The year is 1553, the true Golden Age of English football. It's the Allen Valley Whitsun Game, and men will die today.

This is the big game, and it's been raging for hours. Percy and Rowan are out in the middle of nowhere, miles from the action, when a stranger joins them. A stranger with tidings that will blow their world apart.

Time passes. Night falls. The great chain of being collapses. And they're losing the bloody football…

Stewart Pringle's play The Bounds is a darkly comedic tale of national divides, folk horror and the end of the world as we know it. It was first co-produced by Live Theatre, Newcastle upon Tyne, and the Royal Court Theatre, London, and performed at both theatres in 2024, directed by Jack McNamara.