The Indian boy - Rona Munro

A play about the discovery of a 'wild child', examining our mythic struggles with the wilderness inside ourselves.

A 'wild child' is found in the last clump of woodland left on a building development. The builder, Peter, wants him out of the way. The psychologist, Julius, wants to protect him. His wife, June, wants to understand him and all the time something even wilder seems intent on escaping from the forest.

Rona Munro's play The Indian Boy was written for the Royal Shakespeare Company and was inspired by the 'little changeling boy' who is the source of Oberon and Titania's quarrel in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

It was first performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company at The Cube, Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, in 2006.

Rona Munro has written extensively for stage, radio, film and television including the award-winning plays The James Plays trilogy (National Theatre of Scotland, the Edinburgh International Festival and the National Theatre of Great Britain), Iron (Traverse Theatre and Royal Court, London), Bold Girls (7:84 and Hampstead Theatre) and The Maiden Stone (Hampstead Theatre).

Other credits include an adaptation of Louis de Bernires' novel Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Scuttlers for Manchester's Royal Exchange, The Last Witch for the Traverse Theatre and the Edinburgh International Festival, Long Time Dead for Paines Plough and the Drum Theatre Plymouth, The Indian Boy and Little Eagles for the Royal Shakespeare Company and Pandas for the Traverse in Edinburgh. She is the co-founder, with actress Fiona Knowles, of Scotland's oldest continuously performing, small-scale touring theatre company, The Msfits. Their one-woman shows have toured every year since 1986.

Film and television work includes the Ken Loach film Ladybird Ladybird, Aimee and Jaguar and television dramas Rehab (directed by Antonia Bird) and BAFTA-nominated Bumping the Odds for the BBC. She has also written many other single plays for television and contributed to series including Casualty and Dr Who. Most recently, she wrote the screenplay for Oranges and Sunshine, directed by Jim Loach and starring Emily Watson and Hugo Weaving.

She has contributed several radio plays to the Stanley Baxter Playhouse series on BBC Radio 4.

'Wonderful... an imaginative triumph... the best new play I have seen in ages'

'A magical little box of tricks... a skewed, sweet and slightly scary modern fairytale'