The Thousand Days: A new play by Callum Murray

We To Play Presents:

The Thousand Days

A new play by Callum Murray, directed by Grace Ward.

‘Those of us who doped mostly started in our third year… Everybody has their thousand days; everybody has their choice’. From The Secret Race by Tyler Hamilton.

When aspiring young rider David joins a professional cycling team in 1991, he has no idea he’s entering a brutal, cutthroat world of secrets and lies. After all, no one starts off wanting to cheat, right? Cyclists do it because they love it.

They love to race. They love to test themselves. They want to know just how far and how fast they can go. Clean.

But it’s a monumental step-up from racing as an amateur to becoming a pro; adapting to a new and alien environment in which what people say and what they do are not always aligned.

Doping in cycling is itself a cycle. As the dopers retire or get banned (or even die), new young riders hungry for success at any price, take their place. So how is David supposed to both keep his place in the team and stay true to his principles?

Anyway, it's not cheating if everyone's doing it. Is it?