Three Birds by Janice Okoh
A startling and darkly comic drama about childhood, family and fantasy. Winner of the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting, and adapted into a BAFTA-winning six-part BBC television drama, Just Act Normal. Siblings Tiana, Tionne and Tanika have found themselves home alone. Tiana's keeping it all together by taking charge of housework and homework. But Tionne's experiments are getting stranger and Tanika's starting to act up. As the outside world begins to press in, the three will do anything to keep their secret safe from the adults who come to call. Janice Okoh's play Three Birds won the 2011 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting and was first performed at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, in 2013 before transferring to the Bush Theatre, London. It was later adapted into a six-part television drama for BBC3, Just Act Normal. First broadcast in 2025, it won Janice Okoh the Emerging Talent: Fiction award at the 2026 BAFTA Television Craft Awards. 'A play that is as humane as it is savage... as funny as it is alarming. It is written with as much warmth as it is with truth. It's funny and theatrical and alert and alive. It's terrific.' Simon Stephens, playwright and Chair of the Judges for the 2011 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting'Deals in harsh realism but hovers, brilliantly suspended, between dark comedy, thriller and an expressive human sympathy worthy of Tennessee Williams'
* The Times *'Like a Pitchfork Disney for the Beiber / Primark generation'
* A Younger Theatre *
Janice Okoh won the Bruntwood Playwrighting Competition in 2011 with her play Three Birds, which was staged at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, in 2013, before transferring to the Bush Theatre, London. The play was shortlisted for the Verity Bargate Award and the Alfred Fagon Award. Her other plays include The Gift (Theatre Royal, Stratford East, 2020) and Egusi Soup (Menagerie Theatre Company & Eastern Angles, 2009). She won the Emerging Talent: Fiction award at the 2026 BAFTA Television Craft Awards for her BBC television drama series Just Act Normal, based on her play Three Birds.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781848422766 |
| ISBN 10 | 1848422768 |
| Title | Three Birds |
| Author | Janice Okoh |
| Series | Nhb Modern Plays |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Nick Hern Books |
| Year published | 2013-02-28 |
| Number of pages | 112 |
| Prizes | Winner of Winner of the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting 2011 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |