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Harry Potter and the Cursed Child writer Jack Thorne adapts the cult Japanese fim for the National Theatre

Mark Gatiss' spine-tingling adaptation is faithful to the heart and spirit of Charles Dickens' much- loved festive ghost story - with an emphasis on the ghostly.

It's Presidential Election Night 2016. As Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton go head to head, the entire world holds its breath. Except for Vera, who has to focus on her breathing. She's in hospital, giving birth to a baby boy - and she has no idea that America has just lost its mind.Over the course of one unfathomable year, personal and political spheres collide, pushing Vera beyond the point of exhaustion. While everyone else is out marching, she's at home stuck to a breast pump.Mathilde Dratwa's Milk and Gall is a funny, surreal play reflecting the experience of being a new mother under Trump. It was a finalist for the Theatre503 International Playwriting Award and premiered at Theatre503, London, in 2021, directed by Artistic Director Lisa Spirling.

A teenage girl has something growing inside her. She doesn't know what it is, but she knows it's not a baby. It expands. It has claws. Eventually it takes over the entirety of her body. The IT is a darkly comic state-of-the-nation play exploring adolescent mental health and the rage within.

'The sky turns the colour of a jay's eye. The sea turns a deep royal purple. The mist lifts in quick, lithe ribbons, like a conjuring trick. Before us lies the island...'It's 1935, and an eccentric English family - four children, their widowed mother, and Roger the dog - arrives on the sun-soaked shores of Corfu to start a new life.For eleven-year-old Gerry Durrell, the extraordinary landscape provides the perfect playground. Its exotic fauna inspires a life-long fascination with the animal kingdom - and his much-loved memoir My Family and Other Animals.Janys Chambers' acclaimed stage adaptation was first seen at York Theatre Royal, and invites other theatre companies to make ingenious and inventive decisions, bringing to life all the inhabitants of Durrell's cherished island - whether they walk and talk, fly and squawk, crawl or swim or slither.'Simply a delight... The play's triumph is in the way it captures the exuberance of youth and the strangeness of the new culture that Gerald and his family find themselves in... it's there in Janys Chambers' adaptation, which keeps chunks of Durrell's evocative prose while adding some wonderfully funny embellishments' - The Stage'Durrell gets the revival he deserves... it fairly fizzes with life' - Daily Mail'Weaves the poetic, wide-eyed prose of Gerald Durrell's childhood memoir into a really charming and fun play' - Whatsonstage

This thrilling stage adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray follows one man's descent from glorious debauchery to epic self-destruction, intertwined with Wilde's own life story, his tragic persecution, and ultimate imprisonment in Reading Gaol.

Alex and Rupert aren't a conventional match, but a caffeinated meeting on the Underground ignites a spark. Skip forward to them fighting over baby names, nursery colours and ways to save money. All the signs of a normal family in waiting.Then Alex goes into labour, their baby is born still - and their world implodes. What follows is a window into how a couple find the strength to move forward, the will to stay together, and the determination to keep alive the memory of their child.Anything is Possible if You Think About It Hard Enough takes us to the depths of grief to find hope, and to the edge of insanity to find reason. There is humour, too, in the most unexpected places.Cordelia O'Neill's play was first presented by Small Things Theatre at Southwark Playhouse, London, in September 2021.

When his friend becomes embroiled in a rape allegation, Chris Quinn offers his support. Only the rules keep changing, nothing is clear-cut, and Chris finds himself caught in a tussle between loyalty, love and doubt. Duck Duck Goose is a viscerally charged play examining the nature of consent, trust and trial by social media.

The story of a young slave girl who lives through the final turbulent days of slavery on a sugar plantation in 19th-century Jamaica. Adapted from Andrea Levy's award-winning novel.

Mostar, Yugoslavia, 1988. Mili, a boy from out of town, dives from the famous Old Bridge. Mina, a local girl, watches. As he falls, she begins falling for him.Mostar, Bosnia, 1992. In a town of growing divisions, Mina and Mili never doubt that their future lies together. But nor can they imagine the dangers that future will bring.Winner of the 2020 Papatango New Writing Prize, Igor Memic's play Old Bridge is an epic love story exploring the impact of a war that Europe forgot, and the love and loss of those who lived through it. It was first produced by Papatango at the Bush Theatre, London, in 2021, directed by Selma Dimitrijevic.

