Carthage - Paperback

by Chris Thompson (Author)

Winner Pearson Playwright Award 2014 Nominated Best New Play and Most Promising New Playwright 2014 Offie Awards.

Tommy Anderson was born in a prison, and he died in one too. The last moments of his life are recorded on CCTV, and yet no one can answer the simple question: whose fault was it? His mother, Anne, is determined to hold someone accountable, but the more she incriminates others, the more she incriminates herself. She blames Marcus, the guard who restrained him. Marcus, acquitted by the courts but tormented by his part in Tommy's death, wants the family's social worker to admit to the role she played. And social worker Sue can't work out when it was she stopped caring....Piecing together a boy's life and death in care, Carthage asks who should raise our children when the systems designed to protect them can be as abusive as the situations from which they were rescued.

Author Biography

First-time playwright Chris Thompson works as a social worker. Over the last ten years, he has worked with young people in care, young offenders and in child protection, and currently works in young people's sexual health in the NHS. Writing with honesty and humour, he confronts the big question that has haunted him his entire social work career: What good did I actually do?" Chris Thompson is a Playwright on Attachment at the Finborough Theatre which premiered an earlier version of Carthage as part of last year's Vibrant A Festival of Finborough Playwrights, the Finborough Theatre's annual festival of new writing. He was invited to take part in the Royal Court Theatre's most recent Studio Writers' Group.