A 'fast-forward' acting course covering all the essential techniques an actor needs to know and use  with a suite of exercises to put each technique into practice. The Acting Book offers various ways to analyse a text and to create character, using not only the established processes of Stanislavsky and Meisner, but also new ones developed by the author over many years of teaching drama students. It also sets out a wide range of rehearsal techniques and improvisations, and it brims over with inventive practical exercises designed to stimulate the actor's imagination and build confidence. The book will be invaluable to student actors as an accompaniment to their training, to established actors who wish to refresh their technique, and to drama teachers at every level.

By William Shakespeare Compiled by Nick de Somogyi. A unique collection of Shakespeare's every reflection on the theatre, offering fascinating insights into the man, his work, and the world of the Jacobean stage. Shakespeare was a man of the theatre to his core, so it is no surprise that he repeatedly contemplated the nuts and bolts of his craft in his plays and poems. Shakespeare scholar Nick de Somogyi here draws together all the cherishable set pieces  including All the worlds a stage, Hamlets encounters with the Players, and Bottoms amateur theatricals  along with many other oblique but no less revealing glances, and further insights into theatre practice by Shakespeares contemporaries and rivals. De Somogyis informed commentary takes us through the entire process of a plays theatrical production, from its casting and auditions, via rehearsals, costumes, and props, to its premiere and audience reception. Shakespeare on Theatre eavesdrops on the urgently whispered noises-off in the tiring-house and inhales the heady aroma of the Globes first audiences.

By Anton Chekhov Compiled by Jutta Hercher and Peter Urban Translated by Stephen Mulrine . A unique collection of everything that Chekhov wrote about the theatre. Chekhov started writing about theatre in newspaper articles and in his own letters even before he began writing plays. Later, he wrote in detail about his own plays to his lifelong friend and mentor Alexei Suvorin, his wife and leading actress, Olga Knipper, and to the two directors of the Moscow Art Theatre, Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko. Collected for this volume, these writings reveal Chekhovs instinctive curiosity about the way theatre works  and his concerns about how best to realise his own intentions as a playwright. Often peppery, passionate, even distraught, as he feels his plays misinterpreted or undermined, Chekhov comes over in these pages as a true man of the theatre.

Losing her mother at the age of 11, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin finds comfort in reading the family memoir written by her philosophical father William Godwin. However his honest account of her mothers suicide attempt, extra-marital affair and the birth of their illegitimate elder daughter are regarded by society as shocking. Sharing her fathers controversially liberal outlook, Mary is herself drawn into scandal when she falls in love with Percy Bysshe Shelley, a married writer, and elopes  becoming Mary Shelley. Delving into the writers turbulent personal history, this production sheds light on the personal background of a bold young woman who came to write a novel so radical in its ideology that she changed the literary landscape forever.

A darkly comic play about the disintegration of a family get-together. Mike and Julia ade sure their children Rob and Stacey had the best of everything when they were growing up. Now theyre adults all they want is to be proud parents. But when they all meet up in a Lake District holiday cottage to celebrate Staceys birthday, the bid to keep up appearances in front of an unexpected guest soon falls by the wayside as secrets are revealed.

All aboard The Swallow! Follow Captain John and his able crew as they set sail to Wildcat Island on an exotic adventure to encounter savages, capture dastardly pirates and defeat mortal enemies. A new musical for the whole family written especially for Bristol Old Vic, Swallows and Amazons is a story of an idyllic era, of endless summer evenings and the beauty of youthful imagination.

William Bloor, a foxfinder', arrives at Sam and Judith Covey's farm to investigate a suspected contamination. He is driven by his education and beliefs to unearth and destroy an animal that threatens man's civilisation, and to remain free from its influence himself. As his investigations proceed, the events that follow change the course of all their lives - for ever.

A powerful drama based on the extraordinary life of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, a poet, nun and major literary figure of Mexico. In a convent in seventeenth-century Mexico, Sister Juana strives to reconcile her love for God with her desire for a life of the mind. Her gift for writing plays and poems is celebrated by the Court, but her success creates alarm within the Church. Persecuted by a zealous archbishop, Sister Juana's world threatens to crumble around her as everything she holds dear is jeopardised by dangerous ambitions and illicit desires.

A kaleidoscope of stories from post-Troubles Belfast, Lagan is an intimate and absorbing dramatic portrait of a city with a past like no other. Ten lives flow through the city of Belfast, like the River Lagan. A man returns to find old values and new shopping centres. A woman talks to her sons ghost amid scaffolding. A taxi driver picks up a pint of milk for his drunk dad. And a young woman turns her back on her past and discovers the possibility of love.

Four full-length plays and two previously unpublished shorts from the multi-award-winning author of Jerusalem. Jez Butterworth burst onto the theatre scene aged twenty-five with Mojo, 'one of the most dazzling Royal Court main stage debuts in years' (Time Out). This first volume of his Collected Plays contains that play plus the three that followed, as well as two short one-person pieces published here for the first time  everything in fact that precedes Jerusalem, 'unarguably one of the best dramas of the twenty-first century' (Guardian). Plays One includes: Mojo, The Night Heron, The Winterling, Leavings (previously unpublished), Parlour Song and The Naked Eye (previously unpublished). Introducing the plays is an interview with Jez Butterworth specially conducted for this volume.

'I want you to remember something, David: if you remember only one thing I've ever told you, remember this every day  morning, noon and night  you do what you want with your life. Exactly what you want. Break heads if you need to and hearts if you have to, but whatever you do don't do what I did. Don't waste yourself.' Frank has been married for forty years. Three years ago he fell in love. This taut and tender new play asks if it's ever too late to start again?

A devastating drama about family and the ties that bind us together. Sixty five miles. The distance between Hull and Sheffield. The distance between a man and the daughter hes never met. Pete and Rich are two very different brothers. Reunited after nine years, both are seeking forgiveness. Rich needs to confront ex-girlfriend Lucy, and the shadows of his recent past. Petes search is for the one woman in his life he has never known, his daughter.

Philosopher, David Hume and father of modern economics, Adam Smith awake in Edinburgh in the early 21st Century. To their bewilderment, joy and horror, it is a prerevolutionary world where all the knowledge they ever dreamt of is at everyone's fingertips and the utopia of a free market economy is a reality. But at what cost to the planet and to humanity? With their fellow traveller, Eve, a Scottish everywoman, Hume and Smith embark on an extraordinary journey of enlightenment - from the concrete New Towns of Scotland's central belt, to Silicon Glen, Ecstasy and the gay clubs of Edinburgh.

An invaluable guide to the difficult arts of devising plays and directing texts, by one of the UKs leading theatre directors. Throughout a lifetime of experience  as an actor for Mike Leigh, founder of Hull Truck, Artistic Director of the Bush Theatre, and subsequently as a freelance director  Mike Bradwell has forged a reputation as a theatrical innovator and risk-taker. This book begins by exploring the process of devising a play by working intensively through character and improvisation with a group of actors. Using A Bed of Roses as an example, a play that he himself devised, Bradwell shows how the actors set about inventing their characters, whether within a pre-determined framework or with no strictures whatsoever. He explores how actors can then grow their character, both through solo work and through interaction with the other characters. He also examines the role of the director in moulding and shaping the individual scenes, the overall action of the play, and the development of the characters within it. The second half of the book describes in detail how the nuanced work involved in devising characters from scratch can be applied to a pre-existing text. Bradwell explains the techniques by which he encourages the actor to take possession of his or her character by investigating or inventing their whole history up to the moment the action begins. Taking as his template Jack Thornes play When You Cure Me, which Bradwell directed at the Bush, he demonstrates the meticulous work on the text that is needed to keep the characters alive and truthful in every moment of the action. All together, Inventing the Truth offers practitioners a unique account of the techniques involved in devising or directing plays to the highest standard. Mike Bradwells previous book The Reluctant Escapologist won the Theatre Book Prize in 2011.

A funny, moving and topical portrayal of the world in flux, Invisible explores the many sides of migration. Lara left home convinced that hard work and talent would reward her with a better life. Anton was forced to leave his village and finds himself suspended sixteen floors above a city cleaning windows. Malik stands on a beach and looks out towards a country where women apparently walk around half-naked. Felix, a young businessman with a pretty wife and a lucrative future, finds it difficult to get out of bed in the mornings. Amid the world of visas and wind turbines, commuter flights and nightclubs, fairy tales and tabloid press a chance meeting drives disparate lives towards a chilling point of no return...

Balancing the cocktail of 21st century life and teasing relationships is as impossible as herding cats for Michael, Justine and Saddo. Justine has an infuriating new boss. Michael works from home, talking to strangers. Saddo is one of those strangers. . .All three are living a comic fiction in an attempt to avoid the facts. Teetering on the edge, all three are heading inexorably towards Christmas.

Bleak, funny and excruciatingly accurate, Sex with a Stranger examines what it is to be in your twenties, lonely, hollow and uncertain. Adam meets Grace in a club. They go back to hers. Earlier that day, his girlfriend watches as he prepares for his big night out.

Adapted from When We Dead Awaken, the last play Ibsen wrote before his death. First staged in 1899, it is rarely performed, yet is one of Ibsen's most extraordinary and deeply personal works. Whilst holidaying with his young wife, the sculptor Rubek encounters his muse: a woman that he loved and left a lifetime ago. Over a series of heated encounters, the entire scroll of Rubek's life is unrolled in Ibsen's final  and most autobiographical  exploration of what it means to love and be loved. Set within a mythical Nordic landscape, the play offers an explicit and merciless portrait of Ibsen as an ageing artist: restless with his art, his homeland and his married life.

