The Daylight Atheist released on 'Black Friday'

Tom Scott's The Daylight Atheist has been published as part of Playmarket's New Zealand Play Series, a series devoted to ensuring major New Zealand works for the stage reach the readership and audience they deserve.

It will be released on 'Black Friday', February the 13th at the Irish Pub Kitty O'Shea's in Wellington, with actors Grant Tilly and Danny Mulheron reading and providing bonhomie.Lauded as a classic on its theatre premiere by many critics in New Zealand, Scott's play is based on the life of his father, and sees Scott bravely deal with skeletons in the Fielding family closet.

In The Daylight Atheist, cantankerous and isolated, an old man has retreated to his bedroom fortress, a bombsite of newspapers, aircraft parts and candlewick bedspreads. Amid the debris, he conjures up the characters of his past. From Irish boyhood to World War 2 airman to New Zealand immigrant, Danny Moffat retraces a life of profane exploits and irreverent adventures, and puts a dark, witty spin on New Zealand's post World War Two immigrant history.

Tom Scott's The Daylight Atheist played to acclaim and outstanding reviews throughout New Zealand in 2002 and 2003, but it is less known here that it went on to be one of New Zealand most successful plays in Australia, playing with the major theatre companies in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.

"This is a play that has its audience roaring with laughter for much of the time, but its as much a tragedy as a comedy," wrote the critic at Australia's The Age newspaper. "The story is a representation of the many Irish who have emigrated in search of wider horizons and better lives."

"An entertaining and satisfying comedy that will rank alongside Middle Aged Spread as a significant theatrical milestone," said the National Business Review at the time.

The New Zealand Play Series so far also includes Skin Tight by Gary Henderson, Bare and No.2 by Toa Fraser, Tzigane by John Vakidis and The Packer by Dianna Fuemana. Together they provide a snapshot of some of the most significant works of New Zealand literature of the last fifteen years only now being put into print.

The Daylight Atheist and other New Zealand Play Series titles are available from www.playmarket.org.nz/bookshop and all good bookshops.

For further information contact Mark Amery at director@playmarket.org.nz/ (04) 3828462

TOM SCOTT

Tom Scott was born in London and lives in Wellington.

Scott co-wrote the feature film Footrot Flats with Murray Ball for which they received a New Zealand Film and Television Award for best script. He has written for successful local dramas and comedies such as Seven Periods with Mr Gormsby and Spin Doctors.

His top selling biography of Sir Edmund Hillary was made into an award-winning documentary series for TVNZ 'Hillary on Everest'. Scott's first play, The Daylight Atheist played to full theatre houses in New Zealand and Australia for over a year.

Since the early 1970s, Scott has been writing commentary on the state of New Zealand politics. He illustrated his own column, in the country's largest circulation magazine, The Listener. He has worked for the Auckland Star as a political correspondent and for the Evening Post as an editorial cartoonist.

Scott has been awarded political columnist of the year twice and cartoonist of the year five times. He has published six collections of his satirical writings and five collections of his cartoons.

Scott currently works for the Dominion Post in Wellington as an editorial cartoonist.

Playmarket

09/02/09