Lisa McGee

National Theatre Connections 2023 draws together ten new plays for young people to perform, from some of the UK's most exciting and popular playwrights. These are plays for a generation of theatre-makers who want to ask questions, challenge assertions and test the boundaries, and for those who love to invent and imagine a world of possibilities. The plays offer young performers an engaging and diverse range of material to perform, read or study. Touching on themes like climate change, politics, toxic masculinity and gang culture, the collection provides topical, pressing subject matter for students to explore in their performance. This 2023 anthology represents the full set of ten plays offered by the National Theatre 2023 Festival, as well as comprehensive workshop notes that give insights and inspiration for building characters, running rehearsals and staging a production.

Set in Derry, Northern Ireland in the 1990s, Derry Girls is a candid, one-of-a-kind comedy about what it's like to be a teenage girl living amongst conflict. It's a time of armed police in armoured Land Rovers and British Army check points. But it's also the time of Murder She Wrote, The Cranberries, Salt-N-Pepa, Doc Martens and The X Files. And while The Troubles may hang over her hometown, Erin has troubles of her own, like the fact that the boy she's in love with (actually in LOVE with) doesn't know she exists. Or that her Ma and Aunt Sarah make her include her weirdo cousin Orla in everything she does. Or that head teacher Sister Michael refuses to acknowledge Erin as a literary genius. Not to mention the fact that her second best friend has ALMOST had sex, whereas Erin's never even kissed anyone yet. These are Erin's Troubles. Described by the Guardian as 'daft, profane and absolutely brilliant', by the New Statesman as 'pitch-perfect' and by i-D as 'the greatest show on British (and Irish) TV', Derry Girls has dazzled audiences, with Channel 4's biggest UK comedy launch since 2004 and the biggest television series in Northern Ireland since modern records began. Now, alongside the third series, comes the first official tie-in. With Erin's inner take on everything that has happened so far, this book will both dive deeper into the events we have seen unfold on the screen and unveil brand new stories. Complete with newspaper clippings, doodles, school reports, handwritten notes, and much much more, Erin's Diary is a must-have for fans.

Dear Reader, It is a pleasure to introduce you to this, my memoirs, written and edited by me, Erin Quinn. My friend Clare gave me this notebook for Christmas, and I think I'm going to use it as a diary. I mean, all the great writers kept diaries and it seems a bit shameful that I've never actually managed it before. But this year is different. These are extraordinary times in Derry - historically, politically and culturally and I suspect that it may soon become clear that I'm ... well, the voice of a generation. After all, writing isn't a choice. It's a calling. I hope, dear Reader, that you enjoy, cherish and value my insights. To get a fringe or not to get a fringe? Pros: will look French Cons: might go frizzy 'Erin is sixteen and wishes she had a boyfriend and a life. Nothing else really happens... It's boring.' Orla McCool

A striking play from Northern Ireland about two women and the childhood tragedy they'll never be allowed to forget. For Emma and Clare, 1980 was the summer they met at the swings, the summer they built a tree house and stole from Dennis O'Donnell's shop. The summer a young mother and her infant daughter moved into number 14... Now in their thirties, Emma and Clare struggle to come to terms with the chain of devastating events that began that summer, to understand what they did, what they became and how they were judged. Lisa McGee's play Girls and Dolls was first performed by Tinderbox Theatre Company on a tour of Northern Ireland in 2006. It won the Stewart Parker Trust Award in 2007.