This House

James Graham won the Catherine Johnson Award for the Best Play 2007 for Eden's Empire. His previous plays include Albert's Boy (recipient of a Pearson Playwriting Bursary) Little Madam (Finborough), Tory Boyz (Soho Theatre), The Man (Finborough), The Whisky Taster (Bush), and suddenlossofdignity.com (Bush). He is writer-in-residence at the Finborough Theatre.

It recreates, with startling vividness, the madness of life in the Westminster village during five action-filled years ... above all, the play unlocks a whole era. -- Michael Billington Guardian 20121010 Graham's superb new drama ... it is by turns funny, touching and cliff-hangingly suspenseful ... Graham has researched his play with exemplary thoroughness and there is a thrilling tang of authenticity about the piece. -- Charles Spencer Telegraph 20121010 The emphasis on compromise and austerity resonates for us now, and Graham approaches the chaos of party politics in a style that is often bitingly funny ... it's a fresh and energetic piece ... packed with clever lines ... displaying a humane and savvy wit that is very much Graham's own. -- Henry Hitchings Evening Standard 20121010 From facts and memoirs Graham shapes a brilliantly exhausting, funny and moving political epic ... another hit is born ... it will last longer than the years it depicts. -- Libby Purves The Times 20121010 Graham's astute, funny and hugely enjoyable new play ... there's tremendous fun here, as Graham contrasts the ancient rituals of parliament with the grubby realities of party politics. -- Sarah Hemming Financial Times 20121011 Graham's wonderfully lively new play ... [an] incisive, witty, fictionalised account ... a powerful half-satiric, half-sympathetic portrait of a government driven to all lands of stitch-ups and compromises. -- Paul Taylor Independent 20121010 Graham's breakout play doubles as a drama about the British way of politics and a masterful lampooning of our parliamentary system ... the script nails the satin and bellicose tones of politicians and a culture stiff with sexism and class-consciousness, but it's not just caricatural, or out to show us elected officials running the gamut of incompetence. -- Maxie Szalwinska The Sunday Times 20121014 Graham's quick, informative and amusing play about parliamentary whips -- Susannah Clapp Observer 20121014 A gripping and