Connections 2025: Fresh Air

Performed by Central Foundation Boys School (London)

Students from a Pupil Referral group are made to go orienteering in what they discover is England’s most haunted woods.

Stalked by eery ghost children determined to keep them there forever, they must learn to confront the here and now to unlock the key to their futures.

Vickie Donoghue is a writer from Essex working across stage, screen and radio. Her plays include Mudlarks at The Bush Theatre; Tender Loving Care at the New Theatre Royal Portsmouth; Aperture at the Royal Court Theatre; The Path at the HighTide Festival; The Electric for Paines Plough and The Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama; The Witch Finder’s Sister and The Flood at The Queens Theatre, Hornchurch; The Gift for BBC Radio 4; The Piper, a 10-part Podcast drama co-written with Natalie Mitchell for BBC Sounds.

Vickie was an Associate Artist at The Mercury Theatre and a Paines Plough playwright Fellow. She was longlisted for the Evening Standard Theatre Awards as Most Promising New Playwright and was shortlisted for the Royal National Theatre Foundation Playwright Award.