Sanctuary

Sanctuary is a beautiful, evocative play is about the AIDS epidemic in the 90s and is set in Suffolk. It is about loneliness and the legacy of shame, but also the contours of hope and the right to live.

And I think of all the things I could saythat would protect him, to warn him, so hewouldn’t make the mistakes I made. I wishthat someone older and wiser than mewould have told me what to do, where I ammeant to go. We didn’t have anyone to ask,no elders, no blueprint. Sanctuary, the debut play from Jacob Sparrow, is the winner of the inaugural Leodis Prize, a new playwriting competition with Methuen Drama as publishing partner. This beautiful, evocative play is set in a Suffolk village in the early 90s alongside the AIDS epidemic. Told from the perspective of a man who has come to stay, Sanctuary explores his relationship with the people in the village and the confrontation with his own mortality. It is a play about loneliness and the places we go within ourselves when we feel alone, the legacy we leave behind and the things we would tell ourselves to do differently if we could. Sanctuary is about safety and where we allow ourselves to feel safe. This edition was published to coincide with the production at Pleasance Dome at Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August 2026.