Why was it created?
Eight is the first play written by Ella Hickson ready to air at Edinburghs Fringe Festival in August 2008. Hickson created eight monologues, these monologues (15 minutes each) offer a state-of-the-nation group portrait. The official website for the performance describes it as "looking at what has happened to a generation that have grown up in a world where everything has become acceptable."
Eight was formed around the results of a survey that asked twenty-somethings what defined their generation, Hickson tried to answer their almost unanimous response of 'apathy' with a show that works to find the glimmers of faith amidst wholesale cynicism. Eight looks at the singular, personal effect of an otherwise social phenomenon.

Her work includes: Swive [Elizabeth] (Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare's Globe, 2019); ANNA (National Theatre, 2019); The Writer (Almeida Theatre, 2018); Oil (Almeida Theatre, London, 2016); Wendy & Peter Pan (Royal Shakespeare Company, 2013 and 2015; Tokyo, 2021); Riot Girls (Radio 4); Boys (Nuffield Theatre, Southampton / Headlong Theatre / HighTide Festival Theatre, 2012); The Authorised Kate Bane (Grid Iron/Traverse Theatre, 2012);

Rightfully Mine (Radio 4); Precious Little Talent (Trafalgar Studios/Tantrums Productions, 2011), Hot Mess (Arcola Tent/ Tantrums Productions, 2010) and Eight (Trafalgar Studios/Bedlam Theatre, Edinburgh, 2008/9).

ANNA:
A radical play set in East Berlin in 1968, unfolding with all the tension of a spy thriller and the inexorable revelations of an Ibsen play.

Swive [Elizabeth]:
Sex is power in the reign of Elizabeth I. Ella Hickson's play explores the ways and means by which women in power negotiate patriarchal pressure in order to get their way.

Decade:
Ten years after 9/11, twenty international writers respond to the defining event of our times.

Precious Little Talent:
A touching and funny play about 20-somethings graduating into a world that's sold them down the river.

Hot Mess: 
A dark and lyrical tale about friendship, loss and loneliness.

From Millie, the jolly-hockey-sticks prostitute who mourns the loss of the good old British class system, to Miles, a 7/7 survivor, and Danny, an ex-squaddie who makes friends in morgues, Eight looks at what has happened to a generation that has grown up in a world where everything has become acceptable.

'Ella Hickson has already found her voice and it's a powerful one - a potent show indeed' New York Times

'One of the most self-assured, startlingly well-written and moving pieces of theatre around' Herald

Next, Jude- a seventeen year old who goes to a language school in France and ends up obsessed with, and finally bedding, his ageing landlady: this is more sensitively written, but still ends up feeling rather flat.

Third comes Mona, a pregnant teenager who tells the story of running away from her bohemian mother, to find what she believes to be love and faith in a dark stranger, who then leaves her expecting her baby. Despite all this we fail to feel any sympathy for her character.

The fourth monologue is Miles, a man fortunate enough to escape the 7/7 bombs in London but who uses it as an excuse for two years of debauched living. Yet again, a character which could be likeable, is so shallow as to seem unworthy of any emotion from the audience.

Of the next three scenes – Astrid, a woman coming back to the home she shares with her partner after spending the night with her lover; Danny, an ex-soldier suffering from post traumatic stress; and Millie, an ageing prostitute obsessed with keeping her gentlemen friends protected in their worlds – none really stand up to more than a cursory examination of their motives.

The final monologue; Bobby, finally shows some optimism, with a young single mother determining to make Christmas special for her children. This did at least mean that the evening ended with a positive feel after all the negative emotions earlier.