Kathryn O'Reilly
all writing enquires please contact The Agency - Nicola Biltoo / Maeve Bolger
Tel: 020 7727 1346
https://theagency.co.uk/the-clients/kathryn-oreilly/
Screwed
SYNOPSIS -
Ticking time-bombs Luce and Charlene are 30-something binge-drinking soul mates.
They clock in after heavy a night out on the tiles, popping caffeine pills and downing miniatures on the factory floor, boasting about last night’s sexual conquests.
When you are living for today it's hard to think about tomorrow.
Written by Kathryn O'Reilly
Premiered at Theatre503 - 4 week run in 2026
Published by Nick Hern Books
Produced by Kathryn O'Reilly & Maeve O'Neill
Directed by Sarah Meadows - Offie nominated
Dramaturg Neil Grutchfield
Designer Catherine Morgan
Lighting Designer Jammie Platt
Composer Benedict Taylor
Stage Manager Polly Heinkel
Assistant Director Monty Leigh
Production Photographer Sophie Mutevelian
Cast: Derek Elroy, Eloise Joseph,
Stephen Myott-Meadows, Samantha Robinson
Funded by Arts Council England & The Richard Carne Trust,
Supported by Joanna Bacon, John Stanley.
With thanks to Out of Joint
"Screwed has a vulgar vigour and an emotional energy that throbs like an inflamed sex organ.
O’Reilly writes convincing dialogue and has added variety and pace to the storytelling by using monologues and choral passages”
Aleks Sierz - My Theatre Mates
“Funny, vulgar and just a bit scary.
Screwed at Theatre 503 really hits you with everything it can in this new work by Kathryn O'Reilly....
It is unnerving and at times horrifying to watch two ladies go on a self-destructive rampage. But there is something about the piece that seems so appropriate for our times. Self-destruction, promiscuity, dead end jobs and alcoholism.
It is all presented here in a subtle and delicate way”
Paul In London
“A witty look at female friendship in a broken society.
O’Reilly has a great ear for the scrappy rhythm of everyday speech.
An assured debut, at times sharply observed and bruisingly funny ”
Tom Wicker - Time Out
“Highly impressive, very authentic writing, combined with great acting made for an
altogether very unpleasant and yet strangely compelling play”
Terry Eastham - LondonTheatre1
“Kathryn O’Reilly has really done a wonderful job on her debut play,
it is youthful and full of fire. It’s funny because it is so entirely true...
I couldn’t ask for more from a play, there are explorations of lifestyles, relationships,
diversity and killer dialogue”
Bethany Dickinson - A Younger Theatre
“O’Reilly’s explicit dialogue pulls no punches...
Packed with raw energy and frighteningly believable...
O’Reilly’s play is both funny and disturbing, showing lives that lie behind the statistics that tell us of increasing alcohol problems among women.
It is a piece of new writing rich with promise”
Stephen Bates - Thebeastspen.com
“O'Reilly has a brilliant ear for the visceral venality of their chat in all its swaggering hollowness...O'Reilly's writing produces some gorgeous passages of overlapping dialogue... A bolshy, brutal bit of theatre”
Ian Foster - There Ought To Be Clowns
This is actress and writer Kathryn O'Reilly's first play and there's much that's promising about it. Throughout there's an impressive attention to rhythmic dialogue,
the script establishing a breakneck pace that rarely lets up. On top of that there's a nicely disciplined use of time and space”
London City Nights
“O’Reilly’s produced a choppy,
off-beat script that allows the friends to fall into a familiar routine
and bounce off each other in a way that’s both funny and oddly touching...
Screwed is a hard-hitting play...
Kathryn O’Reilly’s decision to explore this social trend with a focus on female characters is refreshing”
Liz Dyer - Theblogoftheatrethings.com
“Wonderfully biting dialogue and excellent performances from the cast of four easily seduce the audience”
Theplaysthething.com
“The promising early scenes of Kathryn O’Reilly’s play have a poetic staccato quality. Her sentences are like one-inch punches – blam, blam, blam – giving you a real sense of the machine of these women’s lives”
Natasha Tripney - The Stage
“Kathryn has written such a hard hitting, not only in your face but in your ears blast of a play..It’s an amazing debut play for it’s authentic and vivid picture it paints of modern day hedonism and it’s pitfalls”
Lesley Strachan - Wandsworth Radio
“Screwed pulls no punches in its representation of the ladette lifestyle; it contains coarse language and is not for the fainthearted or easily offended.”
Rhiannon Evans - WestendWilma
A funny and at times brutally frank look at lives going nowhere...The relationships between the two girls is beautifully observed by playwright Kathryn O’Reilly
and the writing is bouncy and quirky”
Siân Rowland - London Pub Theatre
