An outstanding . . . play, David Harrower's Knives in Hens is set in a God-fearing, pre-industrial world and deals, passionately and intelligently with a woman's discovery of a language that corresponds with her feelings . . . A remarkable debut.

Guardian

David Harrower's remarkable debut as a professional dramatist creates a haunting, poetic and entirely individual world of its own. I have never seen a play quite like it. . . You leave the theatre in no doubt that you have watched one of the year's most heartening and accomplished debuts. Harrower already seems like a writer built to last.

Daily Telegraph

David Harrower's brittle, beautiful play Knives in Hens [...] is widely regarded as a masterpiece, and justifiably so. Its unvarnished language is at once coarse and moving.

List

[A]bsolutely unique, sparsely poetic and deeply affecting. Its care with language (which is a central concern for the young women) is reminiscent of the assiduous selecting (and removing) of words in the work of Harold Pinter . . . [O]ne of the greatest plays in the Scottish theatrical canon

Sunday Herald