Overview

We're supposed to be having a party. It's s'posed to be fun. This is my house, and when I say everybody have fun, then everybody have fun. Thatcher's Britain – Brixton, 1981. As tensions mount on the streets, in the safety of their home, a group of Oxford University graduates barely notice what's happening on the streets outside as police and rioters clash, shops are looted, and buildings are set on fire. In both worlds there is a fight for rights... a fight for respect ... a fight for control. Who will win? Who will lose? Who will make the strongest cocktail? And when the dust finally settles the question remains... Will things ever change? Hard Feelings was first staged at the Oxford Playhouse in 1982 before transferring to the Bush Theatre in 1983, directed by Mike Bradwell. It was later broadcast as a BBC Play for Today. Hard Feelings was revived by Defibrillator Productions in a production at the Finborough Theatre in 2013.

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9781472529046

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Reviews

Doug Lucie's signature spikiness remains intact, and then some ... Telling of the various meltdowns, betrayals, and shifting alliances in a shared house in Brixton while riots rage just beyond the front door (the year is 1981), the play serves as a reminder of the invaluable prickliness offered up by Lucie ... Lucie's skill lies in taking us inside an assemblage of people that he knows too well simply to dismiss ... the characters always emerge as individuals first and points on the social, political, and class spectrum second ... Times may have changed, but the divisiveness and anger off of which the play feeds so exhilaratingly walk among us still. -- Matt Wolf Arts Desk Lucie's scathing portrait of a self-absorbed, style-conscious generation ... What makes this a good play is its beady-eyed picture of a Britain where privilege - in the form of wealth, education or physical beauty - holds sway and where the advantaged maintain a glazed indifference to the world outside ... a state-of-the-nation play rich in individual characters. -- Michael Billington Guardian

Doug Lucie's signature spikiness remains intact, and then some ... Telling of the various meltdowns, betrayals, and shifting alliances in a shared house in Brixton while riots rage just beyond the front door (the year is 1981), the play serves as a reminder of the invaluable prickliness offered up by Lucie ... Lucie's skill lies in taking us inside an assemblage of people that he knows too well simply to dismiss ... the characters always emerge as individuals first and points on the social, political, and class spectrum second ... Times may have changed, but the divisiveness and anger off of which the play feeds so exhilaratingly walk among us still. -- Matt Wolf Arts Desk 20130618

Author Information

Doug Lucie was born in Chessington, Surrey, in 1953. His plays include Doing the Business; Fashion; Fear of the Dark; Force and Hypocrisy; Gaucho; Grace; The Green Man; Hard Feelings; Heroes; John Clare's Mad, Nuncle; The Key to the World; Love You, Too; The New Garbo; Oh Well; Pass It On; Poison; Progress; Rough Trade; The Shallow End; Strangers In the Night and We Love You.

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