A funny and fascinating tribute to the Eastern European immigrants who became major players in Hollywood's golden age. In a remote village in Eastern Europe, around 1900, the young Motl Mendl is entranced by the flickering silent images on his father's cinematograph. Bankrolled by Jacob, the ebullient local timber merchant, and inspired by Anna, the girl sent to help him make moving pictures of their village, he stumbles on a revolutionary way of story-telling. Forty years on, Motl - now a famed American film director - looks back on his early life and confronts the cost of fulfilling his dreams. How had a twenty-two-year-old pretentious layabout made a discovery that would elude every other cinematic pioneer for years to come?

As part of the ever-growing, increasingly popular Drama Games series, Jessica Swale returns with another dip-in, flick-through, quick-fire resource book, packed with dozens of drama games that can be used in the process of devising theatre. The games will be invaluable to directors and theatre companies at all levels who are creating new pieces of theatre from scratch and need lively, dynamic games to fire the imagination. They will particularly appeal to school, youth theatre and community groups where devising is a growing trend  and a core element of the drama curriculum. Written with clear instructions on How to Play, notes on the Aim of the Game, and illuminating examples from professional productions, the games cover every aspect of the devising process and develop all the skills required: generating ideas, creating characters and scenarios, using stimuli, structuring the piece, and creating an ensemble.

A startling psychological drama about the darker side of modern parenthood. Behind the shiny door of Hazel Robinson's immaculate London home, things aren't as good as they look. Her plastic surgeon husband, Richard, has embarked on his latest charitable mission to Haiti, leaving the heavily pregnant Hazel to cope with a failing business and a problem son. When a professional nanny arrives unannounced on her doorstep, Hazel finds her home under the shadow of a seemingly perfect stranger, and one who has an agenda of her own.

Michael Pennington's solo show about Shakespeare, Sweet William, has been acclaimed throughout Europe and in the US as a unique blend of showmanship and scholarship. In this book, he deepens his exploration of Shakespeare's life and work - and the connection between the two - that lies at its heart. It is illuminated throughout by the unrivalled insights into the plays that Pennington has gained from the twenty thousand hours he has spent working on them as a leading actor, an artistic director and a director - and as the author of three previous books on individual Shakespeare plays

Jez Butterworth burst onto the theatre scene aged twenty-five with Mojo, one of the most dazzling Royal Court main stage debuts in years (Time Out). This first volume of his Collected Plays contains that play plus the three that followed, as well as two short one-person pieces published here for the first time  everything in fact that precedes Jerusalem, unarguably one of the best dramas of the twenty-first century (Guardian).

Balancing the cocktail of 21st century life and teasing relationships is as impossible as herding cats for Michael, Justine and Saddo. Justine has an infuriating new boss. Michael works from home, talking to strangers. Saddo is one of those strangers&All three are living a comic fiction in an attempt to avoid the facts. Teetering on the edge, all three are heading inexorably towards Christmas.

This is a very good place to come from. Cos it's knackered and funny and it's falling in the sea. . . But it's not a good place to end up. Things aren't going to plan for one family in Withernsea. Pieces are falling off Martin's milk float as quickly as he's losing customers and something's up with Kath's kitchen sink. Billy is pinning his hopes of a place at art college on a revealing portrait of Dolly Parton, whilst Sophie's dreams of becoming a Jiu-Jitsu teacher might be disappearing down the plug hole. And amid the dreaming, dramas and dirty dishes, something has to give. But will it be Kath or the kitchen sink? An irresistibly funny and tender play about big dreams and small changes, by Bush Associate Playwright Tom Wells.

Gregory Doran's account of his quest to re-discover Cardenio, the lost play written by Shakespeare and John Fletcher. A thrilling act of literary detection that takes him from the Bodleian Library in Oxford, via Cervantes' Spain to the stage of the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford. Fully illustrated throughout, Shakespeare's Lost Play tells a fascinating story, which, like the play itself, will engross Shakespeare buffs and theatregoers alike. Doran's much-praised production of Cardenio for the Royal Shakespeare Company marked the culmination of years spent searching for a famously 'lost' play co-authored by William Shakespeare. In this book, Doran takes us with him on his quest to unearth every extant clue and then into the rehearsal room as he pieces together a play unseen since its first performance in 1613. The result, as the Guardian attested, is 'an extraordinary and theatrically powerful piece, one that should both please audiences and keep academic scholars in work for years'.

tells the story behind the King James Bible, which celebrates its 400th anniversary this year.Across an 80 year divide, two men translate the word of God into the English tongue. For one, it means death at the stake. For the other, it could mean an archbishop's mitre. After almost a century of unrest, the King James Bible was intended to end the violent upheavals of the English reformation. But deep-seated conflicts force a leading translator to confront the betrayal of his youthful religious ideals, for the sake of social peace.

The plays in this volume  three monologues and a three-hander  were all written while Conor McPherson was in his twenties. He has since become the finest playwright of his generation according to the New York Times. contains This Lime Tree Bower; St Nicholas; Rum and Vodka; The Good Thief

A compelling study of the corruption of fame, the lure of money and the betrayal that lurks at the heart of portraying the people around us, or the people we love. Based on Caroline Blackwood's book of the same name. 1980. The Sunday Times plans a fabulous journalistic coup: a photograph by Lord Snowdon of the long-reclusive Duchess of Windsor. Lady Caroline Blackwood, novelist, wit and journalist, is dispatched to Paris to secure it. But no sooner has she entered the Windsor mansion than she finds herself locked in battle with the Duchess's octogenarian lawyer, Maître Suzanne Blum. As the conflict ignites between them, Caroline begins to find Blum decidedly more fascinating than the Duchess herself. Where did she come from? What's her obsession? How did she get power of attorney over the Windsor fortune? Cruellest of all, why has she deprived the Duchess of her vodka? One of the Duchess's last loyal friends, Diana Mosley, introduces a further mystery: why do the famous Windsor jewels keep appearing anonymously on the international market? And since no one has seen the Duchess, what proof is there that she is even still alive?

May 1822, rural Ireland. The defrocked Reverend Berkeley arrives at the crumbling former glory of Mount Prospect House to accompany seventeen-year-old Hannah to England. She is to be married off to a Marquis in order to resolve the debts of her mother's estate. However, compelled by the strange voices that haunt his beautiful young charge and a fascination with the psychic current that pervades the house, Berkeley proposes a seance, the consequences of which are catastrophic. She says that sometimes, while she plays the piano, she can hear someone. . . singing. Or crying. I forget which. Set around a haunted house hemmed in by a restive, starving populace, Conor McPherson's new play weaves Ireland's troubled colonial history into a transfixing story about the search for love, the transcendental and the circularity of time.

We Are Three Sisters relates the story of the three sisters of the Chekhov play to the Bronte sisters and their brother at Haworth in 1848. Morrison said, "There are good reasons for transplanting the play to Haworth and for identifying the Serghyeevna sisters with the Brontes; they even have a troubled and self-destructive brother in common. Above all I hope that, by taking a cue from Chekhov, the play will banish the gloom surrounding the Brontes and reveal the northern humour and resilience they showed, despite the ever-present threat of death and disease. In other words, I'd like to honour the truth of the Brontes while showing Charlotte, Emily, Anne, Branwell and Patrick as they've never been seen before."

Inspired by a true story, this gloriously funny play investigates the nature of comedy, the operation of censorship, and the complex misunderstandings implicit in the Anglo-American relationship. In December 1975, Monty Python's Flying Circus was broadcast coast to coast in the US. It was the Pythons' first time on a major network. . . but somebody cut out all the naughty bits! Undismayed, Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam flew to New York to persuade the network to reinstate the cuts - and, somewhat by accident, found themselves at the centre of a landmark court case concerning freedom of expression and the protection of artistic integrity. . .

A thief in heaven steals the divinity of the gods. Meanwhile down on earth some fetish items have been nicked from a reality TV star and she's facing exposure in the tabloids. Sex shops and comedy, gods and homeless people, all collide in a fierce, hectic and hilarious story about people looking for the divine. In Essex.

A seasoned humanitarian worker and her idealistic young colleague get ready for a trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo. For Mathilde it's an induction into a life less ordinary. For Sadhbh it's back to madness and chaos away from her lover and London  exactly as she likes it. But while Mathilde lets off steam with a photographer and a spliff, Sadhbh has her own encounter: tea with a smart, brutal young warlord she's investigating. Or is it the other way round? Playwright Stella Feehily brings her trademark wit and emotional insight to this revealing new play that goes behind the public face of charities, journalists and NGOs.

On a beautiful September morning in New York Sophie forces Tom into a decision. The choice he makes, and the events of that day, will change their lives forever. Travelling from America to Britain to a remote Greek island this epic new play explores the relationship between faith and capitalism and asks fundamental questions about the true meaning of love.

Rwanda to Northern Ireland, Zimbabwe to Bosnia answers are demanded, reconciliation hard to hear and the truth reluctant to be told. 'I will not stay standing to have you accuse me. And I will not sit there and be accused.'

Two towers. Ten years. Twenty plays. Ten years after 9/11, twenty international writers respond to the defining event of our times. Published here are their individual plays, which woven together formed the basis of Decade, an immersive theatrical production from Headlong theatre company. The writers: Samuel Adamson, Mike Bartlett, Alecky Blythe, Adam Brace, Ben Ellis, Ella Hickson, Samuel D. Hunter, John Logan, Matthew Lopez, Mona Mansour, DC Moore, Abi Morgan, Rory Mullarkey, Janine Nabers, Lynn Nottage, Harrison David Rivers, Simon Schama, Christopher Shinn, Beth Steel, Alexandra Wood.

