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Research dossier · Arts & Letters

Here We Go (play)

2015 play by Caryl Churchill

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 18, 2026
Entity authorityQ96380888 ↗
Source-derived summary

Here We Go is a 2015 play by Caryl Churchill. Critics' reviews were generally positive.

Reception

Lettie McKie wrote in Londonist that "its brevity does nothing to lessen the gentle emotional power". McKie criticized the dialogue of the funeral scene as stilted "due to Churchill's decision to truncate many of her characters' sentences. Paradoxically, the actors' discomfort shows as they struggle with a trick intended to create naturalism." But the critic described the overall play as "true to life, graceful, and unique". Variety's Matt Trueman said of the final scene ("Getting There"), "Craftily, Churchill coaxes us into contemplating our own mortality." Trueman also called Churchill's writing in the second scene "wry". Mark Lawson of the New Statesman wrote of the finale, "Feeling as if it were staring the audience down, the scene is a terrifyingly unconsoling meditation on the end of life, as if Ingmar Bergman had turned Larkin's 'Aubade' and 'The Old Fools' into a silent movie. [...] I found the play rewardingly sharp and shocking".

Michael Billington of The Guardian wrote: "While initially it seems slight, I find it's grown steadily in the mind since I saw it." He said that the third section ("Getting There") "poignantly captures the ritual humiliations of sickness and age", and dubbed the play "a striking memento mori for an age without faith". Verity Healey of Exeunt argued, "Life seems so brief and yet so expansive.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Here We Go (play)” as 2015 play by Caryl Churchill. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA useful identification and reception guide that helps separate the work itself from editions, performances, ownership and later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2015—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Here, play and Caryl can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as 2015 play by Caryl Churchill. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q96380888. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2015.

Critical limits

Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Here We Go (play)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Here We Go (play) primary sources, Here We Go (play) archive and Here research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Here We Go (play)”?
  2. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
  3. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Here We Go (play)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.