L-R Hannah Lavery, Linda McLean, Uma Nada-Rajah
Paines Plough, one of the UK’s leading new writing touring companies, today announces the line up for Come To Where I Am, a special one-off new writing showcase as part of Shedinburgh at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Presented by Paines Plough in association with Playwrights’ Studio Scotland, the event will take place at Shedinburgh (Assembly Checkpoint) at 5pm on 11th August 2026.
Responding to the creative prompt ‘Come to Where I Am’, Paines Plough invited three Scottish playwrights to write a monologue about the places and people that shape them. Uma Nada-Rajah presents Crowbar, Hannah Lavery presents The Things I Do Not Say, and Linda McLean presents a piece originally commissioned by Paines Plough in 2017, Where I’m From Is Invisible. Come to Where I Am continues this legacy, challenging a new cohort of playwrights to create monologues for performance, where their location, and their personal response to living in the present day, become the starting point for their creative explorations.
Come to Where I Am is a sequel to Paines Plough’s monologue series, Come To Where I’m From, which launched in 2010. Come To Where I’m From invited hundreds of playwrights to write and perform a monologue exploring where they come from, assembling a theatrical tapestry of the nation. This series featured stories from writers such as Dennis Kelly, Morgan Lloyd Malcolm, Roy Williams, Simon Stephens, Gary McNair, Louise Brealey, and James Graham, whose piece ‘Northern/Not Northern’ was the inspiration for his hit BBC series, Sherwood.
Katie Posner, Joint Artistic Director of Paines Plough, and Debo Adebayo, Deputy Artistic Director, added: “We can’t wait to present these three brilliant pieces at Shedinburgh. Linda’s piece is a Come to Where I’m From classic, which we jumped at the opportunity to bring back; a piece that explores how time – as well as place – has the incredible capacity to shape our knotty personal present.”
Alongside this, we’re delighted to present brand new commissioned pieces by two brilliant writers, Uma and Hannah, both of whom have written stories expressing their experiences of ‘now’ with theatrical force and wit. It’s a pleasure to make our debut at Shedinburgh, to collaborate with the mighty Playwrights’ Studio, Scotland, and to commission Uma, Hannah and Linda, to add their talented voices to our tapestry of the nation’s playwrights.”
Come To Where I Am
Presented by Paines Plough, in association with Playwrights’ Studio Scotland
Written by Hannah Lavery, Linda McLean and Uma Nada-Rajah
Shedinburgh (Assembly Checkpoint), Edinburgh Festival Fringe
Tuesday 11 August 2026 at 5pm
https://bookings.shedinburgh.com/event/9854:106/9854:143/
