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Vivienne Franzmann

Mogadishu

A gripping and urgent play about a well-meaning teacher who intervenes on behalf of a troublesome student, with terrifying consequences. Joint Winner of the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting 2008.
When white secondary-school teacher Amanda is pushed to the ground by black student Jason, she's reluctant to report him as she knows exclusion could condemn him to a future as troubled as his past.
But when Jason decides to protect himself by spinning a story of his own, Amanda is sucked into a vortex of lies in which victim becomes perpetrator. With the truth becoming less clear and more dangerous by the day, it isn't long before careers, relationships and even lives are under threat.
'A tough, gripping spectacle' Guardian
'Outstanding… Franzmann manages to make all the characters credible and well-rounded, even the damaged perpetrator… She gets to the rotten core of what's going on in these melting-pot battlegrounds… The play of the year? In my book, quite possibly' Dominic Cavendish,Telegraph
89 printed pages
Copyright owner
Bookwire
Original publication
2013
Publication year
2013
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Quotes

  • Rachael Pennellhas quoted8 years ago
    When we got the pictures back, she’d cut his head off. In the photo I’m holding hands with a headless man.
  • Rachael Pennellhas quoted8 years ago
    Talk about cheesy. That is cheese on toast. That whole story is mature cheddar on a piece of poor-little-me toast.

    PETER. It’s not. It’s lovely.

    Pause.

    BECKY. If I close my eyes, I can see that woman so clearly. I can remember everything about her. Everything.

    Pause.

    But when I think of Dad, I can’t see him. It’s like he’s getting further and further away from me and the more I try, the more I try to imagine, the more I look at photos of him to try and remember, the stranger he looks.
  • Rachael Pennellhas quoted8 years ago
    BECKY. Did you ever see the old pier in Brighton?

    PETER. Yeah.

    BECKY. My dad was obsessed by it.

    PETER. Was he?

    BECKY. He was always going on about how it was deteriorating. He used to take a photo of it every week so he had a record of it falling down. What a weirdo.

    PETER. I guess we all have our –

    BECKY. I’ve got this photo of me and him standing in front of it. This really old woman took it. Dad asked her to and she was shaking because she was nervous in case she took it wrong. He bought her a cup of tea after and he kept making her laugh calling her ‘lady in red’ and ‘scarlet woman’ because she had this red coat on. He could be really cheesy sometimes. I mean really fucking cheesy.

    Pause.

    And then we walked her back to her house and when we got there, she bent right down and took my hand and said, ‘You’re very lucky to have such a wonderful daddy.’

    Pause.
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