Close Quarters

‘Round ma way, the boys would drive tay the top of the car park; right tay the edge full speed. I wanted tay get involved. They said, Oh aye Sarah, no bother, if you sit on Gerro’s knee, he’ll hold you nice an tight. Well, I thought tay mysel, that sounds like a full breach of health an safety regulations. I drive the car now lads. An get paid to do it.’

Stationed on the tense border between Estonia and Russia, Cormack, Findlay and Davies are the first generation of women to ever serve in the British infantry. They’ve aced physical tests only five per cent of female soldiers can pass - they’ve been trained to shoot, fight and kill. But everyone around them questions whether they should even be allowed to serve. And now they’re about to be tested to their limits.

Kate Bowen’s taut, funny and powerful play follows three pioneering young women in the world’s most dangerous workplace.

Close Quarters premiered at Sheffield Theatres in 2018, in a co-production between Sheffield Theatres and Stockroom, and directed by Stockroom’s Artistic Director Kate Wasserberg. It was chosen as one of the Observer’s Top 10 Theatre Shows of 2018.

‘A measured portrait of women in the military… ribald and often very funny’
- The Stage

‘A timely new play… explore[s] not only what it is to be female but also the ways in which individual and group identities are constructed, threatened, maintained, how they can be challenged and reconstructed… [an] intelligent, dramatic script… set it in your sights’
- Guardian