They are characterised by a poetic intensity, pared-down language, exploration of theatrical form and, in her earlier work, the use of extreme and violent stage action.

[1] The critic Aleks Sierz saw her work as part of a confrontational style and sensibility of drama termed "in-yer-face theatre".

Sierz originally called Kane "the quintessential in-yer-face writer of the [1990s]"[2] but later remarked in 2009 that although he initially "thought she was very typical of the new writing of the middle 1990s", "[t]he further we get away from that in time, the more un-typical she seems to be".

[3] Kane's published work consists of five plays, the short film Skin, and two newspaper articles for The Guardian.

"[8] Whilst talking about how her play Phaedra's Love deals with the theme of depression, Kane said that "[t]hrough being very, very low comes an ability to live in the moment because there isn't anything else.

"[9] In the early hours of February 17, 1999, Kane attempted suicide in her Brixton flat by consuming 50 sleeping pills and over 150 antidepressant tablets.

The nurse forced open the door to the Brunel ward's toilets where she found Kane's dead body.

[10] The inquest heard how Kane had not been observed by nurses between 2am and 3:30am on 20 February, which was the timeframe when she left her room in the hospital and went to the toilets where she killed herself.

[11] A review panel that investigated Kane's death recommended that the communication between medical staff be improved by formalising the procedures that related to the risk assessment of patients.

[13] He stated that "The hospital has admitted there was not enough communication between the doctors of these departments and the nurses" and that "I am not seeking financial compensation for the death of my daughter.

"[10] It has been reported that in response to Kane's death there was a minute's silence held on radio in Germany[15] and that theatres in the country dimmed their lights as a mark of respect.

Neilson suggested that Kane's depression was the result of "crazy and irregular tides of chemicals that crash through the brain" and that "Far from enhancing talent these neurological storms waste time, narrow vision and frequently lead, as here, to that most tragic, most selfish actions".

"[19] The playwright Harold Pinter knew Kane personally and remarked how he was not surprised to hear the news of her suicide: "She talked about it a great deal.

The agent Mel Kenyon was in the audience and subsequently represented Kane, suggesting she should show her work to the Royal Court Theatre in London.

The action is set in a room of a luxurious hotel in Leeds where Ian, a racist and foul-mouthed middle-aged journalist, first tries to seduce and later rapes Cate, an innocent, simple-minded young woman.

Its scenes of anal rape, cannibalism, and other forms of brutality, created one of the biggest theatre scandals in London since Edward Bond's Saved[1] in 1965.

[25] Other dramatists whom Kane particularly liked and who could be seen as influences include Samuel Beckett, Howard Barker,[26] and Georg Büchner, whose play Woyzeck she later directed (Gate Theatre, London 1997).

[27] Blasted was, however, praised by fellow playwrights Martin Crimp,[28] Harold Pinter (who became a friend),[29] Caryl Churchill,[30] who considered it "rather a tender play".

The assistant director of this production, Joseph Hill-Gibbins, suggests that "The argument is made through form, through the shifts in styles in Blasted.

That's how she constructs the argument, by taking this setting in an English Northern industrial town and suddenly transporting the action to a war zone."

[31] Skin was an eleven-minute film written for Channel 4, a British TV station, depicting a violent relationship between a black woman and a racist skinhead.

The film is directed by Vincent O'Connell and stars Ewen Bremner, Marcia Rose, Yemi Ajibade and James Bannon.

"[33] Cleansed is set in what Kane in her stage directions described as a "university" but which functions more as a torture chamber or concentration camp, overseen by the sadistic Tinker.

It places a young woman and her brother, a disturbed boy, a gay couple and a peepshow dancer within this world of extreme cruelty in which declarations of love are viciously tested.

[34] A change in critical opinion occurred with Kane's fourth play, Crave, which was directed by Vicky Featherstone and presented by Paines Plough at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh in 1998.

[35] Crave marks a break from the on-stage violence of Kane's previous works and a move to a freer, sometimes lyrical writing style, at times inspired by her reading of the Bible and T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land.

This, Kane's shortest and most fragmented theatrical work, dispenses with plot and character, and no indication is given as to how many actors were intended to voice the play.

Written at a time when Kane was suffering from severe depression, it has been described by her fellow-playwright and friend David Greig as having as its subject the "psychotic mind".

[39] In 1999 she was one of the recipients of the V Europe Prize Theatrical Realities awarded to the Royal Court Theatre[40] (with Mark Ravenhill, Jez Butterworth, Conor McPherson, Martin McDonagh).

[45] Playwright Robert Askins, who received a 2015 Tony Award nomination for Best Play for Hand to God, has cited Kane as a major inspiration.