Plays, playscripts, drama

Book Synopsis''We don''t live alone ... We are responsible for each other''A policeman interrupts a rich family''s dinner to question them about the suicide of a young working-class girl. As their guilty secrets are gradually revealed over the course of the evening, ''An Inspector Calls'', J. B. Priestley''s most famous play, shows us the terrible consequences of poverty and inequality. The other powerful plays in this collection - ''Time and the Conways'', ''I Have Been Here Before'' and ''The Linden Tree'' - explore time, fate, free will and the effects of war. ''A vastly talented and exceptionally versatile and wise writer'' Iris Murdoch''Priestley was volcanic, fertile ... and never dull'' Anthony BurgessIf you enjoyed An Inspector Calls, you might like Arthur Miller''s Death of a Salesman, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.

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Book SynopsisTwin brothers are seperated at birth because their mother cannot afford to keep them both. She gives one of them away to wealthy Mrs Lyons and they grow up as friends, in ignorance of their fraternity until the inevitable quarrel unleashes a blood-bath.

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Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics.''I am the Ghost of Christmas Present,'' said the Spirit. ''Look upon me!''A celebration of Christmas, a tale of redemption and a critique on Victorian society, Dickens'' atmospheric novella follows the miserly, penny-pinching Ebenezer Scrooge who views Christmas as ''humbug''. It is only through a series of eerie, life-changing visits from the ghost of his deceased business partner Marley and the spirits of Christmas past, present and future that he begins to see the error of his ways. With heart-rending characters, rich imagery and evocative language, the message of A Christmas Carol remains as significant today as when it was first published.

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Book SynopsisShows how the small city of Salem is stirred into madness by superstition, paranoia and malice, culminating in a violent climax, is a savage attack on the evils of mindless persecution and the terrifying power of false accusations. This is a depiction of innocent men and women destroyed by malicious rumour, and more.

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Book SynopsisWinner of the Pulitzer Prize, Tennessee Williams''s A Streetcar Named Desire is the tale of a catastrophic confrontation between fantasy and reality, embodied in the characters of Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski. This Penguin Modern Classics edition includes an introduction by Arthur Miller.''I have always depended on the kindness of strangers''Fading southern belle Blanche DuBois is adrift in the modern world. When she arrives to stay with her sister Stella in a crowded, boisterous corner of New Orleans, her delusions of grandeur bring her into conflict with Stella''s crude, brutish husband Stanley Kowalski. Eventually their violent collision course causes Blanche''s fragile sense of identity to crumble, threatening to destroy her sanity and her one chance of happiness.Tennessee Williams''s steamy and shocking landmark drama, recreated as the immortal film starring Marlon Brando, is one of the most influential plays of the twentieth century.

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Book SynopsisA new Student Edition of Willy Russell''s enduring 1983 play, Blood Brothers, offering accessible and vivid insights into the play and the context in which it was written through a C21st lens. As well as exploring the key themes, characters and dramatic devices of the play, and how they map onto our experience today, it conveys how groundbreaking Blood Brothers was at the time in representing working-class lives on stage, as well as explicitly exposing the flaws of the British class system.The commentary by Rebecca Hillman encourages students to:* consider what it must have been like to be at the very first performance of the play in a school classroom in Liverpool; * consider the significance of key phrases in the text, such as living on the never never and the debt must be paid* make comparisons between life in 1980s Britain and today - the shrinking pound, the global slump and the price of oil;* think about what the play celebrates - friendship, family, community, neig

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Book SynopsisHailed by George Bernard Shaw as ''useful [corrective] to the romantic conception of war'', R.C. Sherriff''s Journey''s End is an unflinching vision of life in the trenches towards the end of the First World War, published in Penguin Classics.Set in the First World War, Journey''s End concerns a group of British officers on the front line and opens in a dugout in the trenches in France. Raleigh, a new eighteen-year-old officer fresh out of English public school, joins the besieged company of his friend and cricketing hero Stanhope, and finds him dramatically changed. Laurence Olivier starred as Stanhope in the first performance of Journey''s End in 1928; the play was an instant stage success and remains a remarkable anti-war classic.R.C. Sherriff (1896-1975) joined the army shortly after the outbreak of the First World War, serving as a captain in the East Surrey regiment. After the war, an interest in amateur theatricals led him to try his hand

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Book SynopsisThis edition is the prescribed text for the English Mastery Secondary programme. Hortense yearns for a new life away from rural Jamaica, Gilbert dreams of becoming a lawyer, and Queenie longs to escape her Lincolnshire roots. In these three intimately connected stories, hope and humanity meet stubborn reality, tracing the tangled history of Jamaica and Britain. Andrea Levy's epic novel Small Island, adapted for the stage by Helen Edmundson, journeys from Jamaica to Britain in 1948 – the year that HMT Empire Windrush docked at Tilbury. It premiered at the National Theatre, London, in April 2019, directed by Rufus Norris. 'Honest, skilful, thoughtful and important. This is Andrea Levy's big book' Guardian on Andrea Levy's Small IslandTrade Review'A landmark in the National Theatre's history: a tumultuous epic about first-generation Jamaican immigrants... skilfully adapted... one of the most important plays of the year' * Guardian *'In this inspiring adaptation, which compresses the book into a gripping three-hour state-of-the-nation epic, Small Island has found its ideal home... the show acknowledges struggle and strife on all sides, flies the flag for compassion and achieves a hard-won (and still to be fought for) inclusivity' * Telegraph *'A passionate engagement with the past that's sure to resonate with audiences at a time when the very idea of Britain is under such fierce scrutiny' * Evening Standard *'This is a show that shoots arrows of empathy and engagement out towards its audience and they respond... from a novel dealing with the past [comes] a play for today' * WhatsOnStage *'A moving stage adaptation of the late Andrea Levy's great novel about the Windrush generation... Edmundson does some supreme work compacting a sprawling book into a pacy three-hours-ten-minutes - she has a knack for skilfully distilling story... a ferociously entertaining three hours of theatre' * Time Out *'Beautifully translated to stage by adaptor Helen Edmundson, using thrilling theatrical solutions to honour Levy's epic - and still urgent - tale... a stirring spectacle that never loses sight of the people at its heart' * Broadway World *

