Nine

Play by Alex Jones.

Play Synopsis:

First production, Wood Green High School, Wednesbury, September 2000, this play has also been produced by Wodensborough School, Sandwell 6th Form College, Carlton Children's Television Workshop, Nottingham and Dudley College.

I was chosen to represent the Black Country in 'The Year Of The Artist' and chose to write a play that was performed by young people from three different schools in the area.

The result is 9, a dark thriller in three parts - a mini bus on a fog-bound motorway pile-up, a school classroom and a makeshift hospital in a deserted warehouse next to junction 9 of a busy motorway network.

The play begins in the bus, where schoolgirls harass a male teacher who is bringing them back from a trip and a young man who wishes he could be anywhere else.

Next we visit the classroom to discover the whole class have been locked in there, following an accident on the local motorway, which may involve chemicals of some sort.

Everyone is on a short fuse, and the bully is picking on his victims while the tension mounts.

Finally we see a group of school kids dressed in paper overalls being led into a make-shift hospital in a nearby warehouse by men who are wearing breathing apparatus... it is obvious that something big has gone wrong and that there's some kind of environmental accident.

The kids soon begin to fall ill, and in following scenes they actually begin to die.

Gradually the three stories become intermingled and they all meet up in the final scene, with terrifying results...

This play is written to be performed by large casts of young people, and is particularly suitable for school productions.