Summer, 1827. In a red barn in Suffolk, Maria Marten awaits her lover. A year later, hidden in a grain sack under the floor of the barn, Maria's body is found, barely identifiable - and the manhunt begins. First performed by an all-female cast, Beth Flintoff's thrilling play rediscovers Maria's story, bringing it back to vivid, urgent life.

A tie-in edition of the smash-hit stage adaptation - with a twist - of the Jane Austen classic. Published alongside the West End production at the Criterion Theatre.

An unflinching look at race in the twenty-first century.Thirty-somethings Leo, Misha, Ralph and Dawn have been inseparable since college. Their connection with each other is stronger than anything else - until Leo is assaulted by the police in a racially motivated incident, and he brings to the group an extreme proposition...

A young Jewish physicist and an activist poet meet at a party and fall in love. As society splinters around them, the couple's struggle to survive erupts into violence.Cordelia Lynn's play Love and Other Acts of Violence is a subversive and intimate love story about inheritance and the cycles of politics and history. It premiered at the Donmar Warehouse, London, in October 2021, directed by Elayce Ismail.

Larry Kramer's passionate, polemical drama is set during the early days of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. It follows the efforts of one man, while his friends are dying around him, to break through a conspiracy of silence, indifference and hostility from public officials and the gay community, and gain recognition for a disease that threatens to change everything. This definitive edition, with a revised text and new introductory material, was published twenty-five years after the play's 1986 British premiere at the Royal Court Theatre, London. A quarter of a century after that premiere, the play's prescience and its searing emotional power are beyond doubt. The play's 2011 Broadway revival opened to an etatic critical reception, and won the Tony Award for Best Revival. It was adapted for screen in 2014, first broadcast on HBO starring Mark Ruffalo and Julia Roberts. 'burning, argumentative, witty and contentious play about the political and emotional consequences of the AIDS crisis' Observer 'informative, heart-rending, witty, revelatory, poleaxing, a work of utter topicality and transcendent power' The Listener

Nobody knows where the fish went, and nobody knows why the fish went - but ever since they did, things just haven't been the same. In a committee room on Capitol Hill, three senators have a job to do: they must question a man on charges of trading rare marine commodities, and they must find out what he knows.Politics and the planet collide in a fiercely original play about the limits of science, the power of myths, and the things we can't control. Marek Horn's Yellowfin was premiered at Southwark Playhouse, London, in October 2021, directed by Ed Madden.

Jeremy Sams' stage play, based on the hugely popular sitcom by John Esmonde and Bob Larbey, reunites the well-loved characters as they get themselves into and out of scrapes - some old, some new, all hilarious. Tapping into issues that resonate now more than ever, The Good Life is a witty reimagining of a television classic.

Sisters Dolly and Esther grow up in ultra-conservative Harrogate in the 1960s. Fifty years later, following the death of their mother, Dolly comes to stay with Esther - now a successful novelist and living in Little Venice with her younger, inscrutable lodger, Jude.The three go to Norway to meet the rock-star grandfather Jude has only ever heard about. Instead, he meets Anila who changes his world. To make a new future, these four people will have to be honest, heal old wounds - and two sisters learn to laugh together again.The Lodger by Robert Holman is an enlightening, cathartic and acerbic play about identity, maturity and reconciliation. It premiered at The Coronet Theatre, London, in September 2021.'Great riches A story of sisters and midlife reckonings, [Robert Holman's play] puts two older women centre stage and comes with a seismic sibling betrayal stuffed full of wise statements about life, love and death' - Guardian'Robert Holman [is] the most instinctive and humane of British playwrights' - Evening Standard

1943. Four months into the Nazi occupation of Tunisia. You're imprisoned in a labour camp. You're buried up to your neck in earth. You're dying of thirst, you miss your wife, and your best friend just pissed on your face. How could things possibly get any worse?Josh Azouz's Once Upon A Time in Nazi Occupied Tunisia is a brutally comic play about home and identity, marriage and survival, blood and feathers. It was first produced at the Almeida Theatre, London, in August 2021, directed by Eleanor Rhode.

"e;I'd watch you eat. I'd eat you up. You're not like them, are you? You're real."e;Lori is a professional chef. Bex waits tables to make ends meet. One night together in a walk-in fridge and the rest is history.Lori has big plans, but Bex is struggling. If we are what we eat, then Bex is in real trouble. It's not her fault though - the system is rigged. No-one on minimum wage and zero hours has the headspace to make their own yoghurt.Chris Bush's Hungry is a play about food, love, class and grief in a world where there's little left to savour.It was premiered by Paines Plough on a UK tour in July 2021.

