'A system is people. These walls and bars didn't build themselves.'

Inside the walls of HMP Drummond, long-term prisoners Baxter, Norton and Lenny pass the time with poker, banter and the kind of gallows humour only lifers can muster.

When Lenny's body starts to give out, young prison officer Mark keeps an eye on him. What begins as a duty of care becomes an unexpected friendship, exposing the cracks in a system built to punish, not to support.

Darkly funny and unflinchingly honest, Evan Placey's play Lifers challenges what we think we know about crime, punishment and redemption. Do some crimes make a second chance impossible? And when the world moves on without you, what does justice really mean? Produced by Synergy Theatre Project, it premiered at Southwark Playhouse, London, in 2025, directed by Synergy's Artistic Director Esther Baker.