Think Of a Name For It: In an ordinary London suburban flat on the 11th September 2001, Titian wants rent from flat mate Tod. But Tod is evasive and switches on the TV news. They watch live coverage of the twin towers collapsing, but Titian disapproves of the invasive coverage and switches it off. Lee is distracted by terrible poetry arriving on his mobile phone, and Tod shows off (what he believes to be) his great stand up comedy routine. It’s not great.
Titian’s ex-wife Diane makes a surprise visit with a kitten in a box, and an argument about the TV re-ignites long-running rivalry between Tod and Titian. They once worked together, and Titian lost his job over his crazy mathematical proof that he claims proves water flows uphill. Titian is desperate for approval, but Tod taunts him and a fight develops in which Titian threatens Tod with a potato peeler rendering him unconscious. Grysbowksi, the cleaner Tod employed, produces a gun and orders the fighting to stop, but she wants money from them and holds them hostage. She produces a rucksack full of heroin.
With Tod incapacitated, the others don’t know what to do. Grysbowksi is a drugs mule trafficking drugs and money using Titian’s house as a safe house. Bored and angry, she forces Lee to use a carrier bag as a toilet, but Tod recovers from Titian’s attack and takes charge of the drug trafficking, except it’s gone wrong. The money hasn’t arrived and the pick up is on its way. Titian is furious that his house is being used this way, but they all think of ways out of the situation, and try to act normally. Grysbowksi loses her patience and amuses herself by forcing Tod to feed Diane’s kitten the contents of the carrier bag Lee used as a toilet.
Her brother, Stanley, arrives to take the heroin. He’s angry that there’s no money. Inspired by Lee’s talk of his relationship problems, Grysbowksi then tries to force Tod to have sex with the Hoover at gunpoint. But Titian won’t let it happen, and Grysbowksi has to admit that the gun’s a fake. Grysbowksi has hidden the money in the Hoover because Tod failed in his duty to get to it first. It’s her way of teaching him a lesson. Diane leaves with Stanley and Grysbowski, and the drugs, and the money. Tod, Lee and Titian are left alone watching 9/11 unfold on TV.
Hanna Slattne of Tinderbox has read it and said: “The theatricality comes from the excellent pace and interweaving of the dialogue – a very competent handling of the play that allows what action there is, back stories, narrative twists and revelations to emerge almost by accident as the characters are too busy arguing with each other and betraying their self-absorption to notice much else. Reading it is very much like being on one side of a window that opens into the souls of a very disparate and flawed bunch of people going about their lives, albeit in somewhat extreme circumstances.”
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