Rare Earth Mettle

(Paperback)

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Description

You dont tell an American to switch off her light; you build her a better light bulb. A leading British doctor with a radical plan to save the NHS and a Silicon Valley billionaire with a radical plan to halt climate change, meet outside an abandoned train on a salt flat in South America. A landscape so bright in its whiteness that it isnt easy to look at, and so uninterrupted in its flatness theres no echo. For Kimsa and his daughter who live there, the arrival of these strangers initially seems like an opportunity. Until they both stake their claim on the land, each following their ruthless pursuit of the greater good. Al Smith's landmark play premieres at the Royal Court following his 2016 hit Harrogate which saw him nominated for Most Promising Playwright at the 2017 Evening Standard Theatre Awards.

Reviews

The beauty of Smiths occasionally Pinteresque writing is that while it is dark, it is never gratuitously ugly. * Telegraph *
Al Smith knows how to set up and detonate a joke. He has a wicked, inky sense of humour. * The Stage (on Diary of a Madman) *

Author Bio

Al Smith read English Literature at Edinburgh University. He has been a Pearson Playwright in Residence at the Finborough Theatre and participated in the Paines Plough/Channel 4 Future Perfect Scheme. He is a graduate of the BBC Writers Academy and has been a broadcast Hot Shot. In 2012 Al won the BFI Wellcome Trust Screenwriting Prize. In 2017 his radio series Life Lines won gold for Best Fictional Storytelling at the ARIAS, the Radio Academy Awards and he was nominated for the Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright at the 2017 Evening Standard Theatre Awards.