Matt Grinter

An incisive, unflinching insight into what makes a community tolerate the unthinkable.

‘One girl, against the happiness of the whole village. Can you not see it has to be done?’

Midsummer. The village must choose a new Daughter to sail with the fishing boats and bless the waters, keeping them safe from the roaming orcas for another year.

Fan hopes with all her heart to be the one they choose. But her older sister Maggie says she must never, never, go with the boats. Because something happened to Maggie out there. And no one will admit it.

Orca was the winner of the 2016 Papatango New Writing Prize in association with Southwark Playhouse, London, where it premiered in 2016.