Bøker i Modern Plays-serien

There is one in the Kingdom of England. Who goes by the name of Richard the Lionheart. My waking dreams tell me he will come upon us. He will come to these lands and make pilgrimage, conquest.Saladin's great army have corrected a great wrong by taking Jerusalem back for Islam, after the barbaric slaughter of their people one hundred years ago. But for Muslim and Christian alike Jerusalem is a holy city. Across England and Outremer, nobles answer the call to arms from Richard the Lionheart to march on Jerusalem in the third crusade and retake the Holy City from Saladin.Holy Warriors is a tale of holy war, fraught diplomacy and revenge in the struggle for Jerusalem, taking in over a millennium of bloody conflict, as Richard the Lionheart marches east to face Saladin, and takes Jerusalem.This edition published to coincide with the play's premiere at Shakespeare's Globe, London, on 19 July 2014.

My brother''s trying to win the war. He''s fighting. We should be fighting. I''m brilliant at fighting.June 5, 1944, Southsea Beach. A girl named Poppy stands on the precipice of history. Tomorrow is the biggest day of her life: D-Day.Along with her friend Evie, Poppy finds herself volunteering in a Southsea hospital, preparing for the arrival of casualties of the D-Day landings. Poppy has always wanted to be a war hero, but instead finds herself being asked to do the unthinkable - provide a German prisoner of war with compassionate and tender care.A beautifully written play about the role of women on the Home Front during the Second World War, Tender Loving Care premiered at the Square Tower Portsmouth in June 2014, in a production by The New Theatre Royal, Portsmouth.

I had a constant battle to get where I am today. Scrimping and scraping, people telling me not to do it, I couldn''t do it. That my life wouldn''t amount to very much. Now I might have had a bit of natural talent but I got here because of pure determination and persistence. Stubbornness you might say. I always went that extra mile, pushed myself that bit harder than anyone else and never took anything for granted.It was 1954 when Beryl Charnock met keen cyclist Charlie Burton. In those days they cycled in clubs and once Beryl started she was smitten, not only with Charlie, but by the thrill and freedom found on two wheels. Beryl was better than good, she was the best, and she was determined to stay that way.Beryl Burton was five times world-pursuit champion, thirteen times national champion, twice road-racing world champion and twelve times national champion. Her accolades include time trials, former world-record holder, former British record-holder, numerous sports awards an MBE and an OBE. Burton was one of the most astonishing sports people ever to have lived, but she remains something of a mystery.Beryl, which celebrates the extraordinary sporting achievements of this inspirational cyclist, has been specially commissioned as an adaptation from Maxine Peake''s acclaimed 2012 Radio 4 play and marks her stage-writing debut. It received its world premiere on 30 June 2014 at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in the Courtyard Theatre.

Nobody knows us. They think they do. But they don't.In a world of champagne and canapés, the five Colby sisters are the glamorous faces of New York high society. With wealth, style and desirable husbands, they appear to have it all. But privately, the sisters' squabbles distort the picture of this perfect family. Image is everything and struggling to maintain it could have life-changing consequences.This black comedy by OBIE award-winning Canadian playwright Adam Bock received its world premiere at the Tricycle Theatre, London, on 19 June 2014.

Etonians aren't exactly noted for their grey matter, but I've always found them perfectly adjusted to society. Jack, a possible paranoid schizophrenic with a Messiah complex, inherits the title of the 14th Earl of Gurney after his father passes away in a bizarre accident. Singularly unsuited to a life in the upper echelons of elite society, Jack finds himself at the centre of a ruthless power struggle as his scheming family strives to uphold their reputation. Bubbling with acerbic wit and feverish energy, Olivier Award-winning and Oscar-nominated-writer Peter Barnes's razor-sharp satire combines a ferocious mix of hilarity and horror whilst mercilessly exposing the foibles of the English nobility. This edition of the play is published to coincide with the first-ever revival of this classic cult comedy at the Trafalgar Studios, London, on 16 January 2015.

Seasonal new play by London's most prolific and evocative playwright

Written as a vehicle for Coward's own acting talents alongside his frequent stage partner Gertrude Lawrence, Tonight at 8:30 is Coward's ambitious series of ten one-act plays which saw him breathe new life into the one-act form. From vaudeville to satire, from farce to intricate comedy of manners, from melodrama to romance, these plays span the full, glorious range of Coward's writing. Peep through your fingers at the chaotic Red Peppers music-hall show, witness a bankrupt couple use all Ways and Means to scheme their way out of debt, and break your heart along with Laura in the famous Still Life, the original version of the film Brief Encounter. First performed in London in 1936, the plays perfectly showcase Coward's talents as a playwright, providing a sparkling, fast-paced and remarkably varied selection of theatrical gems. Coward wrote of the first series of three plays with characteristic delight: 'They are all brilliantly written, exquisitely directed, and I am bewitching in all of them.' Gertrude Lawrence wrote to Coward in 1947, 'Dearest Noël, wherever I go . . . all I hear is "please revive Tonight at 8.30!"'All ten plays are collected together into this volume that features both Coward's own preface and an introduction by Barry Day, Coward expert and editor of The Letters of Noël Coward.This new edition of Tonight at 8.30 is published to coincide with English Touring Theatre and the Nuffield Southampton's revival for the first time in the UK since Coward starred in them in 1936.