Every Tuesday, Pauline loyally spends the day with her father, tidies his home, does his ironing. Then they go to Tesco. Every Tuesday. All eyes are on Pauline when they go shopping. Before she became Pauline, her name was Paul. And to her father she remains Paul, despite all appearances to the contrary.

In our materialist culture obsessed with youth, death has become the ultimate taboo. Inspired by real life stories, Home Death is an unflinching yet ultimately uplifting dissection of how our society deals with the reality of dying. 64% of us want to die at home, but in reality only a quarter of us do. A lingering death in a nursing home is one of the biggest fears of the elderly, and yet research from the UK thinktank Demos predicts that by 2013, 90% of us will die in the soulless setting of a hospital ward. Home Death is a courageous and profoundly compassionate new play that raises essential and urgent questions about palliative care in the UK, and celebrates the strength of friendship and love

A heartbreaking study of heritage, grief and family, Rose is a powerful drama about a Middle-Eastern immigrant's struggle to raise his daughter 'the English way'. Reunited after years apart, Rose and her father, Arthur, try to piece together the fragmented memories of their troubled relationship. But Rose's attempts to uncover the secrets of their past, and find out who she truly is, meet only resistance from a man reluctant to reveal himself.

Eugene O'Neill's epic Pulitzer Prize-winning play about love and forgiveness charts one woman's longing to forget the dark secrets of her past and hope for salvation. Exiled from her home by the Old Devil Sea to the inland plains, Anna Christie's life changed for ever at just five years of age. Fifteen years later, she is reunited with the father who sent her away, and sets sail in search of a new beginning.

This volume contains: Nightwatchman by Prasanna Puwanarajah - 'marvellously incisive' Independent. There is a War by Tom Basden - 'a sharp satire with an irresistibly silly strain' Financial Times

At a time when science and religion have conspired to make freak shows shameful, Robert Riley, owner of Riley's Odditorium, struggles to find ways to keep his company afloat. There's no money in the coffers and they've had to eat the horse. Only the mermaid act is bringing in the punters and she's just holding her breath. . .

First Episode shows an infatuated undergraduate, Tony, falling for Margot, an actress ten years his senior. And vice versa. Completing a triangle of rival affections is Tonys best friend, David.

This volume contains: Edgar & Annabel by Sam Holcroft - 'startlingly imaginative... Clever, funny and disturbing' Evening Standard. The Swan by D C Moore - 'Moore is one of the best thirty-something playwrights around, an expert analyst of half-truths and human weakness' Evening Standard

The extraordinary story of the relationship between the famous dancer Vaslav Nijinsky and the impresario Sergei Diaghilev, drawing on an unproduced screenplay by Terence Rattigan. In a hotel room a once-lauded playwright meets Nijinsky's elderly widow, Romola, to fight over his latest play. Meanwhile, in the same room, Diaghilev and the young Romola fight over the tormented Nijinsky. In 1974, Terence Rattigan wrote a television script for the BBC about the relationship between Diaghilev, the impresario behind the Ballets Russes, and Nijinsky, the most renowned dancer of all time, which Rattigan described as the greatest love story since Romeo and Juliet'. But the playwright withdrew the play and it was never produced. Now in this bold re-imagining of events, Nicholas Wright investigates why.

In My Life in Pieces, Simon Callow recaptures the multifarious people, productions and events which have fed into his lifeblood and left their indelible mark. Starting with his first ever visit to the theatre  Peter Pan  he takes us through a somewhat chaotic boyhood in southern Africa and South London, an aborted university career, a testing time at drama school and on to an acting career that has encompassed roles in the West End and stand-out character parts in films such as Four Weddings and a Funeral.

A unique guide to every aspect of putting on your own solo show: choosing the subject, raising the finance, booking the venue - and performing it! More and more actors - faced with ever longer periods of unemployment  are turning to the solo show as a way of keeping active, keeping visible, and keeping the wolf from the door! This book is essential reading for anyone contemplating such a move, and comprehensively covers every aspect of putting on your own one-person show.

A 'how to' book for actors who want to develop a 'can do' attitude to their profession in the face of rejection and intense competition. Feeling despondent about the acting profession? Been out of work for longer than you care to remember? Starting to resent the injustices of the job and the success of other actors? If so, An Attitude for Acting will inspire you to break out of the cycle of despondency and start to view yourself as a creative and autonomous individual who is valuable and employable.

A superlative account of how theatre is made, in the words of the very people who make it. In Talking Theatre, Richard Eyre uses his unrivalled access to leading theatre people to allow us to eavesdrop on the stories behind many of the most important productions and performances in the theatre of recent times: John Gielgud " Peter Brook " Margaret 'Percy' Harris " Peter Hall " Ian McKellen " Judi Dench " Trevor Nunn " Vanessa Redgrave " Fiona Shaw " Liam Neeson " Stephen Rea " Stephen Sondheim " Arthur Laurents " Arthur Miller " August Wilson " Jason Robards " Kim Hunter " Tony Kushner " Luise Rainer " Alan Bennett " Harold Pinter " Tom Stoppard " David Hare " Jocelyn Herbert " William Gaskill " Arnold Wesker " Peter Gill " Christopher Hampton " Peter Shaffer " Frith Banbury " Alan Ayckbourn " John Bury " Victor Spinetti " John McGrath " Cameron Mackintosh " Patrick Marber " Steven Berkoff " Deborah Warner " Willem Dafoe " Simon McBurney " Robert Lepage " John Johnston (Britain's last Theatre Censor)

Chuks wants to run a bar. He wants to make money and send it to his family. But Chuks used to be a fixer, a go-between for foreign journalists and local groups. When militants attack a new oil pipeline, British journalists and international spin doctors rush to the scene: everyone wants the inside story. As more players get involved, the stakes get higher. They'll make it worth his while, but if Chuks joins the game, will he ever be able to leave? What am I supposed to do? When everything is stinking like shit, you think only me I will smell like perfume? Set in northern Nigeria against a backdrop of global turmoil and corruption, Fixer is a fast-paced drama that asks questions about integrity, loyalty and the price of human life.

An irreverent and unsettling play that interrogates paranoia, ambiguity and innocence in our highly sexualised world. Gethin has just finished his film course and reckons he's the next Scorsese. His mum is on at him to do her friend's wedding video - before the couple get divorced! But Gethin is interested in a much more daring project - one that will get him into dangerously deep water, question his idealism and turn his life and that of his family upside down.

Little Baby Jesus is a lyrical triptych of monologues revealing the inter-connected lives of three inner-city teenagers, capturing the exact moment each becomes an adult. Kehinde has a passion for light-skinned girls or otherwise known as. . .Mixed-raced girl syndrome. My favourite was when that black African or Caribbean skin mixes with that white English or European skin. You get that sun kissed finish. Jodie is a mixed-race girl dipped in rudeness and rolled in attitude. Listen, old man, I'm not in the mood for romancing with some weirdo, ya get me, so don't waste your rotten breath init. And then there's Rugrat. He's the class clown. He really wants to be liked - even by the scariest boy in school. He was some Nigerian gangster! He laid it on the line! His voice echoed through the playground like a lion's roar, through the plains of the Serengeti. Blood clot! Three magnetic personalities and three remarkable stories from the poetic imagination of Arinze Kene.

Plagued by the deafening tick of her biological clock, Lorna pins all her hopes for true love on Allan. But she soon discovers that life in his isolated farmhouse raises disturbing questions, not happy endings. . . As the horror of Allan's world is exposed, will Lorna do what's right or turn a blind eye to get what she wants? Hundreds and Thousands is a dark and twisted tale about deciding what's more important - doing what's right or what's right for you.

Vote for chang e!Sick of the two established parties and their vested interests, one man promises a third option with a radical agenda: to champion the people and remake politics. But does The League of Youth herald a future fair for all, or the same old small-town corruption? And is Stensgaard a hero in the making  or a man on the make? Switching his allegiances at the drop of a rosette, and caught up in a string of romantic affairs, Stensgaard rapidly comes unstuck. Before you can say 'hypocrisy', the people are questioning: whose side is he really on? Ibsen's political farce has long been praised for its sparkling wit and cynical humour. But The League of Youth is uncanny in the mirror it holds up to present-day Britain, where every promise leads to compromise in the rush to snatch a share of the power.

A striking version of Chekhovs classic play by Charlotte Pyke, John Kerr and Joseph Blatchley. In 19th Century rural Russia, an anxious young writer prepares the first performance of his new play for the two women in his life. The consequences are devastating, with everybody in love with the wrong person, and death hovering close by. Through both comedy and tragedy, Seagull explores lives that are precariously balanced between love and indifference success and failure, hope and despair. This is classic Chekhov with the original censor's cuts restored.

Adapted from Schiller's 1784 play Kabale und Liebe, a masterpiece of power and politics that explores the battle between honour and corruption, between truth and betrayal. Born into ancient nobility and son of the most powerful statesman in the land, Ferdinand is willing to forsake his fortune for the love of Luise, daughter of a humble musician. But in a world governed by deception and greed, where power is everything, their future happiness and liberty are beyond their control

Made Emperor, Julian attemps to abolish Christianity and restore the old gods. But met with fierce resistance, this great free-thinker becomes a tyrant more hated than his brutal predecessor Constantius. And in arousing the Christians from their apathy he advances their cause, his life and death altering the course of history in stark opposition to his intent. Ibsen's little-known masterpiece sweeps across Greece and the Middle East from AD351, covering twelve crucial years in the history of civilisation.

