Tormented talent

When Sarah Kane’s play Blasted was premièred at the tiny upstairs studio in the Royal Court Theatre in London in January 1995, it created such a stir that her name was splashed across the tabloid newspapers.

When Sarah Kane’s play Blasted was premièred at the tiny upstairs studio in the Royal Court Theatre in London in January 1995, it created such a stir that her name was splashed across the tabloid newspapers. How could a 23-year-old woman have come up with such an ugly, violent drama in which limbs are lopped off, eyes gouged out and so-called love is turned into a horrifying rape scene? One critic called it ‘a disgusting feast of filth’; another said that the experience of watching it was like ‘having your whole head held in a bucket of offal’. Kane was shaken but unrepentant, and went on to write another four equally controversial plays before killing herself on 20 February 1999 while in hospital after taking an overdose of sleeping tablets two days earlier.