Recommended by Paul Smith

This really makes you think. Think about your own youth. The things you disliked then and maybe still do. The things you hated when you were young and have influenced your life, your thinking... It's not just what is hated here, it's the fact that Cole Hunter Dzubak has the instinct to list them and share them. I can only assume this us massively personal; it is wise and honest and forthcoming and gentle and amusing and loving and brave and exhilarating. Simple and enormously effective. Many bells ring in my head with this listing. Fabulous Cole.

This is a wonderfully off-the-wall piece of writing. Brenton Kniess sets such a good scene with a serious storyline about loss and grief and weaves into it a feisty raccoon - how does the mind create this - well, it's a fertile mind with an eye to take the edge off a story of sadness. Lovely work which has left me yearning for a spin-off story about the raccoon's further adventures!

Donald E Baker's monologue feels as authentic as it gets. A period piece with a period feel and with period attitudes. The observation of childhood innocence coming to an end is exquisitely detailed and totally believable. This is a beautifully written monologue with heart - wonderful!

Forgive me if I snigger - this is very funny. In one minute Donald E Baker sets a scene, defines two characters and makes us laugh with some of the most cringy (but not unrealistic) chat-up lines. Crafting tiny pieces like this is never easy and this one more than ticks all the required elements. Tee Hee!!!1

Morey Norkin has such a wonderful sense of humour and this play illustrates it perfectly. One look down the character list and you will be laughing. Full of the 'barking mad' and the 'completely off-the-wall', this hilarious comedy of Ancient Rome is an amuse bouche of the literary kind. A cracking piece of work which should have audiences laughing in the aisles.

What a complete delight. Simple but so, so very effective. Beautifully thought through and executed to perfection. Glorious.

Wonderful. Lee always makes me smile and this brought a great big grin to my face. A simple piece but with so much backstory which can imagined - it is a real skill to pull that off in just abut a minute. I love this!

Vivian Lermond has a fine reputation for great dialogue and for plays which offer a clever plot with mysterious elements. In Convergence she has created a wonderfully constructed play with characters of depth. Setting the play at Christmas time offers extra spice to the mix, giving any company wishing to perform it a cracker of a play.

The human mind is a wonderful thing and when you read a short play like Bev you easily admire the imagination of a writer like Gina Femia. This smart piece of work takes sibling disagreement and rips the skin of it through the use of a supernatural intermediary and in doing so throws up a whole raft of discussion points; responsibility, family discord, euthanasia.... it's all here and more. Writing that makes you think, think and think again!

This tautly written piece of drama utterly captures the claustrophobic combination of prison and approaching fires. I have read many plays which look at climate change, but this is the first I have come across which looks at the issue of fire. It is so vivid and compelling that you can almost smell the acrid smoke. The dialogue crackles like burning timber and the storytelling by Conor McShane is so good you yearn for an even longer play to emerge. Super stuff.