Edited by Robert Hastie, Josie Rourke. The official tie-in edition published alongside the 2011 production at Wyndham's Theatre, London, starring David Tennant as Benedick and Catherine Tate as Beatrice. In addition to the version of Shakespeare's text as performed in the production, this volume also includes extensive material about how the production was conceived and developed, interviews with its cast and creative team, design sketches, an extract from the original score, and a rehearsal diary.

Philip Massinger's 1632 play reworks Shakespeare's Measure for Measure as a waspish city comedy intended to attack the vices of hypocrisy, greed, self-indulgence and social pretension. Wealthy merchant Sir John Frugal takes pity on his penniless brother Luke and invites him to live under his roof with John's own haughty wife and two foolishly conceited daughters. As Luke plots to steal from his brother, and his daughters arrogantly spurn worthy suitors, John plans to teach them all a lesson. Retiring to a monastic life, he leaves his brother Luke in charge of the household, before returning in disguise to watch havoc unfold...This rarely produced but surprisingly timely play was revived by the Royal Shakespeare Company as part of its fiftieth birthday season in 2011.

Shakespeare's 'lost play' re-imagined. Set in the heat and dust of Andalusia in seventeenth-century Spain, Cardenio is the story of a friendship betrayed, with all the elements of a thriller: disguise, dishonour and deceit. A woman is seduced, a bride is forced to the altar, and a man runs mad among the mountains of the Sierra Morena. The history of the play is every bit as thrilling, and this text is the result of a masterful act of literary archaeology by the Royal Shakespeare Company's Chief Associate Director Gregory Doran, to re-imagine a previously lost play by Shakespeare. Based on an episode in Cervantes' Don Quixote, the play known as Cardenio by Shakespeare and John Fletcher was performed at court in 1612. A copy of their collaboration has never been found; however, it is claimed that Double Falshood by Lewis Theobald is an eighteenth-century adaptation of it. Since Theobald's play misses out some crucial scenes in the plot, Doran has turned to the Cervantes original to supply the missing episodes, using the original English translation by Thomas Shelton (1612) that Fletcher and Shakespeare must themselves have read.

In the autumn of 2006, the everyday life of the quiet rural town of Ipswich was shattered by the discovery of the bodies of five women. The residents of London Road had struggled for years with the soliciting and kerb-crawling that they frequently encountered. As Steve Wright, the occupant of No. 79, was arrested, charged and then convicted of the murders, the immediate community grappled with what it meant to be at the epicentre of this tragedy. Adam Cork uses the melodic and rhythmic speech patterns captured on playwright Alecky Blythe's extensive recorded interviews with the people of Ipswich to create an experimental and challenging work which reveals the ways in which even the darkest experiences can engender a greater sense of our mutual dependence.

A precise and beautifully crafted play from the American playwright, author of Tape and associate writer of The Laramie Project, whose events are echoed in this play. Twenty-four years ago, the future was going to be different. Molly was going to be happy; older and smarter and married with kids. Ray was going to be a heart surgeon. When they meet again, by chance  she divorced and childless; he a caretaker and gardener  they discover that their lives are even further from that future than they could have imagined. Steeped in both regret and possibility, Dusk Rings A Bell is about the difficulty of taking responsibility for our choices, and how life will make them for us, if we're not careful.

Two plays by award-winning playwright Ella Hickson. Precious Little Talent is about a father desperate not to forget his daughter and two young people determined not to be forgotten by the world. Hot Mess is a dark and lyrical tale about friendship, loss and loneliness. Twins Polo and Twitch were born with only one heart between them: where Polo is not looking to be loved, Twitch can do nothing but.

A romantic-comedy-thriller about the heat of love and the magic of changing perspectives. Lin Han and Jie Hui have exchanged 536 emails and 72 jpegs, though they've only just met. She's sure he's the man she could fall in love with, if only he'd do it first. But Jie Huis a little distracted. When his business partner gets shot, things start to get very complicated  especially when he realises his heart is broken. Meanwhile, Madeleine finds herself falling for James, the most attractive man shes met in years. And the feeling seems to be mutual. Its just a pity hes the policeman questioning her about the shooting of her ex-boyfriend. . .

Fifty years after Yuri Gagarin's first orbit around the Earth, Little Eagles tells the fascinating and little-known story of Sergei Korolyov, chief designer and unsung hero of the Soviet space programme. Under Korolyov's leadership the 'little eagles' of the USSR beat the Americans in the early stages of the space race, achieving a series of firsts, including the first human in space. Rona Munro's gripping play illuminates the life and work of a brilliant engineer who struggled to meet the military demands of his ruthless political masters, whilst devoting as much time as possible to his real passion, exploring outer space.

Helen Edmundson's hugely successful stage adaptation for Shared Experience Theatre Company of the classic novel by Tolstoy, which won the Time Out Award for the Outstanding Theatrical Event of 1992. Anna is beautiful and admired but empty  until a chance meeting throws her into emotional turmoil and a scandalous affair. Contrasting with this tale of destructive love is the story of Levin, an idealistic man striving to find meaning in life  and a self-portrait of Tolstoy himself.

Five plays from the sensational voice of new writing for Irish theatre. Since winning the George Devine Award for Howie the Rookie in 1999, Mark O'Rowe has electrified audiences with his distinctive dramatic style and dark, dangerous storytelling. In O'Rowe's first play, The Aspidistra Code (1995), Brendan and Sonia, head over heels in debt, are forced to hire their own protection against a volatile loan shark. From Both Hips (1997) sees Paul, a Dublin man shot in the hip during a bungled police raid, embark on a violent journey of revenge. In Howie the Rookie (which also won the 'Rooney Prize for Irish Literature'), brutal events take on mythical significance in a white-knuckle ride through a nightmare Dublin. In Made in China (2001), a dreadful accident sparks a savage tug-of-war between two criminal foot soldiers. And published for the first time - Crestfall (2003) - so dark that all but the tiniest glimmer of light has been extinguished, depicts three women trapped between nightmares and waking.

Catapult into a fantastical world of singing serial killers, avenging angels and love-sick demons. ' . . . hilarious, stunning, surprisingly touching and enormously satisfying . . . Not for the faint of heart!

Victor Frankenstein, a brilliant and ambitious young student, discovers the secret of creating life from the remains of the dead. But elation at his triumph is replaced by horror when he sees his monstrous creation. Abandoned by the one who made him, Frankenstein's Creature is left to a world that fears and rejects him, and soon his innocence turns to misery - and a murderous desire for revenge...Every word in Patrick Sandford's 'vigorous adaptation' (The Times) is lifted directly from Mary Shelley's classic gothic novel. One of the greatest horror stories of all time, and one that still grips readers today almost two hundred years after its first publication. All the more successful for staying faithful to the dark spirit of the original book, this adaptation includes notes on the first production and can be performed with a minimum of set and props, making it well suited for staging by schools and amateur theatre groups, as well as by professional companies.

A tender and funny tale about our secret selves A play about our search for connection in a fractured world. Rich with the absurdities, hypocrisies and vulnerabilities that course through our lives, it playfully observes the longings, fears and desires we reveal - and don't reveal - in our closest relationships. Laura has a secret. Joe's has been revealed. Peg's been keeping hers for years.

On a seemingly ordinary evening an Irish family sit down to tea. The difference tonight is that Nial is home - back from prison having committed a dark crime many years earlier with some news to share and a conscience to clear. Fast, witty and frighteningly real, Moment takes you on journey through trauma wrapped up in tablecloths and teacake and asks what happens to a family when a child is killed and how does it feel when it's your child that does the killing?

Jean works in a garage and consoles herself with drink and perfunctory sex. Jean's insistent neighbour Dawn and Dawn's Irish labourer husband, Mick, and Mick's spineless mucker, Len, all join her in a funny, drunken, sad celebration of their mutual affection and bleak lives.

a trial for murder where the defendants tried to exonerate each other by taking all the blame and the lasting effects on a woman member of the jury

It is 1942. At the Falcon Hotel, on the Lincolnshire coast, Teddy a young RAF bomber pilot celebrates a reunion with his actress wife Patricia. They are thrown into upheaval when Peter, Patricias ex lover and Hollywood heartthrob arrives and an urgent bombing mission over Germany is ordered. Who will make the sacrifice during the long night, as Patricia finds herself at the centre of an emotional conflict as unpredictable as the war in the skies. Flare Path is a story of love and loyalty, courage and fear. Based on Rattigans own experiences as a tail gunner in the RAF during the Second World War, he later reworked Flare Path into a screenplay and in 1954 the re-titled The Way to the Stars starring Michael Redgrave was released.

The first, authorised biography of the anarchic comic genius, much cherished for his performances on stage and screen. Ken Campbell (19412008) was a one-man whirlwind who tore through the British theatre establishment using well-rehearsed anarchy and a genius for surreal comedy. Starting out in rep at Stoke-on-Trent, he founded the Ken Campbell Road Show, whose members included the then-unknown Bob Hoskins and Sylvester McCoy, and which toured pubs and clubs with dramatised urban myths and shaggy-dog stories. His later shows included Illuminatus!  the first show at the National Theatres studio  and the 22-hour The Warp, the longest play in the world. On television he played corrupt lawyer Alex Gladwell in the 1970s series Law and Order, and was Alf Garnetts neighbour Fred Johnson in the sitcom In Sickness and in Health. He later found a devoted audience with his mesmerising one-man shows, which he toured worldwide.

