedbound, is a startling Beckettian fable - or perhaps post-Beckettian. Enda Walsh is already known for the stunning impact of his plays on stage. The Small Things will be no exception. The Small Things is premiered by Paines Plough, one of the UK's leading new writing companies, in a season called This Other England inspired by Melvyn Bragg's Radio 4 series The Routes of English. It will open in Glasgow, tour to Plymouth and Dundee before playing in London at the trendy new Menier Chocolate Factory in Southwark. The press on Walsh's previous work: 'electric' (Sunday Times on Disco Pigs); 'hand grenades' (Guardian on Misterman); 'magnetic' (Irish Times on Bedbound)