The ex factor: '50 Ways to Leave Your Lover'

It's not you, it's me. Or perhaps it's not me, it is you. Or, if you're feeling really mean, it's not me, it's your face. There are myriad ways to break up with someone but, as Rosalind Capulet, the forgotten, erstwhile love interest of Romeo, reminds us at the beginning of 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover, "there's not a good way, is there? I mean, there are better ways than sleeping with your cousin Juliet and then dying in an accidental suicide pact but, generally speaking, it's never pretty, is it?"

Undaunted, the Bush Theatre is currently wallowing in the ugly side of dating as it stages a series of 50 break-ups in as many minutes. Ranging from the flippant one-line kiss-off to the tender conclusion of a quarter-century of marriage, these tales from the dumping ground have more than just heartbreak in common: they have all been plucked from real life. Working on the principle that the truth is often stranger than fiction, for the last year audiences at the Bush Theatre have been encouraged to share their best (or worst) relationship splits anonymously over email. And they haven't disappointed, willingly sharing their tales of romantic woe in the name of art. Who was the cad who dumped his lady via his Facebook status? Or the girl who was charmed by the love token of a teddy bear, only to discover that it growled, "you're dumped. And I want my CDs back" when she squeezed its tummy?

These and many other jaw-dropping jilting emails (of which some of the best are reprinted in the box opposite) were then seized upon and stitched together by a crack team of young playwrights from the Bush's stable, including two writers for E4's Skins, Lucy Kirkwood (whose Tinderbox was produced at the theatre earlier this year) and Ben Schiffer. The collaborative result is 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover, a kind of Bayeux Tapestry of broken hearts. Having taken the emotional melodramas of its audience, it offers them a cathartic "closure" – whether it's weeping with grief or, more often than not, hilarity – in the anonymity of a darkened theatre.

Among the 50 blows delivered, the much-loved/hated clichés ("Let's just be friends", "I'm not ready for a relationship" etc) naturally crop up, but there are also some spectacularly inventive excuses for waving goodbye. Who, for example, could argue with the following? "Yeah, I see a future for us, but it's more a global warming and climate catastrophe sort of vision. So I'm going take some preventative measures. For the sake of the planet."

In the pursuit of freedom, it seems that every possible approach has been taken – the angry, the cowardly, the blunt, the conceited, the sexual, the gentle, the organised – and every emotion plumbed, from unbridled joy to mildly unhinged sorrow. Then there are the victims, including a love-crazed arsonist, a sexually confused girlfriend with a gymslip fetish and a poetry-spouting drip with a penchant for self-immolation. The playwrights have also interspersed several recurring characters into the swiftly moving action, including a couple whose relationship is built on frequent bust-ups and a soft-hearted guy who can't get his words out – as well as the redacted break-up scenes of some famous lovers from the annals of history – from Cathy and Heathcliff ("He's just got a bit more money than you. Nice house. Other side of the moor...") to Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir ("the one theeng I am certain of is that NATHING eez certain, Simone. Nat even LAV.").

"We quickly realised that we wanted it to be a fun show, one that you could laugh with and that was affirming in some way, rather than depressing," says Anthea Williams, the director. "It's not just a sketch show, it develops and is a good mixture of funny, ridiculous, real and tragic."

The four-strong cast, two women and two men, including Ralf Little, best known as The Royle Family's resident dogsbody Anthony, will race through the various tricky encounters in a lo-fi production that was originally commissioned for Latitude Festival. The festival, now in its third year, has a burgeoning theatre scene alongside the usual field favourites of music and comedy. Last year the Royal Court presented Shuffle, a group of plays based on the lyrics of pop songs, while the Bush produced five short sketches about jokes. The episodic, largely comic nature of 50 Ways... grew out of the theatre's experience at last year's festival. Capturing the attention of a tent-full of absent-minded, spoilt-for-choice festival-goers is a very different challenge from performing in front of a captive West End audience. "The tents are thrilling because people wander in and out and they're not sure if a performance is beginning or ending," enthuses Josie Rourke, artistic director of the theatre. "The notion was to have, in the space of 50 minutes, lots of very brief scenes around a theme or an idea that was easy to latch on to. It rather suits the idea that people might be coming and going. You can wander in and not feel that you've missed the story and the piece welcomes you."

