Stuff happens… and it’s untidy, and freedom’s untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things.

The American Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld’s famous response to the looting of Baghdad, at a press conference on 11 April 2003, provides the title for a new play, specially written for the Olivier Theatre. Stuff Happens sets out to dramatise the extraordinary process which led up to the formation of a coalition, headed by the US and Great Britain, to invade Iraq.

This is David Hare’s thirteenth play for the National. With the support of the NT Studio, it is being developed throughout the summer, during the months before its opening, and will accommodate events as they occur.