A gripping and urgent play about a well-meaning teacher who intervenes on behalf of a troublesome student, with terrifying consequences.. When white secondary-school teacher Amanda is pushed to the ground by black student Jason, she's reluctant to report him as she knows exclusion could condemn him to a future as troubled as his past. But when Jason decides to protect himself by spinning a story of his own, Amanda is sucked into a vortex of lies in which victim becomes perpetrator. With the truth becoming less clear and more dangerous by the day, it isn't long before careers, relationships and even lives are under threat.

A darkly riotous, superbly fast-talking adventure, adapted from the Booker Prize-winning novel. Vernon Little is fifteen years old and lives with his mother in Martirio, a flea-bitten Texan town. His best friend just massacred sixteen of their classmates before killing himself. The town wants vengeance and turns its sights on Vernon, who is arrested at the start of the story.

From the moment he came into the world as the snow fell and the cold wind blew, Oscars existence has been a stagger through an underworld peopled by loners and losers. Oscar must discover whether or not a bird with a broken wing can ever learn to fly, or is destined to remain earthbound forever. . .

The first eight astonishing plays by one of the most dazzling wordsmiths of contemporary theatre' Guardian. Bursting onto the theatre scene in 1996 with Disco Pigs, Enda Walsh has delivered a sustained fusillade of strikingly original plays ever since. This volume, with a Foreword by the author, contains: The Ginger Ale Boy (Walsh's first play, previously unpublished); Disco Pigs; misterman; bedbound; The Small Things; Chatroom. Also included are two previously unpublished short plays, How These Desperate Men Talk (2004) and Lynndie's Gotta Gun (2005).

A group of West London parents are driven by desperation to take the new government up on their offer and start their own 'free school'. They want to create an education that their children will enjoy rather than endure. But as they find their lives given over to a disturbing version of the Big Society, their fervour turns to panic. Free schools are getting ready to transform from policy idea to classroom reality. But what do we know about them? This dark new comedy takes the pulse of Coalition Britain, by exploring what the retreat of the state and the growth of people power might actually mean. Moving from satiric comedy to poignant family drama, it asks why we're all so obsessed with education and what happens when we get what we wish for

Sir Walter Elliot demands advantageous love matches for his three daughters, and Annes choice of the poor naval officer, Frederick Wentworth, simply wont do. Seven years later, their fathers arrogance has plunged the Elliots into debt, and they are forced to rent out their beloved estate to Admiral Croft  brother-in-law to the now-fêted Captain Wentworth. Afflicted by ill-health and agonised by memories of a lost love, Jane Austen writes her final novel. But as she contemplates the bittersweet ending to her own story, can she bring herself to give Anne and Wentworth a happy one?

When John Dashwood and his snobbish wife Fanny inherit his father's estate, his stepmother, along with his half-sisters, are forced to leave their home and live on a reduced income. Elinor bears the move with her usual stoicism, even though it cuts short her growing friendship with Fanny's brother, Edward Ferrars, while Marianne's grief seemingly knows no bounds. Their new life, from the Devonshire countryside to London's high society - peopled by their eccentric host Sir John Middleton, the brooding Colonel Brandon, the dashing Willoughby and the simpering Lucy Steele - is set to test the sisters' sense and sensibilities to the limit.

Wild and lively, the production explodes with music and magic, story-book sets, shadow puppetry and a 150-piece orchestra in an 18-inch box!

On the morning of his 30th birthday, Joseph K wakes to find he's been arrested. He has no idea what he's done wrong, but he's determined to clear his name. As he tries to make sense of his situation, and to out manoeuvre the authorities who threaten his freedom, Joseph K is brought face to face with the dark heart of the terror state.

Eddie Carver is a self-made businessman. In stark contrast with his humble beginnings he now boasts a millionaire lifestyle: exotic holidays, flashy cars and real designer clothes. Not to mention exclusive country pursuits: 'hunting, shooting and fishing'. Wife Pam and daughter Ruby want for nothing, and expect the best. And because of Eddie's expertise they'll never be disappointed. Then one evening Eddie's behaviour becomes erratic. Have some dodgy business dealings come back to haunt him? Will the high walls, electric fences and CCTV keep evil at bay? Or is the real threat to the family's idyllic life already inside the perimeter? A tense and gripping thriller, this new play calculates the price we pay for material possessions and the effect it has on those we love.

Mike Kenny's imaginative stage adaptation of E. Nesbit's much-loved children's classic. Famously filmed, this story of a prosperous Edwardian family - mother and three children - forced into near-penury in the rural north of England captures the anxieties and exhilarations of childhood with great tenderness and insight. As Mike Kenny says of his remarkably faithful adaptation, 'You dont need a real train to perform this play. . . the most powerful prop is the imagination of the audience, the most effective tool the skill of the actors.' So this version of The Railway Children, which offers three plum roles for young performers, is eminently suitable for schools, youth theatres and drama groups - anywhere, in fact, where the cry of 'Daddy! My Daddy!' is likely to provoke a tear...

Dublin lads Colin and Ray are out of work, out of grub and nearly out of fags. On a whim, lonely ex-teacher Clarence brings the two brothers back to his cottage in Wicklow. In the course of an electric evening, the unlikely trio bond over flagons, chicken and history lessons. But when all you really have in common is a destructive streak, how long can you play at happy families?

The heartbreaking truth about the lives of women in the criminal justice system is exposed in these six plays by some of the most exciting and distinctive female voices in British theatre. Commissioned and premiered by Clean Break, a theatre and education company working with women whose lives have been affected by the criminal justice system. The collection includes: Fatal Light by Chloë Moss; Taken by Winsome Pinnock; Dream Pill by Rebecca Prichard; Doris Day by E V Crowe; Dancing Bears by Sam Holcroft; That Almost Unnameable Lust by Rebecca Lenkiewicz

A witty and prescient play about what happens when gaming and military technology collide. Seventeen-year-old student Adrian has a serious habit - playing military shooters on his computer games console. Single mum Maggie wants him to study Classics at university and stop locking himself in his room pwning* n00bs**. With the help of computer geek Tom, Maggie deciphers gaming lingo in an attempt to reconnect with Adrian. But when a revolutionary new technology Tom invents gets picked up by the MOD, their lives are rocketed from the virtual to the actual battlefield.

Red Buuuud!' rings out across the camp as five friends gather in ritual homage at the annual Motorcross championship. Greg used to ride with speed and style, but this year he brings his pregnant wife instead of his bike. Times have changed. As they relive past glories, the haze of beer and smoke can't disguise their fading friendship. American drama about the creeping spread of middle age.

Billy's fiercely intelligent and proudly unconventional family are their own tiny empire, with their own private language, jokes and rules. You can be as rude as you like, as possessive as you like, as critical as you like. Arguments are an expression of love. After all, you'd do anything for each other - wouldn't you? But Billy, who is deaf, is one of the few who actually listens. Meeting Sylvia makes him finally want to be heard; can he get a word in edgeways?

Liv is in trouble - her mum's planning a dog fight, her dad's getting out of jail, her brother's getting too close to her baby, the police are sniffing around and the pack is closing in. A sharp and savage story of the animals we are and the people we aspire to be.

Red Buuuud!' rings out across the camp as five friends gather in ritual homage at the annual Motorcross championship. Greg used to ride with speed and style, but this year he brings his pregnant wife instead of his bike. Times have changed. As they relive past glories, the haze of beer and smoke can't disguise their fading friendship. American drama about the creeping spread of middle age.

Billy's fiercely intelligent and proudly unconventional family are their own tiny empire, with their own private language, jokes and rules. You can be as rude as you like, as possessive as you like, as critical as you like. Arguments are an expression of love. After all, you'd do anything for each other - wouldn't you? But Billy, who is deaf, is one of the few who actually listens. Meeting Sylvia makes him finally want to be heard; can he get a word in edgeways?

An enthralling new version of an unforgettable Ibsen classic. Part psychological thriller, part Gothic tragedy, Ibsens late masterwork is a compelling portrait of one man's obsessive determination, and what might lie on the darker side of ambition. Halvard Solness, the leading architect of his age, is at the end of his career. A single-minded man of angry pride, trapped in a frozen marriage to Aline, he is terrified of being eclipsed by the younger generation snapping at his heels. A decade after their first meeting, the charismatic and bewitching young Hilde Wangel comes back into his life and inspires him to even greater heights. But will his last towering achievement renew him or destroy him?

This is from the press release: "In 1958, a white family moves out. In 2008, a white family moves in. In the intervening years, change overtakes a neighborhood, along with attitudes, inhabitants, and property values. Bruce Norris's pitch-black comedy takes on the issue of gentrification in our communities, leaving no stone unturned-and taking no prisoners-in the process."
- nytheatre.com

Anne Boleyn is traditionally seen as a pawn manipulated by an ambitious father and his friends into the King's bed, or as a licentious predator, even a witch. But Brenton puts a very different Anne - and her ghost - on the Globe stage. Witty and confident in her sexuality, she takes on the vicious world of Tudor Court politics.

Small lies, little lies, tender lies, well-intentioned untruths. Ana calls Edward's bluff on their disintegrating relationship and enters a deadly truthful world where honesty is celebrated in all of its dangerous glory. They don't make women like Helen anymore: loving mother, home-maker, wife. But beneath the civilised veneer of her life, a dark truth threatens to surface. Two couples explore the threat of honesty and our perverse need for it in this blistering play from one of UK theatre's most exciting new voices.

