A spellbinding debut play about 17-year-olds on the edge, with a touch of magic and mayhem.

Marooned in Great Yarmouth, Nick and Miranda are two intensely bright, funny and volatile young people. They may be best friends but Nick is searching for something else. Obsessed with The Tempest, he is convinced that, if only they can find their own Ariel, they'll be able to conjure a storm.

When Will arrives, it looks like all the elements are in place but none of them really understands the powers they are about to release.

Ian McHugh's play How to Curse was first staged at the Bush Theatre, London, in 2007.

'A blend of the grimy and the fantastical... McHugh has found a way of articulating adolescent confusion far removed from the usual dramatic gamut of grunts, violence and domestic tension... the imagination fizzes the whole time' — Financial Times

'An exciting debut... captures beautifully and economically the bookish fantasy world of teenagers, together with the intensity of their emotions and their sense of wonder... McHugh writes with great virtuosity and humour' — Tribune