'People don't need scissors. They don't need beautiful, handcrafted, ninety pound scissors, however impressive they might be. But they do need somewhere to live.'

Faye and Mel have been together forever. Two kids, a mortgage and a diabetic hamster. A regular, unexceptional existence. They work hard, they get by, they do their best. So if it's true - if Faye's father really has left the factory to her - they'd deserve it, wouldn't they? The site could be worth a fortune - not for making scissors, but ripe for redevelopment. It could change everything. But first they need the paperwork.

Paper is a play about family, heritage and legacy, and is part of Chris Bush's triptych of plays about a Sheffield manufacturing family, Rock / Paper / Scissors. The three plays were first performed simultaneously with the same cast moving between three theatres in Sheffield – the Crucible, the Lyceum and the Studio – as part of Sheffield Theatres' fiftieth birthday celebrations in 2022.



'Paper is a more intimate affair [than Rock or Scissors], and when the emotional dam breaks towards the end, it's genuinely moving... There are moments in Paper that are so beautiful, it makes you catch your breath... the dialogue switches nimbly from domestic bickering to moments of pure beauty'