Glass Eels is a play written by Nell Leyshon

Nell Leyshon

Nell Leyshon is a British dramatist and novelist.She was born in Glastonbury, England, and lives in the county of Dorset. She attended the University of Southampton, gaining a first in English Literature.Leyshon writes regularly for Radio 4 and 3...

, broadcast on BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...

 in July 2003.
The play has also been performed on stage at the Hampstead Theatre

Hampstead Theatre

Hampstead Theatre is a theatre in the vicinity of Swiss Cottage and Belsize Park, in the London Borough of Camden. It specialises in commissioning and producing new writing, supporting and developing the work of new writers. In 2009 it celebrates its 50 year anniversary.The original theatre was...

, it is the second part of a planned quartet of Somerset plays covering the four seasons the first being the award winning Comfort Me with Apples.

The play is set on the Somerset Levels

Somerset Levels

The Somerset Levels, or the Somerset Levels and Moors as they are less commonly but more correctly known, is a sparsely populated coastal plain and wetland area of central Somerset, South West England, between the Quantock and Mendip Hills...

 one August, probably on the River Parrett

River Parrett

The River Parrett flows through the counties of Dorset and Somerset in South West England, from its source in the Thorney Mills springs in the hills around Chedington in Dorset...

. While it explores a young girl's sexual awakening, and her acceptance of past loss, it also concerns eel

Eel

Eels are an order of fish, which consists of four suborders, 20 families, 111 genera and approximately 800 species. Most eels are predators...

fishing and a dying rural way of life.