Not About Nightingales

Synopsis

Not About Nightingales, never before produced or published, is an early play by the 27-year-old Tom Williams and the first play to carry his signature pen-name 'Tennessee'.

It was rescued from Williams' archive by the actress Vanessa Redgrave Written in 1938 and based on an actual newspaper story, the play follows the events of a prison scandal which shocked America when convicts leading a hunger strike were locked in a steam-heated cell and roasted to death.

Williams later said: 'I have never written anything since that could compete with its violence and horror.'