Cosmic Scallies (NHB Modern Plays)

Shaun and Dent grew up best friends on the same council estate in Skelmersdale. Dent left, full of ambition, but ten years later she's back. Can Shaun convince her that Skem is an inheritance better than any house? Jackie's Hagan's Cosmic Scallies is a witty and touching play about class, friendship and absence. It premiered at the 2017 Edinburgh Festival Fringe in a co-production between Graeae Theatre Company and the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, before transferring to the Royal Exchange.

Jackie Hagan is from a forgotten new town (Skelmersdale, in which Cosmic Scallies is set) that the Guardian called 'a waking nightmare'; she loved it. She is a theatre-maker, playwright, poet and performer; shedding light on life as a working-class woman in a small town. She is also a queer amputee who downs champagne from her glittery false leg and dresses her stump up as celebrities in her cabaret act. This year she was the recipient of a Jerwood Compton Poetry Fellowship. Last year she represented the UK in FLUPP international poetry slam in Rio de Janeiro and was the focus of a Channel 4 documentary. The previous year she won the Best Spoken Word Show Saboteur Award for her first solo show Some People Have Too Many Legs, and a Creative Futures Award for literature. For the past ten years she has run a not-for-profit organisation providing workshops, support and opportunities for isolated adults. Jackie is a graduate from Graeae's flagship writer development programme Write to Play.