'One day all you care about is music, fashion and boys. The next day there's no food. Piece by piece your world starts to change so you change with it.'
Mostar, Yugoslavia, 1988. Mili, a boy from out of town, dives from the famous Old Bridge. Mina, a local girl, watches. As he falls, she begins falling for him.
Mostar, Bosnia, 1992. In a town of growing divisions, Mina and Mili never doubt that their future lies together. But nor can they imagine the dangers that future will bring.
Winner of the 2020 Papatango New Writing Prize, Igor Memic's play Old Bridge is an epic love story exploring the impact of a war that Europe forgot, and the love and loss of those who lived through it. It was first produced by Papatango at the Bush Theatre, London, in 2021, directed by Selma Dimitrijevic.
Memic went on to win the Most Promising Playwright Award at the 2022 Offies (Off West End Awards), and was also named Most Promising Playwright (jointly with Zadie Smith) at the 2022 Critics' Circle Awards. Old Bridge won the Outstanding Achievement in Affiliate Theatre Award at the 2022 Olivier Awards.
'An achingly romantic, Balkan Romeo and Juliet story... Memic, writing about the hometown he left aged two, has a gift for character and atmosphere... a remarkably assured debut, shot through with ardour and pain, recalling history that's recent and raw'
- Evening Standard
'[A] wholly deserving [winner of the Papatango Prize], with the writer bringing a faultless naturalism to conversational dialogue... you're carried along by these characters and their quirks, even as their home is transformed into a combat zone. It's made all the more remarkable by the fact that Old Bridge is Memic's debut play'
- Whatsonstage
'A chilling jolt to the memory... a powerful and moving reminder of the fragility of the peace that we take too easily for granted'
- Reviews Hub
Most Promising Playwright - Critics' Circle Awards
Most Promising Playwright - Offies (Off West End Awards)
Outstanding Achievement in Affiliate Theatre - Olivier Awards
Papatango New Writing Prize
