As we gear up for our Accelerate Showcase at the PlayMakers Takeover at HOME Mcr on Saturday 25 January, check out the plays our Accelerators have been working on over the last year...

DIGGERS by Caitlin Clough

A modern day reimagining of the story of Gerrard Winstanley and a doomed 17th Century socialist philosophy. In a slug infested, post-plague world of radical ghosts, rage filled community gardener Susan King develops her own approach to saving the world.

HOUSE ON THE HILL by Sujana Crawford

House on the Hill follows Rita and Jay as they navigate profound changes in their lives, struggling to articulate their grief and loss. The play delves into the complexities of starting over, questioning whether shared dreams can survive when love and identity are tested by the weight of the past.

THE PROMISE by Susan Downer

Ginette Eboué is privileged, intelligent, flirtatious and ready to discover the world. But when the German Army invades Paris in 1940, the Black African student is suddenly labelled untermensch - subhuman. The Promise is a fictionalised account of Ginette's attempt to challenge white supremacist erasure and reclaim her identity.

SISU by Zoe Iqbal

Joy and Tamsin have lost their mum. Their approach to their new normal and grieving differs massively. Joy realises she will have to navigate grief on her own. Could there be comfort found in how her Mum coped with life and the Finnish concept 'sisu': exploring inner strength and stoicism?

LIFE STAR 2: TRUTH AND ANNIHILATION by Mike Kaloski-Naylor

Thirty-seven years ago, a great battle for the Life Star took place. Ian is the one person on Earth who knows that story. He helped write it. Now Corrella has returned to Earth, but Ian is not the same and this new chapter will play out very differently. Ian, his son Sol, mum Linda and alien friend Corrella must navigate aging, family, failure and interstellar conflict.

THE MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE OF ALICE LITTLE by Mhairi Ledgerwood

A 3 year-old girl disappears from her home on the 14th July 1888. Despite several suspects and many theories, the crime remains unsolved for two decades. That’s when a Northern female detective, determined to prove herself, vows to crack the case. Class and gender politics in the Edwardian era are explored in a drama influenced by murder mysteries and Agatha Christie.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR HARD WORK by Ginni Manning

Like his father, Loic has always wanted to teach. Whilst he struggles with the pressures of the job in a chaotic primary school, his sister Jess lives it up teaching English in Tokyo. When history repeats, in an incident at school like his father in the 1980s, Loic knows his whole future will depend on what he chooses: his vocation or a happy life.

MORTEM MEMORIAE by Jayne Marshall

Amy is throwing herself a party; her sister Zoe unexpectedly turns up to without an invite and a special gift for Amy, who is reluctant to accept it.  Reminiscing over past times with increasingly different outcomes, they begin to question what memories are real, imagined or reliable, and whether some memories should remain a secret. As tensions rise between them, the stage is set for the party of a lifetime.

IN ST HELENS, WE DREAM IN GREEN by Jana Navarria

Inside a hidden cannabis farm in a terraced house, two 16-year-old Vietnamese boys, Anh and Khoi, are forced to tend to the crop under the watchful eye of Jesus, the human trafficker who brought them there. Set against the backdrop of working-class Northern England before the passing of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, In St Helens, We Dream In Green is a play about survival, sacrifice, friendship and the resilience of the human spirit.

HALF THE WORLD AWAY by Emma Nuttall

Separated by continents, estranged sisters Alex and Lisa embark on parallel journeys of grief, reconciliation, and redemption as they face a world on the brink of collapse and the fallout of their father’s legacy. Using a blend of magical realism, Half the World Away explores the nature of home—what it means to leave it, be trapped by it, lose it, and rebuild it.

CROSSINGS by Hannah Salt

Brie - an anxious woman - is caught in the space between faith and uncertainty, and life in the UK and Ireland, as she embarks on her IVF journey. On various ferry crossings she meets Patsy, a gregarious older Irish man, and the pair strike up an unlikely friendship. A play about forging family and fearlessly facing the opposite shores of life and death.

THE BULL & BEAR by James Underwood

Everyone loves John. The regulars. The tourists. The pensioners buying the fish supper special on a Friday. Yet with bills mounting up and the brewery breathing down his neck, the landlord thinks he’s the hit the jackpot when he’s introduced to the new frontier of Crypto. But can he stick to his guns (and principles) as the market moves from Bull to Bear?