For forty-something Hildy, political activism comes easier than dealing with the disorder of her family life: her druggie son; her philandering soon-to-be-ex husband; her father, misbehaving in a huge
Wheeler is a high-flying comprehensive kid destined for university, while football-mad Fitz is struggling to cope with his dysfunctional father and his schoolwork. They live down the road from Walber
The war has ended, but with peace comes conflict. Antigone's brother Polyneices lies on the battlefield where he fell, his burial outlawed by Creon, the new king of Thebes. Should Antigone obey Creon
A chance encounter at a conference hotel plays upon Kitty's mind as she struggles to balance personal freedom with family life, fidelity and a testing job.Her husband seems more interested in misplac
Rose is thirty-four and lives on a farm with her husband and two children. She worries she may have married too young. Lola is fifty and wants to sell her home. Nobody ever calls, and she has stopped
One of the longest novels in Western literature, Tolstoy's War and Peace intertwines its epic account of Napoleon's invasion of Russia with the tale of three aristocratic families. It was described by
Marooned in Great Yarmouth, Nick and Miranda are two intensely bright, funny and volatile young people. They may be best friends but Nick is searching for something else.Obsessed with The Tempest, Ni
This is an intensely practical handbook for students, actors, and teachers on how to cope with text, character, and situation. Barbara Houseman’s method is to state a precept and devise an exercise to
Jonah, 26, has a chance encounter with Otto, 62, in a walled garden near the south coast of England on a warm summer's evening. The moon is full. On parting, neither will ever feel quite the same agai
With echoes of Romeo and Juliet, Noughts & Crosses is an electrifying, bittersweet love story set in a society divided by racial bigotry and a world rocked by terrorism.Sephy (a Cross) is the daughte
It's 11 o'clock in the morning in a council flat on the Walworth Road in London. In two hours' time, as is normal, three Irish men will have consumed six cans of Harp, fifteen crackers with spreadable
A romantic comedy set in 1804. This title inhabits terrain somewhere between Jane Austen and Dickens with its self-centred middle classes, its nearby garrison and scheming low lives.
Taxes have risen and there doesn't seem to be as much money around for wine, villas and boys with good complexions. The Senate is under pressure to make Rome rich again.Consul Cato is a practical man
The year is 1913 and war with Germany is imminent, Rudyard Kipling's determination to send his myopic son to war triggers a bitter family conflict which leaves Britain's renowned patriot devastated b
In Morpurgo's adventure, Michael embarks on a fantastic round-the-world sailing voyage with his parents. Their brave dream becomes a nightmare when Michael falls overboard. Washed up on an island in
Eight actors and directors who have worked with Harold Pinter in the theater talk candidly about what it is like to appear in a Pinter play, to direct a Pinter play, to be directed by Pinter, to work
As artistic director of English Touring Theatre (“the company of the moment”—Daily Mail), Stephen Unwin has worked with hundreds of different actors in a multiplicity of venues. In this book, he takes
After Mrs. Rochester is a dramatisation of both the tortured life of writer Jean Rhys, but also of her most famous book: The Wide Sargasso Sea, a sequel to Jane Eyre.Jean Rhys was obsessed with Jane E
Cat's got big feet so her boyfriend calls her Duck.Cat's also got a middle-aged lover who drinks and writes books; a brainy best friend with a short fuse; and a boyfriend with a nightclub, a gun, and
Imagine that you must choose one single memory from your life and capture it with a magical camera - everything else will be erased. Imagine that choosing this memory is your only way of passing thro
Anthony Burgess's translation of Rostand's 19th-century French classic about the swordsmen-poet with a nose too large to be taken seriously was first acclaimed in the famous RSC production of 1985 wit
Condemned and banned for five years in Moliere’s day, Tartuffe is a satire on religious hypocrisy. Tartuffe worms his way into Orgon’s household, blinding the master of the house with his religious "d
The National Theatre of Brent returns with almost certainly one of the most profound yet at the same time highly popular oeuvres ever known in the entire British Theatre - The Messiah. The entire com
Frank is a forty-something failed writer. He is in the grips of an undeclared passion for his best friend’s 17-year-old son, whom he has saved from drowning with mouth to mouth resuscitation. Af
Elizabeth, forty-something, childless, recently separated, just wants to be alone. She's moved into her new house, a converted Victorian mansion, alive with history, character, woodworm and dry rot.
Recent years have seen a sustained revival - of the work of Terence Rattigan. New productions have been greeted with surprised delight that the acknowledged master of the 'well-made play' can continu
Sophie Treadwell was a campaigning journalist in America between the wars. Among her assignments was the sensational murder involving Ruth Snyder, who with her lover, Judd Gray, had murdered her husb
The latest in NHB's series of Good Audition Guides. Forty fantastic female speeches for teenagers, all written since the year 2000, by some of the most exciting and acclaimed writers working today, fr
Green Shield stamps, a million of them, and Ger Lawless has won them all. It's Ballymun, it's 1973 and she's got 15 friends round for a stamp-sticking party. Over one night, the lives of 15 women coll
This volume contains eight short plays, commissioned and developed as part of the Women Centre Stage Festival, that together demonstrate the range, depth and richness of women's writing for the stage.
A small asteroid has hit the capital city. Thousands have been displaced. And in a town far away, a young man is finding it hard to talk. James Fritz's new play about grief, masculinity and the power
The bonds of family, faith and friendship are stretched to breaking-point as four forty-somethings wrestle for school places in this smart new comedy play.
Drip Feed is a fast, infectious, dark comedy about the messiness of being youngish, female and queer in Ireland.Cork. 1998. Brenda and her best pal are part of the city's furniture.Dancing on tables a
A collection of eight ambitious and challenging monologues written by women to mark 100 years of Suffrage, produced by the BBC and curated by Royal Court Artistic Director, Vicky Featherstone, in asso
Greasy fish n chips, sticks of rock and pot-bellied Spiderman is throwing himself off the pier. The annual `Birdman' competition is in full flight. Caterpillar is a darkly funny, searing and tender dr
A surprising and touching tale about a couple, their experience of Alzheimer's, and their enduring efforts to hold their relationship together through the years. A new play from the writer of the Shak
A smart, witty new musical by Chris Bush and Matt Winkworth about truth, celebrity and public outrage. A shocking crime divides the nation. Fingers are pointed, sides are drawn, facts are hard to co
