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Beth, originally from Mansfield but now living in London, is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter and former writer in residence at the National Theatre, London.

Beth’s breakout play Wonderland – a critically acclaimed drama about Midlands men in mines during the 1980s – won her the Evening Standard Theatre Award for most promising playwright, and she was also a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.

Wonderland was broadcast live worldwide through The Guardian website and had a series of sold-out regional productions.

Till the Stars Come Down promotional photo. Photography (Marc Wooten and Sinead Matthews) by Simon Sorted.

Following her breakout hit, and set against the ever-changing industrial landscape of working-class Britain, The House of Shades, one of Beth’s recent creations, spans five decades in the lives of a working-class family from Nottinghamshire.

The House of Shades also received international acclaim from critics and starred BAFTA and Olivier Award-nominated actor Anne-Marie Duff (Shameless, His Dark Materials, Sex Education).

Photos: Local music putting Nottinghamshire on the map in 2024

And now, Beth is back with a new story set in Mansfield during a post-Brexit summer, exploring culture, class and character.

Beth Steel attending the Writers' Guild of Great Britain Awards 2023 at Royal College Of Physicians on January 16, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Kate Green/Getty Images).

The critically acclaimed play marks Beth’s mainstage debut with the National Theatre, telling the stories of three sisters – Sylvia (Sinéad Matthews), Hazel (Lucy Black) and Maggie (Lisa McGrillis) – during the day of Sylvia’s wedding to Marek (Marc Wootton), who is Polish.

In a review for The Guardian, Arifa Akbar dubbed the play ‘your invitation to the wedding of the year’ and rated the production five stars.

Arifa Akbar said the the play “brings women blazingly to the fore” with “bursts of music, drunken disorder, betrayal, intrigues and shocks” along the way.

In a review for The Standard, theatre reviewer Nick Curtis, said the “wedding unlocks family tensions and wider historic and social schisms” and praised the play for its “female-led, refined and subtle” writing.

In another review from TimeOut, writer Andrzej Lukowski, said: “It’s wonderfully written and acted, building to a dynamite final scene.”

Tickets for the play can be found at events.nationaltheatre.org.uk/events/88502

Till the Stars Come Down is running at the Dorfman Theatre, on the East side of the National Theatre, South Bank, London, until March 16, 2024.

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