Shared Experience and Sherman Cymru join forces to tell the extraordinary story of identical twins June and Jennifer Gibbons. Refusing to speak to adults, the twins communicate in their own private language and have an intense and turbulent bond ith each other. Speechless is an astonishing and moving portrayal of the twins secret world and their struggle to find a voice against all odds.

Feisty 18-year-old Katie is thrust into a journey she'll never forget after her boyfriend is attacked on the street. The complexities of multicultural inner city life are vividly exposed in this remarkable coming-of-age tale by exhilarating writer, Jack Thorne. --

A riveting and savage take on the classic Greek myth of Penelope, wife of Odysseus. It's 11.30 a.m. and already it's thirty-three degrees Celsius. At the bottom of a drained swimming pool, four ridiculous men face their inevitable deaths, and play for an unwinnable love.

A collection of five extraordinary plays exploring and reflecting contemporary life across the Near East and North Africa. Withdrawal by Mohammad Al Attar (Syria) 603 by Imad Farajin (Palestine) Damage by Kamal Khalladi (Morocco) The House by Arzé Khodr (Lebanon) Egyptian Products by Laila Soliman (Egypt)

In The Urban Girl's Guide to Camping, four young friends leave the city behind and head into the wilderness, but a burning secret threatens to tear their lives apart. A bittersweet comedy about life, love and friendship once school is long gone.

Passionate, highly entertaining and gloriously funny - Robert Tressell's classic pre-First World War account of the working lives of a group of housepainters and decorators is vividly adapted by Howard Brenton. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists recounts the little daily successes and the disasters of a group of working-class men, living under the constant fear of being laid off by employers forever looking for new corners to cut. Both workers and bosses are caught in a system spiralling out of control, but why is it the workers always come out worse? Howard Brenton's stage adaptation lays bare the many social injustices perpetrated on these men whilst capturing their individual characters with touching truth to life.

The play is set in France in 1654, and revolves around an upheaval in a famous acting troupe. Elomire, the troupe's renowned leader, is furious because Prince Conti, the troupe's patron, is forcing a street performer, Valere, upon them. Elomire finds Valere and his work to be revolting and base, while Bejart, the troupe's second in command, is worried about offending the Prince and, thereby, losing their patron. Valere is a terrible bore, who loves nothing more than the sound of his own voice, which he amply demonstrates at his first entrance, when he delivers an uproariously funny and extended monologue. Elomire can barely withhold his contempt, but Valere is completely unaware of the barbs tossed his way. The Prince arrives; anxious to see how Elomire and Valere are getting along, having high hopes for their union. The Prince feels Elomire's work has grown stagnant and that the troupe needs new blood. Elomire, convinced that Valere will never be able to work in an ensemble situation, challenges Valere to pr

Bringing the familiar and not-so-familiar tales of Britain's first great epic to spectacular life, this new adaptation traces Arthur's rise and fall, from the sword in the stone and the foundation of the Round Table to the Holy Grail and the adultery of Launcelot and Guenever. See brave knights, damsels in distress and fiery dragons as The Courtyard Theatre plays host to the story of the 'once and future King'.
- theatre website

Set in South coast in the early 1950s - Holly is 12 years old and very bright for his age, his snobbish mother is bored out of her mind and his father has just started an affair with his wife's tennis partner. But Holly also has to contend with his piano tutor, the enigmatic Thomas Ambrose Brownlow, whose interest in Holly is more than merely musical. . .

A sharply perceptive, darkly funny riff on urban isolation by one of Scotland's leading playwrights. This is a big day for Sadie and Bill; their favourite person is coming to visit. They've gone to great lengths to prepare for the occasion. It's an even bigger day for Jackie; and not one she'd anticipated. Should she make the most of it? She doesn't know if she can any more; too many people depend on her. Any Given Day explores our fear of the unknown, and our guilt and responsibility towards ourselves and others.

A poignant and sensuous adaptation of the 1961 Oscar-winning film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. Karin is a young wife, an older sister and an only daughter. In her kaleidoscopic internal world the boundaries between different realities blur and shift. Karin's family go on their annual holiday together. On a bleak, beautiful island, her husband, father and brother struggle over the best way to help her. As events spiral out of control, Karin realises that she must take command of her own destiny. This is the only adaptation of Through a Glass Darkly, and was personally approved by Bergman.

A collection of wide-ranging and ambitious short plays reflecting the complexities of women and political power in the United Kingdom

A revealing, funny and wonderfully moving portrait of four women who sign up to join the Women's Land Army during World War II. The play was devised and first performed by the Lions part. Based on one hundred and fifty letters and interviews with original Land Girls, along with songs from the period, Lilies on the Land charts the personal journeys of four women who join the Women's Land Army - determined to work endless backbreaking hours on farms across the country in a bid to do their best for the War Effort. But how do these women, all hailing from different walks of life, torn from their families and bereft of all basic home comforts, deal with the hardships of farming life and the pressures of war? Maybe work clothes full of mice and toilet rolls falling from the sky are just what it takes for these girls to get through. . .

A collection of wide-ranging and ambitious short plays reflecting the complexities of women and political power in the United Kingdom

A modern fable of an idyllic childhood shattered by grief, and the confused, desperate and dangerous attempts we make to learn how to live again. Jack and Beatrice are twins. They have no grandparents. They have no uncles or aunties and no cousins. And now, they have no mum and dad. The one person who can look after them is their godmother Sophie, who arrives, shocked and unprepared, at their remote rural family home. Sophie has not seen the children since they were tiny: too tiny for them to remember her, and undoubtedly too little to remember what caused her long, enforced absence. But as the three of them return to the isolated home on the edge of a forest, their collective grief triggers a tragic attempt to remember, repair and recreate the past.

Tim Conigrave was an actor and NIDA graduate and his moving memoir Holding the Man has theatre in its veins. It is also one of our greatest stories of love and loss, and won the 1995 UN Human Rights Award for Non-fiction. This story is a breathtakingly honest, achingly funny and completely heart-wrenching account of a 15-year relationship that weathered disapproval, separation, temptation and, ultimately, death. Its a story, and a celebration, that speaks across generations, sexual preference and cultures.

Set in a small mining town in Democratic Republic of Congo, this play follows Mama Nadi, a shrewd businesswoman in a land torn apart by civil war. But is she protecting or profiting by the women she shelters? How far will she go to survive? Can a price be placed on a human life?
- press release

In Love The Sinner, an international group of church leaders converge in an African hotel to contend the need for Christian doctrine to change with the times. Fierce theological debate demonstrates that what is current tinking on one continent is abhorrent to another.

Stitch, a young man from a tiny village in East Yorkshire, leaves behind the comforts of his job in a knitting shop, in search of the bright city lights and the gay scene of Hull. But, when staying with his heavily pregnant sister Liz and her partner Mark doesnt turn out to be quite what he hoped, Stitch gets caught up in a rather sticky situation involving a zoo keeper, a man in a giant penguin suit, and an overdose of kelp.

The savage power of ancient myth collides with twentieth-century decadence in Oscar Wilde's astonishing tragedy. Salome, stepdaughter of King Herod, agrees to perform the mysterious and erotic Dance of the Seven Veils - but demands in return the head of the King's most infamous prisoner, Iokanaan (John the Baptist). To avoid censorship by the Lord Chamberlain, Wilde originally wrote Salome in French, and it premiered in Paris in 1896, while he was in prison. The play was finally seen in London in 1906, but has yet to gain the massive popularity of his comedies. This edition carries new introductions by the academic Trevor R. Griffiths and Ben Power of Headlong.

When the amorous Sir Harcourt Courtly prepares to wed an heiress several decades his junior, he hasn't reckoned on the superior charms of her cousin, the foxhunting Lady Gay Spanker. . .Boucicault, the Irish genius of London theatre in the age of Dickens, wrote the brilliantly funny London Assurance in 1841 and thereby created - in Sir Harcourt and Lady Spanker - two of the great comic roles of the English stage. A classic English comedy of manners that borrows from Sheridan and anticipates Oscar Wilde, the play is a small comedic masterpiece and is regularly revived.

Explores the lives of an ordinary family who are aware that they are part of a story, and initially bemused by all the attention. The everyday concerns and events of their lives form the early part of the play - raising children, growing up, growing old. But all of this changes when Death comes calling. Plunged suddenly into a reality where they can no longer rely on the 'certainties' of existence, Joe, Mary, Kevin and Mazz must reassess their lives. Perspectives change and the things they cherish and regret are stripped of all the usual distractions and confusions. The play presents a warm and uplifting look at how ordinary people deal with tragedy. It's a story that will resonate with anyone who has lost someone they love - and suggests that when we grieve it's for the good times that are past rather than the pain we feel now.

based on Julian Barnes's semi-fictional novel and featuring Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, brings vividly to life the events of 100 years ago which made sensational headlines as The Great Wyrley Outrages. The gripping story of the sensational, real-life case in which Sir Arthur Conan Doyle found himself playing detective

Lucy has lost something very important. He was there one moment, then gone the next, leaving her with a pile of half-cooked food and a collection of invited (and uninvited) guests. As Lucy acclimatises to her new situation, the audience is absorbed, along with her and her visitors, into an intimate and sensory experience. What We Know is a funny, painful, absurd, bewildering and deeply moving new play presented in a unique and innovative style.

Your credit card is maxed out, and you hang up the phone on Ross chasing your payments. But Ross is actually Roshan and though the sun is shining for you it's past misnight in his window-less call centre.