Dad wasn't angry. As I started to cry.He hugged me. He calmed me. And he taught me to lie.Wingman is a new father-son comedy from Fringe-First winner Richard Marsh. Mum's dead. Annoyingly, dad's not. After twenty years apart, can father and son say goodbye to mum without saying hello to each other? This achingly funny story reminds us that no matter how bad life is, family can make it worse. Wingman received its world premiere at the Pleasance Dome, Edinburgh, on 30 July 2014, directed by Justin Audibert, before transferring to the Soho Theatre Upstairs from 2 - 20 September and then touring.The play is published alongside Richard Marsh's Skittles, which premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2011 and then featured on Radio 4 as Richard Marsh: Love and Sweets, winning Best Scripted Comedy at the BBC Audio Drama Awards.'For verse with heart and verve, see Richard Marsh's dazzling love-gone-wrong show Skittles' Telegraph'Richard Marsh's Skittles came at high velocity, whizzing through the various stages of a romantic entanglement that began when two colleagues shared 'a noncommittal Skittle' during a work break, progressing quickly to proposal and marriage . . . Funny and wise.' Guardian

I don't know a girl who hasn't been groped on a train. There's always someone trying to cop a feel. Might as well get paid for it. On Jingu Bridge in Tokyo, teenage girls dress in cosplay outfits for fun, fashion, and the fantasy of being someone else, but for Mari, Keiko and Yumi, their schooldays are over... In a race to escape from overbearing parents, stifling dead-end jobs and economic deprivation, they find their way to Kabukicho, a district of panty shops, love hotels and image clubs, where every aspect of the body and soul can be bought and sold. Only they can decide how far they're willing to go. As the three young women grow up and apart, they tread a dangerously fine line between empowerment and victimhood as they struggle to pursue their dreams, despite the obstacles that society and tradition put in their way.A fascinating and ambitious play about adolescence, independence and sexuality set in the colourful, fascinating world of Japanese cosplay and style, Harajuku Girls premiered at the Finborough Theatre, London, in February 2015.

Difficult to know and impossible to forget, Ludwig Wittgenstein is remembered as the greatest philosopher of the twentieth century. He published only one book in his lifetime - a masterpiece that moulded the evolution of philosophy and baffled his teachers. Spanning most of his life, from his early encounters with Bertrand Russell in Cambridge to a final trip to New York via the Russian Front, Wittgenstein: The Crooked Roads tracks the journeys of a tortured soul.William Lyons, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Trinity College, Dublin, has written a moving and philosophically acute journey through successive decades of Wittgenstein's career. The play received its world premiere on 19 April 2011 at the Riverside Studios.

It's mad that ye're here with me. In Cobh. I always felt like I was born on the brink of the world. That I was near death, always. And here I am! Hereafter. This place of slower motion. But whipping energy. Back Home.A woman lies dead in her grave in the Tumbledown cemetery, Cobh, County Cork. It's a recent relocation; only two weeks before she was living in a flat near Croke Park in Dublin, beneath two East European prostitutes who she had begun to be friendly with.From her last resting place, she tells the story of her life: her happy childhood and the mother who loved Cleopatra; being struck by lightning and then missing school for a year; her night shifts in hotels washing and mending laundry; up to her ultimate and untimely demise in a north Dublin flat; all via a series of unlikely encounters and heartbreaking betrayals.Written in Pat Kinevane's signature style, Underneath is a blackly comic, rich and vivid tale of a life lived in secret, a testament to the people who live on the fringes, under the nose of everyday life.Underneath was published to coincide with the play's first production by Fishamble theatre company in December 2014.