Lola is sixteen years old, sharp-witted and has her whole life ahead of her - until she's diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour. Now her brilliant mind is rapidly turning into useless mush.So she's promised herself two things before she dies:1. She's going to get All The Sex and2. She'll definitively discover the Meaning of Life.Stuart Slade's play Glee & Me is an unexpectedly optimistic portrayal of love and the extraordinary resilience of the human spirit. It won the Judges Award in the 2019 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting, and was first performed at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, in September 2021.

This anthology brings together six plays, all written or performed since 2017, by six brilliant Black British writers - Travis Alabanza, Firdos Ali, Natasha Gordon, debbie tucker green, Arinze Kene and Chinonyerem Odimba. The plays explore themes including politics and protest, grief and colonisation, relationships and gender.

Jenny and Sam have moved into their new home. But something feels frightening and wrong. Very wrong. Over the baby monitor, at 2:22 every night, Jenny hears footsteps around her daughter's cot. Could the house be haunted? Spine-chilling, funny and scary, Danny Robins' play premiered in London's West End in August 2021.

In How Plays Work, distinguished playwright David Edgar examines the mechanisms and techniques which dramatists throughout the ages have employed to structure their plays and to express their meaning.Written for playwrights and playgoers alike, Edgar's analysis starts with the building blocks of whole plays - plot, character-creation, genre and structure - and moves on to scenes and devices. He shows how plays share a common architecture without which the uniqueness of their authors' vision would be invisible.How Plays Work is both a masterclass for playwrights and playmakers and a fascinating guide to the anatomy of drama. In this revised edition, Edgar brings the book right up to date with analyses of many recent plays, as well as explorations of emerging genres and new innovations in playwriting practice.'A brilliantly illuminating, bang-up-to-date, unmissable read' April De Angelis'A book of real theoretical heft written by a major working playwright' Steve Waters'An essential accompaniment for anyone fascinated by the craft of dramatic storytelling' John Yorke'Every theatremaker should read this book' Pippa Hill, Literary Manager, Royal Shakespeare Company'Even if you've read the book before, it demands to be reread' Simon Callow'Combines theoretical acumen with the assured know-how of a working dramatist' Terry Eagleton, Times Literary Supplement

Your partner's died, could things have been different?Caryl Churchill's short play What If If Only premiered in the Jerwood Theatre Downstairs at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in September 2021, directed by James Macdonald.This edition also includes the resonant and surreal short piece, Air.'Caryl Churchill has remade the landscape of contemporary drama - and earned herself a place among the greats' - Guardian'A truly uncompromising theatrical voice at the top of her game... [Churchill] packs more into this 20-minute piece about death, grief and the multiverse than many writers manage at seven times the length... it has a crystalline beauty, sly humour and boundless imagination' - Evening Standard'Quietly astonishing... a taut distillation and a gripping realisation of a giddying idea that resonates long after the curtain falls' - The Stage'Trust Caryl Churchill to pack more meaty matter into 20 minutes than most playwrights manage in two hours. Her surreal new short covers nothing less than bereavement, time and the universe - and does so with dizzying complexity... [She demonstrates] absolute mastery of her form. Like Picasso in his late sketches, she has become the essence of herself, still challenging, thoughtful and heading in directions no one else dares... a rocket of thought to propel you into the night' - Whatsonstage'There is nobody like Caryl Churchill and it's hard to think of any writer in history so completely on top of their game at her age. [What If If Only is] just 20 minutes, but it contains whole worlds' - Time Out

'Folk say you can trick a brain. Placebo power. I'm going to stand up and it'll feel better.'Across Edinburgh, five souls stagger towards each other, hoping to be transformed.Gaynor's got to leave the house if she wants to meet her newborn granddaughter. Stillness has been the only way to deal with her chronic pain but now it's time to move.Gilly's not sure what her dying dad's feeling but the one thing she knows from experience is that it's best not to Google it.Dougie and Ciara have spent their last NCT class preparing for the labour pains ahead, but now it's time for one last night on the dance floor.And then there's Mick, who wakes up on Portobello Beach in the early hours of the morning with two gold rings in his pocket. He can't remember what they're for but he knows it's something important. He'll work out what if only his old pal, Pat, will stop buying him drinksFull of tenderness and humour, Frances Poet's play Still is a cathartic story of life, loss and joy.It was premiered at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, in August 2021.