Phoebe Eclair-Powell wins major playwriting award

Like mother, like daughter? 24 years after Jenny Eclair won the Perrier award, her daughter has won an equally prestigious prize for playwriting.

Phoebe Eclair-Powell has won the £16,000 Bruntwood prize … although it’s for a drama far from the comedy her mum is known for.

Shed: Exploded View is described as a ‘starkly violent’ play and is based on Cornelia Parker’s art installation Cold Dark Matter, representing a shed blown apart by the British army and frozen as if mid-explosion. 

Eclair-Powell’s script – which spans 30 years in the lives of three couples – is unique in that she welcomes directors and actors to rearrange the scenes to suit their production.

She receives £16,000 in prize money and will now develop the script with Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre.

And proud mum Jenny gushed: ‘I’m beside myself!’

Published: 4 Nov 2019