Damned United

Anders Lustgarten is Pearson Playwright-in-Residence at the Finborough Theatre, where his first two plays, The Insurgents (2007) and Enduring Freedom (2008), were produced. Other work includes The Punishment Stories, (shortlisted for the 2007 Verity Bargate Award), an adaptation of Slawomir Mrozek's The Police (BAC 2007), The Sugar-Coated Bullets of the Bourgeoisie (2010) for the National Theatre Studio and If You Don't Let Us Dream Then We Won't Let You Sleep (Royal Court, 2013). Anders is a political activist, has taught on Death Row, been arrested by the Turkish secret police, and holds a PhD in Chinese politics from the University of California. He also won the inaugural Harold Pinter Playwrights Award with a commission from the Royal Court in 2011.David Peace grew up in Ossett, near Wakefield, and writes novels based on real-life events. In 2003, he was named one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists, and his novel about the 1984 coal miner’s strike, GB84 (2004), won the 2005 James Tait Black Memorial Prize. His other works include Red Riding Quartet (1999-2002), a series of four novels about the Yorkshire Ripper; The Damned Utd (2006), which was adapted into a film starring Michael Sheen; Tokyo Year Zero (2007) and Occupied City (2009), the first two books of a trilogy set in Tokyo during the aftermath of the Second World War; and Red or Dead (2013), following Bill Shankly’s time as manager of Liverpool FC. He currently lives in Japan with his family.

In his novel, Peace has created a character who seems infinitely more human and "real" than those who appear in any number of non-fiction books – it is quite an achievemen