“A quick return for this lot given that they featured in the last missive, and what a return with one of the best cuts from their recent long playing debut ‘Good beneath the radar’. Sweet, moving and tender. Sorry if that sounds a tad bit lame and maybe derogatory, but that I’m afraid sums up this track. It’s one of those rarified treats when you are simply left reaching for words. Too dour to be considered elegiac, yet too intrinsically enchanting to be considered melancholic, The Playwrights deal a schizophrenic card in that they admirably merge the opposing emotions of happy and sad side by side in doing so recalling the essence of the classic Smiths track ‘Heaven knows I’m miserable now’, glockenspiels, melodicas and guitars dreamily courts with one another while Aaron Dewey’s vocals drift conscience pricking overhead. ‘Lies of the suburbs’ on the flip is again taken from the album, harmonicas and jagged angular chords all within the same 3 minute time line, can things really get any better, imagine Wire crossed with the Nightingales. Neat or what? New boy ‘Trellick Tower’ is a frisky multi faceted cutey, wintry cornets howl amid the blaze of Marr-ish lost in the groove guitars while faintly wisping Francophile touches edge for centre stage from the rear. Bringing up the rear is the ‘Knowledge of Bugs’ remix of the title track, injecting a whole new face lift, re-fit, dash of paint and throwing several kitchen sinks into the bargain and ending up sounding nothing like the original but rather like Plone in a bell hurling fight with Broadcast amid a sandstorm. Essential obviously.” - Losing Today

“I’ve said already, in various places, that you ought all to be keeping an eye on The Playwrights, and their ‘The National Missing Person’ single just backs this up beautifully. This is The Playwrights at their downbeat finest, opening with a mournful bass over a tapping typewriter (hey, who remembers those?), before taking wing and drifting effortlessly up on thermals way up high, higher, higher than ever you imagined possible. Backed with the gyrating, edgy ‘Lies of The Suburbs’ and the white noise tinged (maybe it’s just my stereo) and trumpet punctuated instrumental ‘Trellick Tower’, this EP is just another reason why we should clutch The Playwrights close to our hearts and never let them go. ‘The National Missing Person’ is out on the very fine Sink and Stove label.” - Tangents

“Oohh… a quite brilliant ep. 'The National Missing Person' reminds me somewhat of Gorky's Zygotic Mynci's better pop moments, and is quite brilliantly melancholy - just the sort of thing to listen to on rainy day train journeys, or when lying on a freshly cut lawn staring at the sky...you get the idea anyway. Meanwhile, 'Lies of the Suburbs' is more of an XTC angular romp, but is all very good too. Watch with interest.” - Tasty Fanzine

“At first listen, Bristol’s Playwrights would go down well in the darker corners at Glastonbury: the Avalon Stage perhaps, or tucked away in the Green Fields, so close does ‘The National Missing Person’ resemble the early work of Fairport Convention. If that description has sent a shudder down your back - and it’s one that will certainly induce Ben Shillabeer, label owner and Playwrights lynchpin, to pick up the phone and shout - hold your horses. I did say at first listen, and it takes half a dozen plays to unpick every layer here; an Anglican folk ethic is prominent, but underneath that is a strand of imagination dropped by Kate Bush, and a genius for instrumentation matched only by Mike Oldfield. I know I’m not doing myself, or them, any favours by using these as reference points, but the only alternative is to drag the names of Fonda 500 and Candidate into the ring, and in truth they don’t sound like anything like them, but they do. Put it this way: if you’re the kind of person that - like us - views the Truck Festival as the highlight of the year, then you’re a natural Playwrights fan.” - Logo

"This isn't Chicago in the mythical 1970's and your standard garage rock motifs do not work on me. This is England in the anomic year 2003 and The Playwrights are an urgently needed proposition.The Playwrights actually write about the times they are living in. 'I could become the National Missing Person, I could vanish into thin air' - beneath the plaintive vocal line and pivotal Jonny Marr-esque guitar and bass refrain, beneath an expertly crafted piece of pop music, this is a very sad song about losing your way. 'I don't know were i'm going but i'm going to those who love me'. Backed with the dizzying 'Lies of the Suburbs', 'Trellick Tower' - a joyous instrumental piece about joyless sink-estate architecture and a beautifully detached Knowledge of Bugs remix, this is highly memorable record." - Choke