Closer to God (NHB Modern Plays)

A young single mother becomes roommates with a seventy-nine-year-old man, in a small flat on the 19th floor of a council block. This short two-hander from the writer of Yen and and Chicken Shop explores the private worlds of strangers, living side by side but generations apart. Their interweaving monologues explore the differences and connections that can exist between people, living in the sky, just the other side of the thin wall. Closer to God was first performed at the Old Red Lion, London, in 2009 as part of the inaugural OffCut Festival, directed by the author. It received the Overall Winner and Audience Choice Award.

Anna Jordan's play Yen won the 2013 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting. Her other plays include: The Unreturning (Frantic Assembly & Theatre Royal Plymouth, 2018); Pop Music (Paines Plough & Birmingham Repertory Theatre, 2018); Chicken Shop (Park Theatre, 2014); Freak (Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh, 2014); Closer To God (Best Play and Audience Award at the Offcut Festival, 2009) and Just For Fun - Totally Random (Best New Writing at the Lost One Act Festival, 2009). As a director her work has included Crystal Springs (Eureka, San Francisco, 2014) and Tomorrow I'll Be Happy by Jonathan Harvey at the National Theatre Shed as part of the 2013 Connections Festival. She is Artistic Director of Without a Paddle Theatre, Associate Director at Theatre503, London, and teaches acting and playwriting.