A sassy, offbeat comedy-drama about rebelling against your roots. Rivka wants the perfect Orthodox wedding. With two weeks to go, she has the man, the dress - and the wig. But when doubt is cast on her wig, everything starts to unravel. Rivka finds herself far from home, up a tree and in the midst of an anti-road protest, not knowing whether she'll be able to go back to where she came from. . . Or even if she wants to. Samantha Ellis' play was inspired by a chance remark by Victoria Beckham in 2004 which sparked a crisis within the Orthodox Jewish community about the wigs worn by married women.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned

Though Amy and Simon have the money and children that life has so far denied Nick and Rachel, their friendship forged years ago has remained constant. But when they hand their less fortunate friends the cash to realise their dreams, this simple act of charity brings long-submerged resentments bubbling to the surface.

A simple and delightfully inventive re-telling of the stories from the Arabian Nights. It is wedding night in the palace of King Shahrayar. By morning, the new Queen Shahrazad is to be put to death like all the young brides before her. But she has one gift that could save her - the gift of storytelling. With her mischievous imagination, the young Queen spins her dazzling array of tales and characters. On her side are Ali Baba, Es-Sindibad the Sailor and Princess Parizade - adventurers in strange and magical worlds populated by giant beasts, talking birds, devilish ghouls and crafty thieves. But will her silver-tongued stories be enough to enchant her husband and save her life?

One of Dickens's best-loved and most autobiographical stories, brilliantly and faithfully dramatised by Alastair Cording. All Dickens's marvellous creations are here: Mr Micawber, Uriah Heep, Mrs Peggotty, Murdstone, Steerforth and Betsey Trotwood. Weaving through the colourful maze of the storyline is David's hopeless infatuation with Emily - and eventual salvation in the arms of the long-suffering Agnes. Alastair Cording's stage adaptation skilfully concentrates on the essentials of the story while maintaining the colour, humour and drama of the book. Most notable is its fluidity, with each scene flowing into the next without the need for cumbersome scene changes - or much scenery at all. Performable by a cast of eight, if necessary, but equally offering good roles to thirty or more

The vital building blocks of movement training - a key sourcebook for actors, directors, students and teachers. In precise detail, Darley sets out the exercises and techniques she developed with her own drama-school students. She deals with the vital building blocks of movement training: awareness, relaxation, tension - particularly Lecoq's Seven States - and suspension, before progressing to areas in which she was a pioneer: animal work, contact work, visual spacing, and the relationship between voice and movement.

Another Romeo and another Juliet in a strikingly different love story. . .Ben Power weaves the text of Romeo and Juliet into a provocative new tale of love and sacrifice. Re-imagining Shakespeare's story, A Tender Thing is an elegiac yet ultimately hopeful account of the human capacity for love. Shakespeare's timeless poetry provides the backdrop for this delicate and moving account of old age, memory and the demands we make of those we love. When a married couple discover that their lifetime together is drawing to a close, they realise they cannot contemplate being apart.

Nicholas Wright's play about the controversial psychoanalyst Melanie Klein is a haunting and poignant study of mother-daughter relationships. In 1934 the son of Melanie Klein, Britain's most admired psychoanalyst, was reported killed in a climbing accident. There were no witnesses. Nicholas Wright's play shows the effect of this shattering and unexpected death on Mrs Klein, on her daughter and on her new assistant Paula, a young refugee from Hitler's Berlin. Melanie Klein had herself come to Britain from Berlin with a controversial mission to extend psychoanalysis to infants. But her analysis of her own children has damaged her relationship with them almost beyond repair, and the news of her son's death provokes a bitter confrontation with her daughter.

To protect the country from the horrors prophesied, Segismundo is condemned for all eternity. Banished to a secret world high in the mountains and cut off from the sun, he can only dream of a life reversed: of palaces, empires, freedom and revenge. Helen Edmundson's new version of Calderon's richly poetic, epic masterpiece explores illusion, reality, fate and destiny against the backdrop of a mythical kingdom.

A luminous journey exploring the life of Dijana Polancec: professional romantic, eternal optimist and accidental prostitute. 'I know exactly how much I am worth. I am worth one thousand euros because that is how much Babac paid for me. To put this in easy language, that is like two-and-a-half iPhones.'

Sometimes you can be too careful. Sometimes you just want to say something quickly, without reserve without self-censorship, without shame. Sometimes the way some thing is said is more revealing than what is being said. There's a danger in that. It's the tyranny of form over content. But there's a kind of wonderful freedom in constraint. It can lead to an unwitting truth.

Ukraine 1929. As Stalin launches the first of his Five-Year Plans, a closeknit rural community stands unwittingly in the path of his drive to create a thriving socialist Soviet Union. The outcome is catastrophic. What begins for the people of the village as an amusingly alien concept rapidly becomes an unstoppable force for change. Robbed first of their land, then their religion and independence, the whole country soon becomes engulfed by a tragedy that will scar a nation for generations.

A darkly comic and freewheeling epic that gets to the heart of small-town politics and what it means to please all of the people all of the time. A provincial town is in search of a hero. A shell-shocked soldier downs vodka on his return from the frontline in Chechnya. As Ilya arrives home he stumbles into the epicentre of an extraordinary power struggle that threatens to tear the town apart.

2nd May 1997. An historic victory. The Tories, 18 years in power, are defeated as New Labour sweeps into government. From the euphoria and despair, three deeply personal stories emerge. Tory MP Robert prepares to attend the count. With defeat looming large, he fears becoming a forgotten man while his wife Marie counts the cost of her own sacrifice to politics. Lib Dem footsoldier Ian is no hero but party-crasher Sarah is determined to make him one. Best mates Jake and Will wake up to a new world order and try to memorise the cabinet before their politics A Level class. Jake dreams of Number 10. Will dreams of Jake.

shrugs off all those fanged Hammer spoofs and restores the real tragedy

Dornoch, northern Scotland, 1727. In the claustrophobic heat of summer, a woman's apparent ability to manipulate the power of land and sea stirs suspicion. Janet Horne can cure beasts, call the wind and charm fish out of the sea. Or can she? As her refusal to refute their claims of sorcery incenses the local community, her magnetic allure continues to captivate and destroy. The Last Witch is based on the historical account of Janet Horne, the last woman to be executed for witchcraft in Scotland. She was sentenced to death by burning in her home town, accused by friends and neighbours who believed she had made a pact with the devil. Rona Munro is one of Scotland's leading playwrights and The Last Witch has been specially commissioned by the Festival. Munro explores the psychological rifts that can divide close communities and drive families apart, and vividly illustrates the destructive potential of fear in a small village.

Three generations of women. One extraordinary year. Sex, birth, death, dildos and salsa classes. Amber has fierce bad indigestion and the Sambucas aren't getting rid of it. Lorraine attacks a customer at work and her boss wants her to see a psychiatrist. Kay's got an itch that Gem can't scratch (but maybe Kermit can). Paul is just using Amber until he can get to Australia. The Hairy man fancies Lorraine but fails to rise to the occasion. And Gem doesn't like the neighbours coming in to 'mind' him. And if all that wasn't bad enough, Little Gem makes his presence felt and... well... life is never the same again.

John Abbott, author of The Improvisation Book, explains how theatre directors at every level can use improvisation in the rehearsal room. Foreword by Mark Rylance. 'Improvisation can be used as part of the creative process of rehearsing a play. It can be a fabulous tool for exploration and discovery. It can strengthen the actor's commitment to their character. And it can create an environment of confidence and spontaneity.' Packed with useful exercises and improvisation scenarios, and examples from a wide variety of plays, Improvisation in Rehearsal reveals how improvisation enriches and enlivens the creation of characters, back-stories, relationships, shared histories and emotional lives. The book also demonstrates how improvisation can be used as a powerful tool in the foundation of a strong company, and when searching for the hidden depths and dynamics in a scene. Building on his own experience as an actor, director and teacher, Abbott writes with clarity and an infectious enthusiasm which will motivate directors to try the techniques for themselves. As Mark Rylance says in his Foreword, this book 'will inspire and delight its readers'.

"My dad said he jumped buses. Horseboxes. Jumped an aqueduct once. He was gonna jump Stonehenge but the council put a stop to it." On St George's Day, the morning of the local county fair, Johnny Byron, local waster and modern day Pied Piper, is a wanted man. The council officials want to serve him an eviction notice, his children want their dad to take them to the fair, Troy Whitworth wants to give him a serious kicking and a motley crew of mates want his ample supply of drugs and alcohol. A comic, contemporary vision of life in our green and pleasant land

Kristin Weybridge is an eminent and successful art critic. As a young mother, she followed her politics and art, storming Parisian barricades and following her heart to Florence. Her successful memoir secures her place in history but fails to mention her sons. Her birthday should be a time for celebration but when her son Simon decides to deliver his version of the past, everyone must confront the cost of Kristin's commitment to her work.

Forty engagingly candid interviews with leading theatre people, offering rare insights 'behind the scenes'. Shortly after he left the directorship of the National Theatre, Richard Eyre embarked on a series of interviews with people who had played a significant part in making and influencing the theatre of the second half of the twentieth century. Forty of these interviewsthreaded through with Eyres own commentaryare published here for the first time.

'Mum, I had a dream last night where I threw you down the stairs. It's not right.' For Hildy, political activism comes easier that dealing with the disorder of her family life: Her druggie son; her philandering husband; her father, misbehaving in a hugely expensive retirement home. And then there's her mother - a charismatic 60s pop star, who clings to her former beauty (and a bottle of vodka), and who sets up camp in Hildy's spare room to belittle her from close range. By day, Hildy leads the City's cleaners in revolt against the bankers. But by night, she dreams unsettling acts of violence.

