POETRY PLAYS PRIZE WINNERS 2026
THE LABEL AND ITS ARTEFACT
THE LABEL AND ITS ARTEFACT
Winner of Poetry Plays 2026 is Alice Foxall's The Label and its Artefact, poem for two voices. Deep in the bowels of a museum, nestled in its finds tray, a mysterious, recently discovered artefact struggles to make itself heard. Metaphysics with a light touch. Performed by Pietro Cannizzaro and Deniz Kartal.
CUCKOOS AND PEACOCKS
THE LABEL AND ITS ARTEFACT
A beautifully written, subtle piece of poetry theatre, exploring the tensions between a daughter and her more devout mother around the time of Eid. A runner up in our Poetry Plays Prize 26, written by Z.R. Ghani and performed by Tajiyah Sulwana and Deniz Kartal.
Beryl mercer
Beryl mercer
Celebrated British Actress Beryl Mercer Encounters her Lost Daughter During an Atlantic Crossing, 1939
Michelle Bitting's haunting and deeply moving study of grief and denial, drawing on her personal family history. A runner up in our Poetry Plays Prize 26. Performed by Tajiyah Sulwana.
POETRY PLAYS PRIZE WINNERS 2025
Lost Language
Winner of The Poetry Theatre Prize 2025 is writer Saili Katebe and dancer Divija Melally for LOST LANGUAGE, an exploration of connection and what it looks like to live alongside others with so much story and history inside of ourselves.
Judge Martin Figura: "Lost Language stood out for the imaginativeness of its concept and how inventively the proposal makes use of the symbiotic creative possibilities of the oral and physical aspects of the commission."
ALL THE THINGS I SAID
Poetry Theatre Prize 2025 runner-up is Tom Stockley's piece about the experience of living with ADHD, All the Things I Said is a funny, tragic, angry, defiant piece of work that encapsulates perfectly what we mean when we talk about poetry playing in the theatre. Performed by Grace Lewis and Ozzy Berzin-Cohen.
Judge Martin Figura "All the Things I said fuses all the elements at its disposal: sound, visuals, costumes, stage direction and language into a cohesive and convincing piece of theatre. The supporting material shows a strong and charismatic performer in control of his craft."
STONEBRIDGE OF NEWCASTLE
STONEBRIDGE OF NEWCASTLE
Poetry Theatre Prize runner-up is Daniel Hinds ' sequence of poems about the city’s statues and their place in contemporary Newcastle.
Martin Figura "The Stone Men of Newcastle is an impressive body of work, dramatically exploring a contemporary point of tension in how history is memoralised and how it might be in the future."