This play opens with a touring company dress-rehearsing "Nothing On", a conventional farce. Mixing mockery and homage, Frayn heaps into this play a stock of characters and situation

Nothing is stronger than this love, for I am nothing indeed without you, MasterAwoken from his deathbed by his favourite childhood teddy bear, Turing is led by the hand through the journey of his life, from glowing academia to New York drag bars, from triumph to disgrace. Snoo Wilson's Lovesong of the Electric Bear is an epic, psychedelic and electrifying trip through the life of Alan Turing, the computer visionary and maths genius whose gifts made him the code-breaking hero of World War II, but whose homosexuality led him to betrayal and vilification by the very establishment who had depended on him for victory. Lovesong of the Electric Bear is a wonderfully imaginative, comic and moving play from one of British theatre's great voices. The edition publishes to coincide with the European premiere at the Hope Theatre, London, on 24 February 2015.

Let us tell you a strange tale that did unfold someplace in the glum north o'the warld, where there lived a Man who could not stop eating, a Woman doomed to cook his meals and one 'inveesible child'.Told in a rich and saucy Scots dialect with physical verve, a wee dram of whisky to oil the way and a musical score that rolls in like mist over the hills, The Red Chair sees acclaimed Scottish performer Sarah Cameron steer us through a landscape of twisted reason, extreme compulsion and eye-watering complacency, where domestic drudgery happens on an operatic scale and a father's dereliction of duty reaches epic proportions.The Red Chair is based on Sarah's original book that had its first public reading as part of The House of Fairytales at the Port Eliot Festival. It lies somewhere between a Grimm's Tale, an absurdist ghost story and a parent's guide on how not to bring up children.

You see, people forever say history is written by the victors. It's not. It's written by those who can shape the simplest narrative.David is a man struggling to hold together his marriage when the small town he lives in is rocked by the sudden, untimely death of a local girl. As details are uncovered, rumours and talk take hold of the town, and start to force David to revisit old memories.Set in 1960s Ireland, Before Monsters Were Made tells the story of how a few small words can have a very big impact. When suspicion and old stories start to spread like a virus, how well do we know the people we trust the most? Can we ever know what goes on inside other people's lives? And do we really want to?Before Monsters Were Made is an unnerving and moving thriller about loyalty, lies and love.

I think it's sad. A sad place. Full of sad people with fucked-up lives. And I thinks, how? How did they get there? How did they get to this? What was it? What happened that got them there? Cos you're not just born into it, are you. You're not born into being fucked up?Steph is fifteen years old. Simon is her teacher. Both live in Cardiff but their parallel lives couldn't be more different. When an accusation is made and their worlds collide, things aren't as simple as they might seem.Award-winning playwright Katherine Chandler explores truth, class and power in contemporary Wales in this gripping, uncompromising play. It received its world premiere on 20 November 2013 at Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, and won the inaugural Wales Drama Award.

Five one-act plays from 1976 by Britain's most popular playwright, Ayckbourn's classic series of plays are presented in a Student Edition with a full introduction, commmentary and questions for study.

Imogene used to be sparkly, vivacious and outgoing. She used to fancy lads, have curves and love chips. Recently however she has become withdrawn, gaunt, obsessed with exercise. The reason? Caol, her new best friend, who''s cast a dark shadow over Imogene''s life.Invisible to everyone except Imogene, Caol will not rest until Imogene has been reduced both emotionally and physically to a shadow of her former self. Combining sharp writing and incredible physicality this piece aims to provoke compassion and debate around the subject of eating disorders, by separating the sufferer from the condition.Overshadowed premiered at the Tiger Dublin Fringe festival in September 2015 where it won the Fishamble New Writing Award. This programme text was published to coincide with revivals at the Project Arts Centre Dublin and Theatre503, London, in January 2016.

A boy. At a bus stop. Easily missed. Liam wanders through the city, repeatedly encountering people, but continually feeling disconnected and alienated. In this vivid and troubled story of an isolated young man, playwright Leo Butler casts a sharp eye over the city and picks someone for us to follow.Boy received its world premiere at the Almeida Theatre, London, on 5 April 2016.

I can still hear them, I hear them in my head all the time. Those songs I sang. But I don't sing them anymore.Alfie keeps hiding Beth's gardening gloves. She's got lots to do and it's just not funny anymore. Why won't he realise that gardening is helping her forget everything? Why can't he see she's still not over her divorce? Why can't he just be nice?Based on a true story of a woman who struck up an unlikely friendship with a wounded crow, As the Crow Flies is a heart-warming story of friendship, healing and kindness from award-winning playwright Hattie Naylor.A funny, moving and timeless story of our endless fascination with birds As the Crow Flies was first produced by Pentabus Theatre Company in March 2017.

"Written through devising with the company."

