context

• overview

  • written in 2007
  • does not discuss crime/war explicitly
  • engages immediately with context of the time
  • violence is a human impulse and that it emanates from historical and political events
• link to kelly’s other plays

  • mark - kidnaps and tortures lou in after the end, vigilante thug in osama the hero
  • lou- abducted in after the end, assists torture of gary in osama the hero
  • danny and brian- feature in orphans
• dna

  • each strand carries chromosomes and every individuals DNA is unique
  • strands spiral to form a double helix- society is interlinked
  • contained in hair, skin, saliva, blood and semen
  • used to match human traces at crime scenes to suspects
  • evidence in court since 1990s
  • data base of all dna since 2001
• james bulger

  • harrowing abduction, torture and murder of 2 year old boy
  • committed by two 10 year old boys near liverpool in 1993
  • james’ mutilated body was dumped on a railway
  • youngest convicted murders in british history
  • reverberations resonated across the globe
  • questions the capacity of humans, notably children, to commit such heinous acts
• war on terror

  • violent attacks on civilians, invasion, occupation, war, rebellion and torture
  • 9/11 - 3000 killed
  • february 2004 kurdish offices in iraq attacked - 117 killed
  • 7/7 7th july 2005 - 52 commuters killed
  • fear leah alludes to could be reminiscent of widespread fear of terrorism in first decade of the 21st century
• war on terror (2)


  • nations tried to protect civilians
  • guantanamo bay
  • us invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq
  • enhanced interrogation techniques that human rights organisations deemed the brink of physical and physiological torture
  • 2001 anti terrorism act - indefinite detention with no trial of non-british citizens
  • after 7/7 terrorism act 2006
• allusions to war on terror in DNA

  • adam taken up a hill = detainees from Afghanistan and Iraq marched to guantanamo bay
  • Adam’s degradation and torture = infamous photos us soldiers took to humiliate iraqi prisoners in 2004
  • black bag placed on brian’s head = conjured black hoods forced in Guantanamo detainees