Award-winning dark comedy Spent Hen unpacks the realities of childlessness at 53two this month

This month, Connie Kerr’s award-winning play Spent Hen comes to 53two this October, bringing a darkly comic and deeply personal exploration of childlessness, its attendant social stigma and the relentlessly complicated expectations placed on women.

Winner of the OffCut 2025 Judges’ Award for Writing, the new full-length play follows a woman who always assumed she would become a mother, until it simply doesn’t happen. Having ended her marriage the year she turned 40 and begun questioning the life she once imagined for herself, she leaves London for the northern town where she grew up.

A former features editor at a glossy fashion magazine, she finds work at a local newspaper – and is promptly tasked with interviewing a series of distressingly inspiring women who appear to be effortlessly balancing successful careers with motherhood. Initially, these encounters only deepen her sense that she has failed in life, reinforcing the narrative that a childless women has less of a stake in society.

Inspired by Kerr’s own experiences, Spent Hen gradually moves from isolation towards tentative optimism, as its protagonist begins speaking openly about miscarriage, infertility and childlessness, finding that the stories she has kept to herself resonate far more widely than she realised.

As Kerr questions the images of perfect families that can alienate those who cannot or do not have children, the play grows into a candid, wry exploration of grief and identity, while thoughtfully confronting the social pressure to conform to a rigid conception of a fulfilled life.

Spent Hen runs at 53two from Wed 21 to Fri 23 October, before heading to Audenshaw’s Guide Bridge Theatre on Wed 28 Oct.

Book tickets below.