The presentation at the Royal Court's Theatre Upstairs of OWNERS, the first stage play by a young woman playwright who has already had a number of plays broadcast on radio and television, was widely interpreted as signalling the arrival in the theatre of an exciting and promising talent. Set in an up-and-coming area of London, OWNERS is about a successful property developer who pursues the man she wants almost as passionately as she buys up old houses and drives out the sitting tenants. "What is remarkable", according to critic Martin Essline, "is that this play which has such deep undertones is on the surface a highly amusing folk-comedy, full of brilliant observation, witty lines, a truly Dickensian zest creating richly eccentric characters and a wealth of telling theatrical images."