It's also, as theatres from the Royal Court and the Bush to the National and the RSC are swiftly discovering, a canny and fairly low-risk way of testing out new writing talent in front of a youthful audience. The five up-and-coming writers on 50 Ways... workshopped their script with the master of the dark heart, Neil LaBute (whose current play Fat Pig concerns a man breaking up with his girlfriend because she is overweight), which may account for the blackly comic and searingly, often explicitly so, honest tenor of much of the writing. "It's nice to be able to share anonymously from time to time," says Rourke. "I had 40 years of Catholic education so I absolutely understand the nature of the confessional and how it can be strangely comforting."

For anyone feeling the need to share and have their moment of personal catharsis played out on stage, the email address is still open (info@latitudefestival.co.uk). I might send in the most unfortunate story I know, perpetrated by an old friend who mistakenly sent a text message meant for his housemate – gloating, "I'm going to dump her after pudding" – to his girlfriend, who was sitting across the table from him in the restaurant, blithely polishing off her tiramisu. Needless to say, it wasn't pretty.

'50 Ways to Leave Your Lover' plays at Latitude Festival, Henham Park, Southwold (www.latitudefestival.co.uk), 19 to 20 July, then at The Bush Theatre, London W12 (020-8743 5050), 21 to 26 July

Breaking up is hard to do: from those who know

* "I don't know the details that led to the break-up but there must have been some serious animosity, as when the time came the guy in question took a trip to one of those 'build-your-own-teddy-bear' emporia and set about making a cuddly toy of his own. When he came to the voice box section he chose to record his own message. The end result was a cuddly bear who, when pressed in the stomach, recited 'You're dumped, I want my CDs back'."

* "I decided that enough was enough and so called him and asked him out to 'somewhere quiet' to have a 'chat'. We met at the pre-arranged time and sat in a quiet corner of the pub and I started to tell him about how I was feeling – the relationship isn't going anywhere, kind of thing. But every time I tried to talk workmen started to drill the road outside. I had to shout to get my bloke to hear what I was saying and there were many of those moments when you start raising your voice to be heard and then suddenly the noise stops and you are left shouting and everyone in the vicinity can hear everything you have said. It was totally embarrassing, not only for me, but for him, for all the bar staff and for the one or two people who had gone in there for a quiet drink."

* "A true sign of the times. I was seeing a guy last year. He had one of these high-pressure London jobs and so would disappear for a week or so with no contact, enslaved by his investment bank. I found out that we were no longer an item via Facebook – he'd changed his status to 'single'. It took him a week to get round to telling me. At least I was prepared for it, though."

* "I once dumped a guy who then got very upset. He came round a couple of days later and was crying his heart out as he told me he had gone down to the bottom of the garden to hang himself, but his dad had gone and chopped the tree down. I had to leave the room as tears of laughter were streaming down my face. PS: he is still alive and well and happy with a family."

* "A funny way in which to 'leave your lover' that I have come across is 'Let's have a Kit-Kat. I mean, let's take a break'. Hope you find it as funny as I did."

* "Three days before the wedding... I told her I was gay... It wasn't very nice..."

* "My favourite ever way I got 'left' (so bad, even I had to laugh at the time): my boyfriend of around six months at university rang me (he lived all of 600 yards away) and said, 'I have been looking around campus and I don't think I can be faithful to you anymore.'"

* "At school I was once dumped through a window. He screwed up a piece of paper and dropped it while his mate pointed at me, trying to convey the message 'you're dropped'..."

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