We’re delighted to bring you a new play by Company of Ten member, Jenny Kilcast. You can hear the play in it entirety on The Theatre Show with Ben and Susie, a fortnightly podcast presented by local theatre aficionados Ben Tiplady and Susie Wyeth.

But before you listen, here’s Jenny’s introduction to why the piece came about:

‘Like many of us in early lockdown, I spent much of my time in the garden of my small terraced house – which, like many of its type, is overlooked by houses on every side, with tall fences providing at least the illusion of privacy.

Before long, I was surprised and delighted by some frequent, quarantine-breaking visitors who entered our garden by climbing over the back fence – two tiny, adorable kittens named Tulip and Jasper. I found out their names – and their ages, and how long they’d been in the area – via a shouted conversation with their owner who lives in the street behind ours. Several weeks on, I still don’t know what this man looks like, but I know all about his kittens.

These conversations with an unseen neighbour gave rise to the question of how you form a relationship with someone you’ve never met, and who you cannot see, and this short play, Love in Lockdown, came out of my attempt to answer those questions. I hasten to add, I am happily married, and so any relationship with my unknown neighbour begins and ends with admiring his kittens. Laura and Mark, on the other hand, do not get kittens (sorry), but they do, eventually, get each other.

No kittens were harmed in the writing of the piece. Mainly because my own cat, an enormous ginger four times their size, is terrified of them.’