The Chicken Run

A play for young people 11 to 16 to read and perform

Slim McKee, turning sixteen, wants more than anything to be a member of the local black-leather motorcycle gang. He does a newspaper round to earn money for a motorbike. At home there is a blustery father and a cosseting mother. Slim submits to the entry test for the gang - the chicken run, a brutal and dangerous trial of courage. Meanwhile, the other news round kids, led by David Jones, carry on with their own lives, until they cross Slim's and the motorcycle gang's, when one of the gang is proved by David Jones to be a thief. Then Slim finds himself involved in a different kind of chicken run, one that tests his moral as well as his physical courage. A study, with a comic sub-plot, of teenage relationships, written with the co-operation of the young actors who performed in the first production.

Though over thirty years old, The Chicken Run is still read and given studio performances by less experienced young readers and actors in early secondary school years.

First published by Heinemann, 1968

Frequently reprinted

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All contents are ©Aidan Chambers unless otherwise stated.

 

 

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