When an unhappy estate agent sells a house to Alice, a charismatic social media influencer, the two strike up an unlikely friendship. But as her obsession with Alice's seemingly perfect world intensifies, the lines between online and reality become dangerously blurred. A thrilling, twisted and razor-sharp comedy on the corrosive effects of social media and isolation, Phoebe Eclair-Powell's play Harm premiered at the Bush Theatre, London, in May 2021.
Phoebe Eclair-Powell is a writer from South East London. Her plays include: Dorian, adapted with Owen Horsley from Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (Reading Rep Theatre, 2021); Harm (Bush Theatre, 2021); Epic Love and Pop Songs (Pleasance, Edinburgh, 2016); Fury (Soho Theatre, 2016; finalist for the 2015 Verity Bargate Award; winner of the Soho Theatre Young Writers' Award); WINK (Theatre503, 2015); One Under (Pleasance Below); Mrs Spine (OUTLINES at the Old Red Lion); Bangin' Wolves (Courting Drama at the Bush Upstairs, published by Playdead Press, later with Poleroid Theatre for Wilderness Festival); two rapid write response pieces, Coal Eaters and Glass Hands (Theatre503); The Box (Theatre Delicatessen SPACED festival and Latitude Festival); Elephant and My Castle (SALT Theatre at Southwark Playhouse); CARE (Miniaturists at the Arcola). She was the overall winner of the 2019 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting, for her play Shed: Exploded View.
Title: Harm (NHB Modern Plays)
Author: Phoebe Eclair-Powell
ISBN: 9781848429932
Binding:
Publisher: Nick Hern Books
Publication Date: 2021-05-20
Number of Pages: 64
Weight: 0.0600 kg
'An edgy psychological drama... shines a light on aspects of what is becoming an increasingly virtual society, especially for those in their 20s and 30s, obsessed with image and success beyond the point of reason'
* British Theatre Guide *
'Phoebe Eclair-Powell's razor-sharp monologue about social media toxicity and trolling... Tense, heady and full of savage laughter, it is intoxicating from beginning to end. Eclair-Powell's script glints and her barbed wit stings... Harm might be small in scale but it is magnificent in effect'
* Guardian *
'A devastatingly acute picture both of the loneliness of the narrator's existence - Sometimes I don't brush my teeth before bed - and of the glossiness of an online world where events such as cooking, or home decorating, aren't activities but opportunities to create content for an avid group of followers'
* Whatsonstage *
'This cracking new piece by rising talent Phoebe Eclair-Powell [is] just as effective at summoning entire worlds as any epic musical or drama'
* Telegraph *
'An arresting, soul-searching monologue'
* The Times *
'Eclair-Powell tells this terrifying tale with a beautiful blend of sharp observation and knowing humour... wonderfully original in its quirkiness... a smart and sassy study of loneliness and obsession'
* Arts Desk *
