by Max Wilkinson
Some guys listen to music, some guys like to sing. I like to work people out.
Rainer is a solitary delivery rider, moving across London, delivering food to whoever will summon her. From luxury flats to leafy suburbs, she loves to create stories in her head, re-imagining London as one of her favourite sci-fi films or Scorsese's Taxi Driver. She loves her life. Until reality starts to slip and she begins forgetting stuff – even the city she knows so well. And when her one-time lover Jack disappears, when her mum keeps on calling, she has to ask herself: is everything really okay?
A one-woman show partly inspired by Dylan Thomas's Under Milkwood, Rainer is a celebration of a city and the people within it, seen and unseen. It was a finalist for Samuel French's Off-Broadway Award, longlisted for Theatre Uncut's Political Playwriting Award and winner of the Prix Royal competition in Paris. This edition was published to coincide with the production at the Arcola Theatre, London, in June 2022.
Every purchase you make from the National Theatre Bookshop helps fund the vital work of The National Theatre. Whether that's putting new work on stages across the world or supporting our outreach and learning programmes, every purchase you make really does make a difference.
