Modest (play)

Modest is a 2023 play by Ellen Brammar, with music by Rachel Barnes. A biographical play on the painter Elizabeth Thompson and her poet sister Alice, it includes strong elements of song, drag, music hall and gender nonconformity (the script has the Academicians portrayed by drag kings and the historically cisgender Alice presented as and played by a trans woman).

It premiered at Hull Truck Theatre on 23–27 May 2023 in a production co-directed by Luke Skilbeck and Paul Smith and mounted by the theatre companies Milk Presents and Middle Child. This was followed by a UK tour and from 29 June to 15 July 2023 a run at the Kiln Theatre in London.