DNA

This is the GCSE set text that has gripped roughly 400,000 students a year, and it earns it: a lean, brutal thriller about peer pressure, guilt and how fast a group can talk itself into murder. Kelly, the Tony-winning writer of Matilda the Musical, strips the story to bare scenes — a field, a wood — and lets silence do the damage. Read it if you teach it, study it, or want to see how ordinary kids become complicit.

1. 1

   Act 1

   The Dare

   A street, two kids talking. Mark tells Jan the boy is gone: 'He's dead. He's dead, Jan.' Jan won't accept it — 'We don't know that' — but Mark walks her back through what happened. They were messing about, having a laugh, daring each other, and the dare landed on Adam: walk across a beam over a grille. He fell in. Is he dead? 'I don't know. I think so. I don't know.' Jan says they have to tell someone; Mark refuses — telling means blame.

   Leah talks to Phil in a field about death, bonobos, and whether he is listening. He eats an ice cream and says nothing. 'You're not listening to me, are you?' Nothing.

   Then the wood. John Tate asserts control, saying, 'I'm in charge. Everyone agreed. Everyone said I was in charge.' He threatens Richard with violence to maintain order. Mark and Jan arrive with the news: Adam is dead. John Tate panics — 'We have to go to the police' — but Mark says they'll be blamed. 'We're screwed.' Phil speaks for the first time: 'We need to move the body.' He outlines a plan to frame a non-existent man by planting DNA evidence, saying, 'We'll make it look like he was killed by someone else.'

2. 2

   Act 2

   The Frame

   The plan needs a killer who doesn't exist, so the group gathers evidence. In the wood, Phil has taken charge. He instructs them to collect items with a stranger's DNA: a cigarette butt, a drinks can, a used condom. 'We need someone else's DNA on him.' Brian describes finding a man's fleece in a park. He says, 'I got a fleece. It had hair on it. And skin flakes.' Phil approves, saying, 'Good. That's good.'

   Leah talks to Phil in a field. She worries about the plan — 'What if they find out? What if they know it's us?' — and gets nothing back. Leah says, 'You're so silent, Phil. It's like talking to a brick wall.' She discusses the nature of happiness and asks if he is happy. Phil does not answer.

   Then Cathy has found a postman who matches the description of the fictional killer. 'He's perfect. He's a postman. He's got access to everywhere.' Phil decides to frame him. Brian is distressed and says he saw Adam in the grille. He says, 'He was looking at me. He was alive. He was looking at me.' Phil waves it away: 'You were imagining it.' Leah tells Phil she is leaving the group. She says, 'I can't do this anymore, Phil. I can't.' Phil does not respond. Leah exits.

3. 3

   Act 3

   The Wrong Body

   Richard reports that the police have found a body in the grille. Richard says the postman has been arrested. 'Good. That's what we wanted,' Phil says. Then Brian breaks down and confesses he lied about the fleece. He says, 'I made it up. I didn't find a fleece. I was too scared.' Phil stares at him and says nothing.

   Leah has returned. She says, 'I couldn't stay away.' She asks Phil if he missed her. Silence. Then the wood again, and Cathy reveals the postman has been released because the body in the grille was not Adam. 'It was someone else. An old man. A homeless man.'

   Phil says it flat: 'Adam is still out there.' He orders the group to find Adam before the police do. He says, 'We have to find him first.' Leah, in the field, says, 'You're just as scared as the rest of us. You just don't show it.' Phil says nothing.

4. 4

   Act 4

   The Second Death

   Danny and Richard have found Adam living in a hedge near the shopping centre. 'He's been there the whole time. He's been living in a hedge.' Phil decides they must kill Adam to protect themselves. He says, 'We have to kill him. We have no choice.' He instructs Cathy to do it because she is 'the coldest.'

   Leah pleads with him not to go through with the plan. She says, 'Please, Phil. Don't do this.' Phil walks away without speaking.

   Cathy returns and says Adam is dead. She says, 'It's done.' She shows them Adam's wallet as proof. Phil takes the wallet and says nothing.

   Leah says she knows what they have done and cannot live with it. 'I'm going to the police.' Phil finally speaks: 'No, you're not.' He threatens her. Leah runs away.

• PPhilThe silent one who eats ice cream through Leah's monologues until the group needs a plan — then he takes charge with chilling logic. He orders the frame-up, then Adam's death, and speaks his first real threat at Leah: 'No, you're not.'
• LLeahPhil's one-sided confidante, filling every field scene with talk about death, bonobos and doubt. She leaves, returns, and finally chooses conscience over the group — and is threatened for it.
• MMarkThe dare-giver whose refusal to tell anyone turns an accident into a cover-up. He insists they'll be blamed and holds the line even when John Tate wobbles toward the police.
• JJanMark's companion on the street, the first to say they don't know Adam is dead and the first to say they must tell someone. Her conscience loses to Mark's fear.
• JJohn TateThe self-declared leader who rules the wood by threat until real panic hits. He wants to go to the police — and is overruled by Mark and outmanoeuvred by Phil.
• CCathyThe finder of the postman to frame, and the one Phil calls 'the coldest' — so she's the one sent to kill Adam. She returns with 'It's done' and a wallet.
• BBrianThe fragile one who claims the fleece evidence, then confesses he invented it out of fear. He also saw Adam alive in the grille — and was told he imagined it.
• RRichardThreatened by John Tate to keep order, later the messenger of good news — the body found, the postman arrested — and co-finder of Adam in the hedge.
• DDannyWith Richard, he discovers Adam living in a hedge near the shopping centre — the revelation that turns the cover-up into a killing.
• AAdamThe boy dared to cross a beam over a grille, presumed dead, then found alive in a hedge. His second death is the group's deliberate one.

The grille

The field

The wood

DNA evidence

Adam's wallet

The ending refuses catharsis. Adam is killed offstage, certified by a wallet, and the only witness with a conscience is threatened into flight — no arrest, no confession, no adult ever appears. One reading is bleakly political: the group has become a functioning state, with Phil's silent authority, Cathy as enforcer, and Leah exiled like a dissident; the play asks whether morality is just a luxury of people not yet frightened enough. Another reading is that Leah's flight is the real ending — conscience survives, running, and the audience is left holding the knowledge she couldn't act on. It lands because Kelly denies us both punishment and redemption: the boy who never spoke wins with three words, and the girl who never stopped speaking is the one silenced. Whether you read it as a nightmare about peer pressure or a cold-eyed fable about how power fills vacuums, the silence at the end is the play's true verdict — and it's the audience, not the characters, who must break it.

1. 1.Is Phil a leader or a void? Trace how his silence across the field scenes functions as power, and whether the group's crimes would have happened without him.
2. 2.Compare Brian's two breakdowns — seeing Adam alive in the grille and confessing the invented fleece. Why does the group dismiss the witness and absorb the confession?
3. 3.Leah's monologues about bonobos and happiness mirror the group's behaviour. What does the play suggest about the line between animal and human morality — and where does Leah's final choice sit on it?

GCSE and A-Level students who need the plot to actually stick, plus teachers hunting for a way in beyond the study guide. Anyone who liked Lord of the Flies and wants its modern, colder cousin in under two hours.

FAQ