(7 actors; biggest part is Jo (needs best reader); also Daniel)

Daniel Saturday night. I can have a long, long lie in tomorrow.

Mary So can I. I’ll get up at ten

Philip Make that eleven o’clock.

Shamraz Make that twelve.

Sarah Make that half past one!

Beth Why should I get up at all? I’ll sleep as long as I can.

Jo What? How can you do that?

Mary I just don’t get up any earlier.

Philip No, later!

Sarah Much later!

Beth Very much later!

Jo You can’t do that!

Shamraz Why not? Are you going to drag us out of bed?

Jo No, but my family would drag me out of bed. Don’t you know what day tomorrow is?

Daniel Sunday?

Mary I think we’re supposed to give a better answer than that.

Shamraz Of course! It’s Father’s Day.

Philip Oh, no! Breakfast in bed.

Sarah That’s sounds great to me.

Daniel Not you, you fool! Breakfast in bed for your father. There goes my long lie.

Mary Not mine. My dad is in Australia.

Philip Mine is in Afghanistan. He has more to worry about than breakfast.

Shamraz Mine lives in Crewe. I could post him a card. Though he rarely sends me one.

Sarah I don’t know who my father is. If he never bothered about me, I certainly won’t bother about him.

Beth I have someone I call dad; I don’t think he’s my real father. I don’t know how to find the real one.

Jo My Dad died of cancer last year. I wish tomorrow didn’t even exist. But I shall still get up.

Daniel What? You’re mad? Why?

Jo My Dad was a very special person. We miss him terribly. But strangely, it was only after he died that I really understood how much a father is and does. And I started listening to something someone said in Urban Saints, about God being our Father.

Daniel Is he?

Mary How far away is he? I’d like a Dad nearer than Australia.

Philip Does he look after other fathers? Does he look after my Dad in Afghanistan

Shamraz My father never writes to me. Did God ever write to us?

Jo I think it’s called the Bible.

Sarah I never knew my father. Is there a way to know God as a Father instead?

Beth How can we know if God really is our Father?

Jo A real Father would be right by you whenever things got hard. That’s why I started thinking about Father God. That’s why I started going to church.

Daniel Of course. That’s where your father is, on Father’s Day.

Jo Yes. Both God my Father . . . and I suppose also my human dad, who mum says is with him now. At church I have a REAL Father’s Day.

Beth A real father. That sounds good.

Jo Some of you can come with me, if you like. Though not until you’ve made breakfast in bed for your dad or mum, or spoken or written to them.

Daniel AND after we have got up earlier than we have ever done on a Sunday before!

(George B. Hill, Mar 2013)