A Listening Heaven, which focuses on one family's painful inability to grieve for a dead son, was first produced in 1999 to critical acclaim at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, where Betts was the resident dramatist. Mummies and Daddies, developed at the RNT Studio, brutally yet hilariously lays bare the soullessness of consumerism. In Clockwatching, produced at both the SJT and the Orange Tree Theatre in 2001, a despotic man descends into helplessness when his servile wife falls seriously ill. With an introduction by Connal Orton.