Charged (Paperback)

Six plays by some of the most exciting and distinctive female voices in British theatre, exploring the heartbreaking truth about the lives of women in the criminal justice system.

The plays were commissioned and premiered by Clean Break, a theatre and education company working with women whose lives have been affected by the criminal justice system.

Included in this volume:

Fatal Light by Chloë Moss, about a young mother's inability to cope with separation from her daughter.

Taken by Winsome Pinnock, about a mother confronted by the child she had to give up.

Dream Pill by Rebecca Prichard, about two children forced into prostitution.

Doris Day by E V Crowe, about two police officers and their different expectations of the job.

Dancing Bears by Sam Holcroft, about the twisted loyalties and violence in teenage gangs.

That Almost Unnameable Lust by Rebecca Lenkiewicz, about a writer holding workshops with older women in a prison.

The plays were first performed at Soho Theatre, London, in November 2010.

Chloë Moss is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter. Her plays include: Corrina, Corrina (Headlong & Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse, 2022); Run Sister Run (Paines Plough, Soho Theatre & Sheffield Theatres, 2020); The Gatekeeper (Royal Exchange, Manchester, 2012); Fatal Light (part of Clean Break & Soho Theatre's Charged season, 2010); This Wide Night (Clean Break and Soho Theatre, 2008; winner of the 2009 Susan Smith Blackburn prize); The Way Home (Everyman, Liverpool, 2006); Christmas is Miles Away (Royal Exchange, Manchester, 2005; Bush Theatre, London, 2006) and How Love Is Spelt (Bush Theatre, London, 2004).

She has also written extensively for television. Credits include Six Wives (BBC One), Dickensian (BBC One), New Tricks (BBC One), The Smoke (Sky1) and Prisoners' Wives (BBC One).

Winsome Pinnock is an award-winning British playwright of Jamaican heritage. Her plays include: The Authenticator (National Theatre, London, 2026); Rockets and Blue Lights (Royal Exchange, Manchester, 2020; National Theatre, 2021); One Under (2005) and Water (2000) at the Tricycle Theatre; Mules (Clean Break/Royal Court Theatre Upstairs/Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles and The Magic Theatre, San Francisco, 1996); Talking in Tongues (1991) and A Hero's Welcome (1989; runner-up Susan Smith Blackburn Prize) at the Royal Court Theatre; and Leave Taking (Liverpool Playhouse Theatre/Contact Theatre Manchester/Belgrade Theatre Coventry/Lyric Hammersmith/ National Theatre, 1986).

She has adapted Malorie Blackman's novel Pig Heart Boy for the stage (Unicorn Theatre / Sheffield Theatres / Children's Theatre Partnership, 2025).

The prizes awarded to her work include the Alfred Fagon Award (2018), the Windham-Campbell Prize for Drama (2022), the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Special Commendation (1990), the George Devine Award (1991), the Pearson Award for Best New Play (1991), and the Unity Theatre Trust Award (1989).

Author photo by Matt Roberts

E V Crowe (Emma Crowe) is a writer for theatre and film, TV, radio, dance and song. She is a graduate of the UEA Scriptwriting Masters programme and the Royal Court Young Writers Programme Super Group. She has written extensively for theatre. 

Sam Holcroft is a playwright, winner of the Windham Campbell Prize for Literature.

Her plays include: A Mirror (Almeida Theatre, London, 2023; West End, 2024); Rules for Living (National Theatre, London, 2015); The Wardrobe for National Theatre Connections; Edgar & Annabel, part of the Double Feature season in the Paintframe at the National Theatre; Dancing Bears, part of the Charged season for Clean Break at Soho Theatre and Latitude Festival; While You Lie at the Traverse, Edinburgh; Pink, part of the Women, Power and Politics season at the Tricycle; Vanya, adapted from Chekhov, at The Gate; and Cockroach, co-produced by the National Theatre of Scotland and Traverse (nominated for Best New Play 2008, by the Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland and shortlisted for the John Whiting Award, 2009).

In 2013, she wrote The House Taken Over, a libretto for opera, adapted from Cortázar, for the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence and Académie Européenne de Musique. She received the Tom Erhardt Award in 2009, was the Pearson Writer-in-Residence at the Traverse Theatre, 2009–10, and the Writer-in-Residence at the National Theatre Studio from 2013–14. In 2014, she received a Windham Campbell Prize for Literature in the drama category.