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Alan Franks

ALAN FRANKS

  
Nationality:    British
email:    Click here to contact     Website:    Click here

Literary Agent:    Curtis Brown Group Ltd  

photo: sylvanmason.com

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below is a list of Alan Franks's plays - click on a Play Title for more information

         Augusta         Edge Of the Land, The         Front         Mother Tongue, The         Previous Convictions         Wing And A Prayer, A         World Elsewhere, A
Augusta

Synopsis:
Patrick, a successful British biographer is entertaining in his penthouse flat (he's not so very successful, it's in Shepherd's Bush, though he does have his initials - PH - on the lift button for his floor). Jonathan Rigby plays him slightly pompous and very properly english (though he nearly breaks out a bit later). He tells his guests that his book on the Rothschilds he only 'did for the money - as they did everyone else for money' but he turned down doing Jeffery archer 'because I wasn't sure he existed.' Sometimes one wonders whether he and his guests exist either, at least as the people they claim that they are. the first guest, already arrived, is alfredo, a Portuguese-speaking South American, who as a boy of seven was orphaned by a climatic disaster, then adopted by a wealthy man who sent him to Gourdonstoun. He comes from a small state that no one has ever heard of called Cambio Wechsel (just look at the rest of the signage next time you see a Bureau de Change). He made a killing exploiting the state's production of hazelnuts and, as Patrick tells his next guest, was President of his country at just 29. George Savvides plays him as a little exotic, a conscious charm overlaying an ego that is basking in the recognition bestowed by having his life-story written. But what is that life story? the second guest is another South American: augusta, a former photographic model. Her face and fine figure have been seen on the covers of fashion magazines the world over, and now she is a successful painter - surely the ghastly pictures that decorate the set can't be hers. Patrick was at school with her ex-husband and he is godFather to her son who is now grown up and apparently a successful pop star. antonia Freeling looks suitably striking, though she makes augusta surprisingly subdued at first but exploding later with fiery Latin temperament. When alfredo takes a phone call from someone called anastasio in Paraguay this sparks of a sudden recognition, a painful memory and accusations of an outrage. are they true? Coolly and calmly Patrick tries gets his guests to state their positions and then the pop star son Daniel appears, James Palmer making him a curly-haired charmer, and a new dimension is added. the air is heavy with guilt and more emotional and sexual revelations and Chrys Salt's direction, while challenging the audience to follow the twists of new information, never lets them be quite sure what the truth really is, even when Patrick himself confesses to his own motives and feelings. Don't get the idea that this is a dark piece about guilt and morals. It gives its audience an entertaining puzzle, leavened with laughter and an opportunity for four actors to indulge themselves in some enjoyable theatrics that Salt's direction keeps within bounds.
- Howard Loxton, British theatre Guide

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
Bare Boards . . . and a passion

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Edge Of the Land, The

Synopsis:
the fenland's ongoing battle against against being submerged by the sea becomes a powerful, universal metaphor for the individual's struggle with the past, illustrating how flimsy our protections are against the forces of feeling that lie deep within us.
Dominic Cavendish, Daily Telegraph

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
The Quay At Sudbury, Sudbury     05 Mar 2004

Organisations:
Eastern Angles

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Front

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
A benefit evening for Stop the War of ten x ten minute pieces, including new plays, music, poetry and comedy from both UK and Middle Eastern artists to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq  and to celebrate their enduring anti-war movement. New plays, music, poetry, comedy and performance from  Lynsey Baxter, Richard Bradbury, Andrew Bridgmont, Corin Campbell Hill, Aidan Casey, Sally Davies, StElla Duffy, Sophia Efthimiou, Brian Eno, Joe Gaminara, Shappi Khorsandi, Alan Franks, Muzz Khan, Jane Lapotaire, Roger Lloyd Pack, Peter Lynam, Kika Markham, David Mumeni, Ahmed Mukhtar, Lara Rossi, Marlene Sidaway, Shelley Silas, Ralf Togner, Martin Turner, Timothy West, Philip Wilson, Jan Woolf, Saadi Yusef and surprise guests. Compered by Arthur Smith.

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
ten min play

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Mother Tongue, The

Synopsis:
a snob in the grand colonial manner goes to stay with her daughter after a fire destroys her home, family skeletons come rattling out of the closet

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Greenwich, London     1992

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Samuel French, London, 1993   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  4            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Previous Convictions

Synopsis:
a middle class family of university educated daughter, scuttled husband and dominant wife whose work securing compensation for medical negligence emerges as some kind of guilt money for a Father who took advantage of gullible natural healers in the amazon. Tony, the younger son, and a present day aids worker in Brazil, returns home to rattle these skeletons and lay them bare.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Orange Tree, Richmond, UK >>>     06 Apr 2005

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Wing And A Prayer, A

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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World Elsewhere, A

Synopsis:
Oxford, Autumn 1968. A year on from the summer of love, America is exploding with rage against a long-running war in the Far East. Vietnam is rousing students from their hedonism and the bitter run-up to Richard Nixon's inaugural presidential election looms large. In the University's timeless quads the charismatic international post-graduate Elliott Farmer is leading the protests. This thrillingly intelligent play is a drama of politics on all levels - from international statesmanship, through to the dirty tricks of old rivals, and the rule-free warfare of the bedroom.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Muswell Press   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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