'Two' & 'Bed'

Winner of the Manchester Evening News Best New Play award, Two premiered at the Bolton Octagon in 1989 and opened at the Young Vic, London, in November 1990 Bed premiered on the Royal National Theatre's Cottesloe stage in 1989 'Cartwright writes better about old people than anyone I know, except perhaps Beckett. This is an odd, harrowing and hilarious piece, entirely without sentimentality, sturdy but moving.' Sunday Times

Two plays by the Lancashire playwright Jim Cartwright, author of Road. Two is an evocation of English pub life, in which two actors play a series of characters. Bed is a surreal journey into old age and sleep.'Jim Cartwright is one of the mavericks of British theatre' Daily Telegraph Two: 'A sharp, salty, quickfire evocation of the surface gaiety and underlying melancholia of English pub life.' The Guardian Bed: 'It's insights into the twilight world of old age are remarkable, Cartwright's ode to sleep fizzes with puns and free association and brims with the confidence of a craftsman who can work as happily with surrealism as naturalism as he teases out snippets of life story from the ancient occupants of the bed.' City Limits 'This extraordinarily gifted and original voice ...populates the space with broad humour, dry wit and often shudderingly moving poetry.' Time Out