This is a work of fiction.

Any names, characters, events or locations depicted are the product of the imagination.

Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

It's also a kind of history play.

I'll admit that there are plenty of gaps, but that's OK.

You can fill them in.

Let's begin.

Award-winning theatre-maker Andy Smith presents a new piece of theatre telling a story from the north. The story of a life. The story of our lives. Exploring some of the events of the last eighty years alongside the experience of a man who has lived through it, the work looks to examine as well as challenge some of our ideas of identity, location and history.

Created as part of Fuel's New Theatre in Your Neighborhood project. Co-commissioned by They Eat Culture. Supported by Live at LICA.

The Preston Bill is a new monologue from acclaimed theatre maker Andy Smith. Telling the story of the life of a man from this city, it reflects on the socio-political and historical shifts of the last eighty years by placing everyday moments alongside extraordinary global events. Commissioned and produced by Fuel for the New Theatre in Your Neighborhood project, The Preston Bill can be presented in any room that can be turned into a theatre for its duration. It has been performed in a social club, a gallery, and around a pub table as well as in more conventional and traditional theatre spaces.

This volume also contains the texts of two earlier works, commonwealth and all that is solid melts into air, which have also been presented as a double bill under the title two from a smith.

Andy Smith has been making theatre and performance professionally since 2003 (operating and presenting work between 2003 and 2013 under the name A Smith). In this time he has been involved in creating a large body of solo works for theatre. These pieces are characteristically simple and accessible in form, but unafraid to approach and address big and complex subjects. His solo projects include All That Is Solid Melts Into Air (2011) and Commonwealth (2012), which since 2013 have toured as a double bill under the collective title Two From A Smith.

Along with Karl James, Andy is also the co-director of the award winning plays An Oak Tree, ENGLAND and The Author by Tim Crouch. Most recently, this collaboration has produced What Happens To The Hope At The End Of The Evening (2013), a commission for The Almeida Theatre, as well as the world premiere of Tim's latest play Adler & Gibb at The Royal Court in 2014.

His latest project, The Preston Bill, has been commissioned by Fuel as part of their project New Theatre in Your Neighbourhood, which aims to find better ways to tour work and develop audiences around the UK. The piece will receive its premiere at The New Continental in Preston in October 2015 before touring, with a number of work-in-development performances taking place before that.