We Need to Talk is a one-act comic drama about three precarious millennials in a London house-share, set in the hour during which the first COVID-19 lockdown was announced in March 2020. Graphic designer Steve lives with his girlfriend, teaching assistant Julia, and an old friend, civil servant Ryan. Trapping them together, lockdown emphasises the claustrophobia of their low-quality rented accommodation and the devastating effects of austerity on their lives, their differing political paths during the tempestuous years of 2015-19 and their conflicting ideas about what should happen next, as well as forcing them to confront the ways in which they’ve grown apart.

The play considers how the media - print, broadcast, legacy, new and social – shape our views, with the flatmates occupying completely different realities despite living together, constantly miscommunicating in person as well as over a range of platforms.

This is a script-in-hand reading by writer/filmmaker Juliet Jacques (Trans: A Memoir, Variations). We will be inviting the audience to discuss the ideas in the play at the end of the reading.