A collection of endearing characters, hitting adulthood in The Naughties, offer deliciously cynical yet touching snippets of life that question what it is to be 'normal' in a generation where everything has become acceptable. In a decade when the shock factor is hard to come by and the media is scrabbling around in the dirt to find the not-yet-exploited, Eight's characters come from the fringes of a society that has been invaded by normal. From life-partners hanging by Hermès scarves to finding friendship in morgues, Eight looks at the refugees created by the dissolution of social, sexual and national boundaries, resulting in hard-hitting drama that has dared to confront the toughest of topical issues

Deep in the Polynesian islands of the Pacific Ocean, hungry spirits circle the homes of writer Robert Louis Stevenson and artist Paul Gauguin. The path to Stevenson's grave, his 'Road to Paradise', is complete; he can pass on anytime he likes. But, having spent thirty years in rigorous combat with the grim reaper, is he finally ready to concede defeat? His islander maid, Java is terrified his spirit will get waylaid on its journey back to Edinburgh and stay to devour her soul. Gauguin too, is ready - he has bought rum, arsenic and morphine for his suicide cocktail and is certain he's not long for this world. It seemed easy enough to avoid being arrested by the gendarme, but he'll be damned if they give him a Catholic burial in consecrated ground. Set in the strange and supernatural surroundings of Samoa and Tahiti, Death of Long Pig explores the duality of experience from the perspectives of two great artists as they usher death into their island homes. As the final hour approaches, they face the eternal question: is it how we prepare for death that really governs the way we live?

Shakespeare Monologues for Men contains 50 monologues drawn from across the Shakespeare canon. Each speech is prefaced with an easy-to-use guide to Who is speaking, Where, When and To Whom, What has just happened in the play and What are the character's objectives. In fact, everything the actor needs to know before embarking on the audition!

Shakespeare Monologues for Men contains 50 monologues drawn from across the Shakespeare canon. Each speech is prefaced with an easy-to-use guide to Who is speaking, Where, When and To Whom, What has just happened in the play and What are the character's objectives. In fact, everything the actor needs to know before embarking on the audition!

An epic play spanning four generations and two continents, When The Rain Stops Falling moves from the claustrophobia of a 1950s London flat to the windswept coast of Southern Australia and into the heart of the Australian desert. The play weaves together a series of interconnected stories, as seven people confront their mysteries of the past in oder to understand their future, revealing how patterns of betrayal, love and abandonment are passed on, until finally, well into the future, as the desert is inundated with rain, one young man finds the courage to defy the legacy.

Albrecht von Wallenstein, Duke of Friedland, Supreme Commander of the Habsburg armies, champion and saviour of the Holy Roman Empire, stands undefeated in a seemingly endless war of religion. A victim of his own military success, Wallenstein believes he is the only commander who can bring peace to the Empire. In the field, Wallenstein inspires fanatical loyalty in his troops. At court, politicians, jealous of his victories, howl for his dismissal and plot against his life. Four wintry days of terrible events, conspiracy, divided loyalty and betrayal culminate in one night of violent score settling. Wallenstein's struggle is played out on a vast European stage, but the heart of the tragedy is private and domestic: wives, children, lovers and friends must bear the heaviest burden of suffering. Schiller's skill in balancing the epic with the human make him arguably Europe's greatest playwright.

Cats like to tease mice. In other words, I'm saying, it's not something that happens by accident when they're pursuing some other more respectable purpose. No. They like to do it. The scientist who tinkered with the universe tells us of his many loves. As his self-obsession literally consumes him, we listen to tales of food, sex and man's true best friend. An extreme, disturbing, and funny vision of the embattled relationship between man and beast.

part of The Contingency Plan a double bill of plays (Resilience and On the Beach) from the frontline of climate change. They both stand alone and are complementary. Together, they present an epic portrait of an England of the near future, in which huge flooding has destroyed Bristol and threatens to sink the east coast.

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. What does King Lear have in common with Cinderella? What does Jaws owe to Ibsen? From Aeschylus to Alan Ayckbourn, from Chekhov to Caryl Churchill, are there common principles by which all plays work? How Plays Work is a masterclass for playwrights and playmakers and a fascinating guide to the anatomy of drama.

Jez Butterworth takes on domestic paranoia in his inimitably sly and incisive style in Parlour Song, which explores what happens when two ordinary people discover they hate who they have become. Butterworth reveals a world where all is not what it seems, when a demolitions expert suspects his wife is stealing from him
- press release

Colonel Kotov, decorated hero of the Russian Revolution, is spending an idyllic summer in the country with his beloved young wife and family. But on one glorious sunny morning in 1936, his wife's former lover returns from a long and unexplained absence. Amidst a tangle of sexual jealousy, retribution and remorseless political backstabbing, Kotov feels the full, horrifying reach of Stalin's rule.

Mary. . . uses the mythology that has grown up to surround Mary and her life to draw dramatic and uncomfortable parallels between the sacrifices of Mary in her day and the myriad sexual, political and religious preoccupations which still inform the Scottish psyche

A remarkably candid autobiography, utterly involving and often startlingly revelatory, Beside Myself is an inspiration to young actors and a treat for seasoned theatregoers. Actor, author, artist Antony Sher grew up in the Old South Africa with a profound sense of being an outsider. Small, Jewish and secretly gay, he found refuge in theatre and escaped to London aged just nineteen. In Beside Myself, Sher takes us to the heart of what it is to be an actor today, describing the journeys he undertakes in order to inhabit the roles for which he is famous - including The History Man (his TV breakthrough), Macbeth, Tamburlaine, Cyrano, Stanley Spencer and Richard III.

Having inherited her fathers farm, the spirited and feisty young Bathsheba Everdene finds herself playing mistress in a mans world. She is pursued by three would-be lovers: the constant shepherd, Gabriel Oak; the obsessive landowner, William Boldwood; and the reckless Sergeant Troy. But are any of them a match for the headstrong and independent Bathsheba?

India and Treasure come from very different backgrounds but soon become the best of friends. Together they escape from their problems by writing diaries, inspired by their heroine, Anne Frank. But when secrets start jumping off the page and into real life, Treasure and India find themselves in deep trouble.

Ten-year-old Andy used to live happily at Mulberry Cottage with her family: Mum, Dad, and Radish the rabbit, who lives in Andy's pocket and shares all her secrets. But then it all went wrong: Mum went to live with Bill, and Dad went off with Carrie. And Andy is expected to shuttle between the two - living out of a suitcase - and come to terms with her strange new families.

even Jewish Children is Caryl Churchill's response to the situation in Gaza, as it was when the play was written in January 2009

101 great drama games for use in any classroom or workshop setting. In the NHB Drama Games series. A dip-in, flick-through, quick-fire resource book, packed with 101 lively drama games suitable for players of all ages, with many appropriate for children from age 6 upwards. Whilst aimed primarily at school, youth theatre and community groups, they are equally fun - and instructional - for adults to play in workshop or rehearsal settings.

The Convict's Opera follows Gay's pattern in many respects, not least the score which lifts popular tunes ranging from the original 18th century ballad "Over the hills and far away" (sung by Olivier in the film version) to strains of Leonard Cohen, Neil Young and the Gypsy Punks. A fine tradition which is a distinct improvement on the tuneless number of so many so-called "original" musicals.

Fast-paced and astute, Roaring Trade exposes just how far people go for the highest-risk jobs in the City. Pressure is mounting on the bond traders' floor and millions stand to be lost or won. Jess is playing FTSE with the clients, PJ's practising his poker face for bonus day, and superstar trader Donny's in danger of losing his crown to the new boy. Could they be headed for more than a financial crisis?

The 1958 Philip is in love with Oliver, but married to Sylvia. The 2008 Oliver is addicted to sex with strangers. Sylvia loves them both.

where, in twenty-four hours of exam leave, in the hottest summer ever recorded, the lives of two best friends and three broken families are changed forever

One of the most bracing and critically acclaimed plays in recent Broadway history, this is a portrait of the dysfunctional American family at its finest and absolute worst. When the patriarch of the Weston clan disappears one hot summer night, the family reunites at the Oklahoma homestead, where long-held secrets are unflinchingly and uproariously revealed. The three-act, three-and-a-half-hour mammoth of a play combines epic tragedy with black comedy, dramatizing three generations of unfulfilled dreams and leaving not one of its thirteen characters unscathed. After its sold-out Chicago premiere, the play has electrified audiences in New York since its opening in November 2007

Set in rural Ireland of the early 1960s, Lay Me Down Softly introduces the colourful if seedy burlesque that is Delaneys Travelling Roadshow  and in particular its boxing hall, where prizefighter Dean takes on all comers on a nightly basis. That is, until a challenge from a professional fighter upsets the apple-cart. . .

A comedy about growing up, class, love, disappointment and hope, inspired by the Seven Up television series. Working-class Alan, upper-class Catherine and middle-class Tom are part of a social litmus test, reunited every seven years to expose themselves to the nation. But waiting on the sofa for director David to arrive, they reveal far more to each other than they ever will to camera.

The play is an original story of three young men all set for a night out in Bromley when the demon of violence causes them to pursue very different agendas. Derek Nicholls said, "Overspill impressed the judges because of its energy, and the originality of its storytelling. The tale it tells of three young men and their relationship to their home town is both very funny, and poignantly thoughtful, with a surprising dramatic twist at its climax.",