Billions of miles from home, the lone research base on Pluto has lost contact with Earth. Unable to leave or send for help, the skeleton crew sit waiting.

“McDowall masterfully plants ideas that grow until they explode into extraordinary shapes. Filthy humour breaks down into a cracked algorithm of letters and loss … a play that will gnaw away at you. It’s sci-fi – and theatre – at its best.” The Stage Billions of miles from home, the lone research base on Pluto has lost contact with Earth. Unable to leave or send for help, the skeleton crew sit waiting. Waiting. Waiting long enough for time to start eating away at them. To lose all sense of it. To start seeing things in the dark outside. X premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in 2016. This new Modern Classics edition features an introduction by Dr Cristina Delgado-García.

"Alistair McDowall is, I think, the most exciting playwright to emerge out of English theatre in the past five years...He makes me want to try harder. He makes me want to be better." - Simon Stephens, UK, Playwright

"Alistair McDowall is one of the most highly regarded young playwrights writing today" - Guardian