A blistering play about our need for honesty in relationships and how it can sometimes bring about their downfall.

Ana calls Edward's bluff on their disintegrating relationship and enters a deadly truthful world where honesty is celebrated in all of its dangerous glory. While for Helen – loving mother, homemaker, wife – beneath the civilised veneer of her life, a dark truth threatens to surface.

Sam Holcroft's play While You Lie was first performed at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, in July 2010.

'When I say that this is a deeply unpleasant play I mean it as high praise'

'Sam Holcroft is the real thing, a major play-writing talent'

Sam Holcroft is a playwright, winner of the Windham Campbell Prize for Literature. Her plays include: A Mirror (Almeida Theatre, London, 2023; West End, 2024); Rules for Living (National Theatre, London, 2015); The Wardrobe for National Theatre Connections; Edgar & Annabel, part of the Double Feature season in the Paintframe at the National Theatre; Dancing Bears, part of the Charged season for Clean Break at Soho Theatre and Latitude Festival; While You Lie at the Traverse, Edinburgh; Pink, part of the Women, Power and Politics season at the Tricycle; Vanya, adapted from Chekhov, at The Gate; and Cockroach, co-produced by the National Theatre of Scotland and Traverse (nominated for Best New Play 2008, by the Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland and shortlisted for the John Whiting Award, 2009). In 2013, she wrote The House Taken Over, a libretto for opera, adapted from Cortázar, for the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence and Académie Européenne de Musique. She received the Tom Erhardt Award in 2009, was the Pearson Writer-in-Residence at the Traverse Theatre, 2009–10, and the Writer-in-Residence at the National Theatre Studio from 2013–14. In 2014, she received a Windham Campbell Prize for Literature in the drama category.