German Skerries

It's the hot, humid, sticky summer of 1977. At a popular birdwatching spot jutting out into the North Sea at the mouth of the Tees, Martin, Jack, Michael and Carol are staring out into the future, their lives intertwined.

A friendship, a marriage, a holiday, and a death – the gatherings and departures that make us human. Robert Holman's richly resonant play is an uplifting portrait of human hope and vulnerability.

German Skerries was first performed at the Bush Theatre, London, and won the George Devine Award in the year that it is set. It was revived in 2016 at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, in a co-production with the award-winning Up in Arms Theatre Company, followed by a tour around the UK.

'Wise, touching… [a] prescient little gem'— Financial Times

'A still, beautiful forgotten classic... [Holman's] work tends to chronicle the quiet moments, what passes in the pauses between people... But his un-showiness isn't fuzzy. His grip on human nature is tender, but it's firm.'— Time Out

'An extraordinarily rich portrait of people trying to work out how to live... Holman seizes your attention through stealth'— Guardian

'Wonderfully clever and theatrically brilliant… delicate and subtle'— The Arts Desk

“'Wise, touching... [a] prescient little gem'”

'Wise, touching… [a] prescient little gem'

'A still, beautiful forgotten classic... [Holman's] work tends to chronicle the quiet moments, what passes in the pauses between people... But his un-showiness isn't fuzzy. His grip on human nature is tender, but it's firm.'

'An extraordinarily rich portrait of people trying to work out how to live... Holman seizes your attention through stealth'

'Wonderfully clever and theatrically brilliant… delicate and subtle'

Robert Holman (1952–2021) was a British playwright whose work has been produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal Court Theatre, as well as in the West End and elsewhere. He is celebrated for the passionate humanity and quiet intensity of his plays, especially for his triptych of short plays, Making Noise Quietly, which was first seen at the Bush Theatre, London, in 1986, and has since been revived and adapted as a film (2019).His plays include: Mud (Royal Court Theatre, 1974); German Skerries (Bush Theatre, 1977, and revived at the Orange Tree Theatre, 2016); Rooting (Traverse Theatre, 1979); Other Worlds (Royal Court Theatre, 1980); Today (Royal Shakespeare Company, 1984); The Overgrown Path (Royal Court Theatre, 1985); Making Noise Quietly (Bush Theatre, 1987, and revived at the Donmar Warehouse, 2012); Across Oka (Royal Shakespeare Company, 1988); Rafts and Dreams (Royal Court Theatre, 1990); Bad Weather (Royal Shakespeare Company, 1998); Holes in the Skin (Chichester Festival Theatre, 2003); Jonah and Otto (Royal Exchange Theatre, 2008, and revived at the Park Theatre, 2014); A Thousand Stars Explode in the Sky, co-written with David Eldridge and Simon Stephens (Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, 2010); A Breakfast of Eels (Print Room at the Coronet, 2015); and The Lodger (Coronet Theatre, London, 2021).He also wrote a novel, The Amish Landscape, published in 1992.

It's the hot, humid, sticky summer of 1977. At a popular birdwatching spot jutting out into the North Sea at the mouth of the Tees, Martin, Jack, Michael and Carol are staring out into the future, their lives intertwined. A friendship, a marriage, a holiday, and a death - the gatherings and departures that make us human. Robert Holman's richly resonant play is an uplifting portrait of human hope and vulnerability. German Skerries was first performed at the Bush Theatre, London, and won the George Devine Award in the year that it is set. It was revived in 2016 at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, in a co-production with the award-winning Up in Arms Theatre Company, followed by a tour around the UK.

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