OT Lunchtime Plays – God Bless the NHS

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27 February 2026

Running time

1 hour

Rated

for all ages

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Fri27thFeb

1:00pm

OT Lunchtime Plays

The Orange Tree is delighted to bring to our Lunchtime Plays a brand-new play by Bryony Lavery and Polly Shepherd, based on their shared personal experience of an unexpected medical emergency and the months that followed. When an aunt awakes one day in hospital, struck by a rare condition that has been decades in the making, her niece steps up to care for her, navigating life, work, and even the weather along the way. Meanwhile, an army of NHS staff continue their tireless work, and the aunt battles through the strains, bewilderment, and occasional amusement of recovery.

CW: This play is a response to the experience of illness and contains descriptions of hospitalisation and medical procedures.

Tickets are £15. and include a glass of wine or soft drink.

Please note, Lunchtime Plays at the OT are staged readings, with script in hand, without décor.

Cast

Jane Asher

The Aunt

Rowena Lennon

The Niece

Bryony Lavery’s play Frozen won the TMA best play award, the Eileen Anderson Central Television award was produced at Birmingham Rep, then the National Theatre, then on Broadway where it was nominated for four Tony awards. Stockholm, for Frantic Assembly, won the Wolff-Whiting award for Best Play of 2008. Beautiful Burnout for The National Theatre of Scotland and Frantic Assembly received a Fringe First at Edinburgh, before productions in the UK, New York, Australia and New Zealand. Dirt was nominated for the Charles McArthur award for most outstanding play or musical of 2013, Washington DC.

Recent work includes: Midnight Cowboy [Southwark Playhouse] Sputnik Sweetheart [The Arcola / The Japan Foundation] The Believers [Frantic Assembly] Queen Coal [Sheffield Crucible] Treasure Island [National Theatre] 101 Dalmatians [Chichester Festival Theatre] Brideshead Revisited [York Theatre Royal/ETT] Our Mutual Friend [Hull Truck/City of Culture 2017] and Balls [One Year Lease/Stages Theatre- Houston and NYC].

She is a Fellow of The Royal Society of Literature, an honorary Doctor of Arts at De Montford University and an Associate Artist at Birmingham Repertory Theatre.

Polly Shepherd is a teacher and writer. She lives in Shopshire with her husband and two children. She runs monthly creative writing workshops for seven- to ten-year-olds, organised by Writing West Midlands. She is currently working on a novel about a Victorian witch. God Bless the NHS is her first play.

Lucy Jane Atkinson is an award-winning director and dramaturg who specializes in new writing. A graduate of LAMDA’s Post Graduate Director’s course, and a member of the National Theatre’s Directors course. In 2018 she was named as number 1 on The Stage’s ‘Top Talents To Watch’. She has been scouted to direct new plays on both sides of the Atlantic, and has won awards for her work on multiple continents. In 2025 she was Resident Director for the New Work Department at the National Theatre.

Selected credits as Director: Barriers (Dorfman, National Theatre), A Hundred Words For Snow (Trafalgar Studios, Winner: Offie Best Actress. Nominated: Offie Best Director, Best New Play), The Sleeping Sword (Watermill Theatre), Spy For Spy (Riverside Studios), Testament (ViaBrooklyn, New York, Winner: BroadwayWorld Best Director 2022), Meat (Theatre503), Girls & Boys (Crow’s Theatre, Toronto), Radio, A Great Big Wooly Mammoth Thawing From The Ice, I & You (Burning Coal, North Carolina), The Enchantment (HERE Arts Centre, New York). As Associate Director: Evening All Afternoon (Donmar Warehouse). As Staff Director: Middle (National Theatre).