Market Boy

Gloriously raucous rites-of-passage drama set in Romford Market 'You've got to talk to them son. Listen to them. Look for a way in. You're a handsome bloke - they'll love you. Give me a year and I'll teach you everything I know.' There's an art to selling stilettos and you'd better grasp it. Learn a good wind-up, learn the pull of cash, learn drugs, learn sex, and run wild with the market monkeys. Stay sharp in the ruthless world of Essex traders. Romford Market, 1985. This boy has everything to learn. A spectacular, savage, gorgeous yarn which brings a market jungle to the vast Olivier stage; a tale about the time Mrs Thatcher said we should embrace the marketplace; a story about losing your innocence. And your cherry. Following the critical success of his new version of Ibsen's The Wild Duck (Donmar Warehouse 2005), David Eldridge's Market Boy premieres on the National Theatre's Olivier stage on 25 May 2006.

David Eldridge was awarded the Time Out Live Award for Best New Play in the West End in 2001 for Und er the Blue Sky. His full-length plays include Serving it Up (Bush 1996), A Week with Tony (Finborou gh Theatre 1996), Summer Begins (RNT Studio and Donmar Warehouse 1997), Falling (Hampstead Theatre 1 999), Under the Blue Sky (Royal Court Theatre 2000), Festen (Almeida and Lyric Theatre 2004), M.A.D. (Bush 2004), Incomplete and Random Acts of Kindness (Royal Court Theatre 2005), and his new version of Ibsen's The Wild Duck (Donmar Warehouse 2005/6).