Never before produced or published, this is an early play by the 27-year-old Tom Williams and the first play to carry his signature pen-name 'Tennessee'. It was rescued from Williams' archive by Vanessa Redgrave

Written in 1938 and based on an actual newspaper story, the play follows the events of a prison scandal which shocked America when convicts leading a hunger strike were locked in a steam-heated cell and roasted to death

Williams later said, 'I have never written anything since that could compete with its violence and horror'