Radiant Vermin: (Modern Plays)

I feel this . . . thing inside me. Just here. Next to my heart. It's small. The size of sparrow. I don't know what it looks like. But I know it's got claws because it scratches. And I imagine it to be dark blue - mauve almost - like the veins on my mum's hands. I hear it talking. Its voice is high pitched and screeching. It's talking about all the things we've done. A wickedly comic satire about a young couple offered a way out of the housing crisis, and just how far they're prepared to go for it. Ollie and Jill want to tell you about their dream home. Some of the things they did to get it, you might find shocking. But they want you to know they did it all for their baby . . . A hilarious and outrageous black comedy from internationally acclaimed 'master of modern myth' (Guardian) Philip Ridley. Playful, provocative and viciously sharp, Radiant Vermin is a meditation on how far we will go to satisfy our materialistic greed. The play received its world premiere on 10 March 2015 at Soho Theatre, London.

About the Author :
Philip Ridley was born in the East End of London. He has written eleven stage plays: The Pitchfork Disney, The Fastest Clock in the Universe, Ghost from a Perfect Place, Vincent River, Mercury Fur, Leaves of Glass, Piranha Heights, Tender Napalm, Shivered (nominated Off-West End Best New Play Award), Dark Vanilla Jungle and Radiant Vermin, plus several plays for young people: Karamazoo, Fairytaleheart, Moonfleece (named as one of the 50 Best Works About Cultural Diversity by the National Centre for Children's Books), Sparkleshark and Brokenville, and Feathers in the Snow. He has also written books for children, including Scribbleboy (shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal), Kasper in the Glitter (nominated for the Whitbread Prize), Mighty Fizz Chilla (shortlisted for the Blue Peter Book of the Year Award), ZinderZunder, Vinegar Street, Zip's Apollo and the bestseller Krindlekrax (winner of both the Smarties Prize and WH Smith's Mind-Boggling Books Award). Ridley has won both the Evening Standard's Most Promising Newcomer to British Film and Most Promising Playwright Awards, the only person ever to receive both prizes.

Review :
A gift for savage prophecy is often unwelcome in society, and Ridley has it in abundance Independent Ridley is a master of modern myth Guardian Mr. Ridley ... is high on my list of contemporary playwrights these days. He was always a writer of daring and satanic imagination, with a sui generis vocabulary to match ... But more recently he's been weaving theatrical fantasies that bear the relation to everyday reality that your dreams, and especially your nightmares ... The exotic worlds he conjures feel deeply familiar, even to the point of banality, which is what makes them all the scarier and all the more revelatory. -- Ben Brantley New York Times accessible and overtly political ... Ridley pictures consumerism at its most insane and destructive. He's on stingingly funny form Evening Standard cheerfully twisted social satire by Philip Ridley ... Ridley - in full-on comic mode The Times It's a deeply macabre, stingingly funny modern fairy tale that shows its two protagonists wading deeper and deeper into murky moral territory... It's deliberately outrageous and surreal but Ridley pulls it off brilliantly ... A clever, funny and provocative cautionary fable. Financial Times Ridley's is a darkly funny morality play Guardian 'Radiant Vermin' is an allegorical satire about the housing crisis that unfolds like a modern day Grimm tale... It's a hysterically heavy-handed allegory for the ravages of gentrification ... 'Radiant Vermin' works, because it's dispatched with such flippant glee by the writer ... Philip Ridley: sicko, firebrand, and all-round entertainer. Time Out London brutal, deceptively buoyant satire on consumerist greed and rapacity, written by Philip Ridley, multi-talented maestro of East End Gothic and morally acute in-yer-face shockers ... The play is very funny Independent no London writer has shown more literary potential than Ridley. Spectator