Some Demon

A grippingly authentic play about living with an eating disorder, winner of the 2023 Papatango New Writing Prize.

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'People say life's too short, it's not. It's too bloody long. There's too much time and too many ways to fill it, all those hours in all those days, all those choices you have to make.'



Sam's eighteen and her life's about to start. Zoe's forty-something and hers never did. They don't have much in common. Just a love of '80s new wave, and an illness that wants them dead.



Thrown together in an eating disorder unit, their most intimate secrets exposed, they form a complicated bond. But when another patient turns the ward into chaos, they're forced to confront a difficult question: if an institution is the thing keeping you safe, how are you supposed to cope when you leave?



Authentic, witty and profoundly compassionate, Laura Waldren's play Some Demon won the Papatango New Writing Prize and the Clive Richards Foundation Writer in Residence Bursary, and was first produced by Papatango Theatre Company at the Arcola Theatre, London, and Bristol Old Vic in 2024.