Rules for Living

Everyone creates their own coping strategies or rules for living. But what happens when an extended family gathers in the kitchen for a traditional Christmas and they each follow those rules, rigidly?

As long-held mechanisms for survival are laid bare, even Mum, who's been preparing this lunch since last January, becomes embroiled. Time-honoured rivalries and resentments will out. Accusations fly, relationships deconstruct, the rules take over.

In Sam Holcroft's theatrically playful, dark comedy the instructions are there for all to see, audience included - so there's really no place to hide.

Rules for Living premiered at the National Theatre, London, in March 2015.

'[Rules for Living] revels in the conventions of traditional domestic comedy, but then ups the ante ingeniously by playfully showing us the rules by which each of the characters live and their destructive patterns of behaviour'— Guardian

'Bitingly funny and sharply observed'— Exeunt Magazine

'Anarchically effective'— The Stage

'Horribly funny'— The Times

“'[Rules for Living] revels in the conventions of traditional domestic comedy, but then ups the ante ingeniously by playfully showing us the rules by which each of the characters live and their destructive patterns of behaviour'”

'[Rules for Living] revels in the conventions of traditional domestic comedy, but then ups the ante ingeniously by playfully showing us the rules by which each of the characters live and their destructive patterns of behaviour'

'Bitingly funny and sharply observed'

'Anarchically effective'

'Horribly funny'

Sam Holcroft is a playwright, winner of the Windham Campbell Prize for Literature.Her plays include: A Mirror (Almeida Theatre, London, 2023; West End, 2024); Rules for Living (National Theatre, London, 2015); The Wardrobe for National Theatre Connections; Edgar & Annabel, part of the Double Feature season in the Paintframe at the National Theatre; Dancing Bears, part of the Charged season for Clean Break at Soho Theatre and Latitude Festival; While You Lie at the Traverse, Edinburgh; Pink, part of the Women, Power and Politics season at the Tricycle; Vanya, adapted from Chekhov, at The Gate; and Cockroach, co-produced by the National Theatre of Scotland and Traverse (nominated for Best New Play 2008, by the Critics' Awards for Theatre in Scotland and shortlisted for the John Whiting Award, 2009).In 2013, she wrote The House Taken Over, a libretto for opera, adapted from Cortázar, for the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence and Académie Européenne de Musique. She received the Tom Erhardt Award in 2009, was the Pearson Writer-in-Residence at the Traverse Theatre, 2009–10, and the Writer-in-Residence at the National Theatre Studio from 2013–14. In 2014, she received a Windham Campbell Prize for Literature in the drama category.

This item is eligible for free returns within 30 days of delivery. See our returns policy for further details.