seeds

‘What would you do to save your son? Everything? Anything? Lie?’

It’s Michael Thomas’s birthday. A cake sits in his mother Evelyn’s living room, its candles burning undisturbed.

On the fifteenth anniversary of Michael’s fatal stabbing, Jackie wants to clear her conscience, whilst Evelyn’s got a big speech to deliver. Are some things better left unsaid?

Mel Pennant’s play seeds explores the human story behind a tragedy, through the eyes of those left behind: two mothers united in sorrow, and sharing the hardship of protecting their sons - one in life, and one in death.

seeds was shortlisted for the Alfred Fagon Award, and first produced on a UK tour in 2020 by tiata fahodzi and Wrested Veil, in association with Leeds Playhouse, Soho Theatre and Tara Finney Productions.

‘seeds pushes at the limits of maternal love, asking how far a mother would go to protect her son’
- Guardian