Prism and Ken

These two plays - by acclaimed playwright Terry Johnson - tell the inspiring, endearing and sometimes alarming stories of an Oscar-winning cinematographer and an aspiring playwright who receives a chance phone call.

In Prism we see Legendary cinematic master Jack Cardiff retire to the sleepy village in Buckinghamshire. His days of hard work - and play - on some of the most famous sets in the world are now long behind him, as are his secret liaisons with some of the most famous women in the world… Surrounded by memorabilia from a lifetime of ‘painting with light’, the writing of an autobiography should be an easy matter - were it not that Jack would now rather live in the past than remember it.

Ken, set in 1978, sees an aspiring young playwright wrestle with a play for the Royal Court. The phone rings. The man on the other end is called Ken and he’s about to teach our hero the pleasures and perils of serendipity…

These plays were published to coincide with a 2017 production of Prism at the Hampstead Theatre, London, by Hampstead Theatre/AKO Foundation initiative and with funding from NEXT DECADE.