Landscape with Weapon

Award-winning writer Joe Penhall was described by The Financial Times as 'one of the finest playwrights of his generation.' His debut at the Royal Court, Some Voices, won the John Whiting Award for best new play. His National Theatre play Blue/Orange won an Olivier Award, an Evening Standard Award and the Critics Circle Award for Best Play. Joe wrote and produced the BAFTA winning BBC serial Moses Jones and his feature film of Some Voices starred Daniel Craig and premiered in competition at the Cannes Film festival . This was followed by Enduring Love, also starring Daniel Craig, based on Ian McEwan's novel; and his adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel, The Road, starring Charlize Theron and Viggo Mortensen, which premiered in competition at the Venice Film Festival in 2009.

'Penhall turns the theatre into a debating chamber in Roger Michell's tense, terrific production. The debate is electrifyingly charged in the performances of Tom Hollander and Julian Rhind-Tutt as the two brothers... ...This is an important and bracing intellectual drama that brilliantly humanises a moral conundrum.' Sunday Express 'Intriguing new play about the moral and psychological implications of the arms trade...Penhall shows a subtle feel for the big issues in small settings.' Daily Mail 'Fascinating... constantly subtle and engaging...Hollander gives an extraordinary portrait of myopic preoccupation and subsequent unravelling. Julian Rhind-Tutt is magnetic, beautifully light verbally and physically...Their relationship, finely steered by Roger Michell, solders the play together and makes a crisis into a drama.' Observer 'Joe Penhall's gift for dramatising uncomfortable arguments is again apparent in his powerful new play about the arms industry and the moral responsibility of the scientist. Roger Michell's production does justice to its lithe intelligence, emotional pain and rueful humour. Tom Hollander is excellent... The ending is bleakly beautiful.' Independent, Critics' Choice 'Riveting...bitterly funny play in which [Penhall] sets the aesthetic world of the creator against the harsh realities of politics. It's a series of debates in which the emotions run deep as the ideas...Penhall has a terrific ability to explore moral conundrums dramatically...hones in on the argument with accuracy and force' 5 STARS / SHOW OF THE WEEK / CRITICS' CHOICE #1 Jane Edwardes, Time Out