How unbelievably dull my life was. I did everything I was supposed to. I was such a good girl. I lived in the house he chose and cleaned a dead woman's furniture. I bought hats, who the hell wears a hat? And all the time I wanted to scream because I was so bored.On one dark and stormy night in the upper day room of the Silver Retirement Home, five elderly women are trading stories of their remarkable (or sometimes unremarkable) lives. With the storm floods rising and no rescue team in sight, the ladies are faced with the sudden realisation that in order to survive they are going to have to do what they have done for their entire lives - do it themselves!Silver Lining is a hilarious comedy by Sandi Toksvig. It tells the tale of a group of extraordinary yet forgotten women, who come together one treacherous night to recreate The Great Escape - senior-citizen style.It received its world premiere at the Rose Theatre, Kingston, on 3 February 2017 in a production by English Touring Theatre and Rose Theatre, Kingston.

Beau, a pianist expat living in London, meets Rufus, an eccentric young lawyer, at the dawn of the internet dating revolution. After a life spent recovering from the disappointment and hurt of loving men in a world that refused to allow it, Beau is determined to keep his expectations low with Rufus. But Rufus comes from a new generation of gay men who believe happiness is as much their right as anyone else's, and what Beau assumed would be just another fling grows into one of the most surprising and defining relationships of his life.A remarkably moving, brilliantly funny love story, Gently Down the Stream is the latest play from acclaimed playwright Martin Sherman. The play reflects the triumphs and heartbreaks of the entire length of the gay rights movement, celebrating and mourning the ghosts of the men and women who led the way for equality, marriage and the right to dream.It received its world premiere at the Public Theatre, New York, on 14 March 2017 in a production starring Tony-award winner Harvey Fierstein.

The women you've seen play today, we are more than football players, more than athletes and sportspeople of the very highest degree. We are heroines or heroes - or however you wanna say it - and we should be taking our place on posters and platforms and TV stations, changing the way perfect is thought of, changing the way girls can be brought up. Offside tells the story of women's football in the UK through the eyes of a modern professional female footballer as she seeks to find a future in the game through exploring its past.Mickey is alone in the locker room; she deliberates with herself about the biggest decision of her life, her career, her love - her football. But in a world where sexism is rife and a feeling of self-limitation reduces opportunities, fear makes for poor decisions while joy flourishes in the unlikeliest of places.Offside has been researched with top women's teams, Manchester City Women's FC and Millwall Lionesses, where many players, sports scientists and others who are integral to the development of the game have been interviewed to gain an in-depth insight into their world. The play blends a dramatic narrative with performance poetry and chanting to evoke the pace and passion of the women's game.The production, by Futures Theatre, has been developed in partnership with the National Football Museum, Manchester, and the IWM, London.

A fun, silly and sad show for anyone whose brain isn't always on their side. Sally's a happy person. She doesn't let little things get her down and almost never cries. But she's got an illness. It makes her feel like she isn't the person she wants to be....But she doesn't want anyone to know about it. Written by Olivier Award-winner Jon Brittain with original music by Matthew Floyd Jones this new musical comedy mixes storytelling, live music and sketch comedy.

'Music is medication. The elixir of life. It's for injecting into the blood stream to take away the pain.to promote euphoria.to adrenalise us and give us courage and fortitude'In a top London recording studio, Cat, a young songwriter, her producer Bernard, their lawyers and psychotherapists go to battle over who owns a hit song. Amidst a gathering storm of bitter complaints and brutal recriminations Cat and Bernard inflict a devastating toll on each other in a war that only one of them can win.'The music industry isn't about healing heartbreak and vulnerability. It's about selling it'A sly, wry exploration of the dark side of the music industry by the multi-Olivier Award-winning writer of Sunny Afternoon and Blue/Orange, Joe Penhall.This edition was published alongside the world premiere at The Old Vic, London in April 2018, directed by Roger Michell.

Two years after its disastrous opening in 1896, "The Seagull" was successfully revived at the Moscow Art Theatre. Checkhov's self-mocking description of the play was: "A comedy - 3F, 6M, four acts, rural scenery (a view over a lake); much talk of literature, little action, five bushels of love".

First staged in Britain in 1983, 'Glengarry Glen Ross' is the tale of four real-estate salesmen in a cut-throat sales competition. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1984 and was made into a film, starring Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Kevin Spacey and Alec Baldwin, in 1992. This Student Edition contains a full introduction, commentary and questions for study.

I think I can feel the world turning a little. It feels like it's just grinding to a halt. Mike is a 16-year-old with a bully of a brother and a mum who doesn't speak. Sarah is a weed-smoking teen who can't wait to get out of their dead-end town. One hot summer their lives collide in a blur of hormones, loneliness and dreaming as they discover that growing up is just as confusing as they say.Funny, poignant and sharply reminiscent of the joy, pain and confusion of growing up, Rails explores what it means to feel lonely in a forgotten and isolated corner of the world. This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere at Theatre By the Lake in Keswick in May 2018.