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Book SynopsisArthur Miller''s play A View from the Bridge is a tragic masterpiece of the inexorable unravelling of a man, set in a close-knit Italian-American community in 1950s New York. Eddie Carbone is a longshoreman and a straightforward man, with a strong sense of decency and of honour. For Eddie, it''s a privilege to take in his wife''s cousins, Marco and Rodolpho, straight off the boat from Italy. But, as his niece Catherine begins to fall for one of them, it''s clear that it''s not just, as Eddie claims, that he''s too strange, too sissy, too careless for her, but that something bigger, deeper is wrong - and wrong inside Eddie, in a way he can''t face. Something which threatens the happiness of their whole family.This Penguin Classics edition includes an introduction by the author and a new foreword by actor Philip Seymour Hoffman.

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Book Synopsis‘My name is Phyllis Princess James. I will wear this crown every day. I will never take it off even when I am asleep.’ Meet Princess. A cheeky ten-year-old, with a plan to win the Weston-super-Mare Beauty Contest. Trouble is, her mum is busy working several jobs, her brother, a budding photographer, won't even take her picture and then – The Hustler returns. In 1963 Bristol, as Black British Civil Rights campaigners walk onto the streets, Princess finds out what it really means to be black and beautiful. Chinonyerem Odimba's play Princess & The Hustler was first seen at the Bristol Old Vic in February 2019, followed by a UK tour, in a co-production between Eclipse Theatre Company, Bristol Old Vic and Hull Truck Theatre, directed by Dawn Walton. The play was shortlisted for the Alfred Fagon Best New Play Award 2018.Trade Review'Written with heart and purpose... every character in it deserves to be heard' * Guardian *'Odimba's dialogue is witty and flavourful, and the action fizzes with detail... in a story that radiates love and hope, Odimba explores a crucial slice of black British history... richly textured, passionate and enormously affecting' * The Times *'A crucial slice of black British history... Chinonyerem Odimba's beautifully crafted play kaleidoscopes multiple issues with warmth, integrity and humour' * Observer *'Joyously playful... beautiful and celebratory, this is history with a beating heart' * Broadway World *

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Book SynopsisAn electrifying, bittersweet love story with echoes of Romeo and Juliet, set in a society divided by racial bigotry and a world rocked by terrorism. Adapted from Malorie Blackman's best-selling novels. Sephy (a Cross) is the daughter of the Deputy Prime Minister. Callum is the son of a Nought agitator. United by a shared sense of injustice as children, and separated by intolerance as they grow up, their desire to be together begins to eclipse all family loyalty – sparking a political crisis of unimaginable proportions. 'I wanted to turn society as we know it on its head, with new names for the major divisions, i.e. Noughts (the underclass) and Crosses (the majority, ruling society)' - Malorie Blackman Dominic Cooke's adaptation of Noughts & Crosses was first performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon in 2007.Trade Review'Dominic Cooke's excellent adaptation... a dark, politically unsentimentalised story about teenage love transcending the barriers in a deeply divided society... heart-rending' * Independent *

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Book SynopsisTom Stoppard''s masterpiece, with a beautiful new cover. Comparing what we're looking for misses the point. It's wanting to know that makes us matter. Otherwise we're going out the way we came in.Arcadia premiered at the National Theatre, London, 1993, winning the Olivier Award for Best New Play and the Evening Standard Award for Best Play.It is a laugh-filled tragedy about what happens if you take the intoxicants of poetry and science seriously. It is a play where Stoppard turns himself into a clown whose juggling balls are Romanticism, Classicism, and the meaning of life . . . The stale cliché about Stoppard is that he is a brilliant manipulator of ideas, but with no heart. Yet here at the core of his best play is the greatest love story on the British stage for decades. Yes, the characters bond over ideas but some of the most interesting people in life do just that. That would be enough to make Arcadia a masterpiece but it is even more than that. The play stirs the most basic and profound questions humans can ask. How should we live with the knowledge that extinction is certain not just of ourselves, but of our species?' INDEPENDENTI have never left a new play more convinced that I'd witnessed a masterpiece.' DAILY TELEGRAPHA brilliant, brilliant play. A play of ideas, of consummate theatricality, of sophisticated entertainment and of heartache for time never to be regained.' SUNDAY TIMES

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Book SynopsisThis Arden edition of Hamlet, arguably Shakespeare''s greatest tragedy, presents an authoritative, modernized text based on the Second Quarto text with a new introductory essay covering key productions and criticism in the decade since its first publication. A timely up-date in the 400th anniversary year of Shakespeare''s death which will ensure the Arden edition continues to offer students a comprehensive and current critical account of the play, alongside the most reliable and fully-annotated text available.Trade Review[Thompson and Taylor] give us a text quite different from the edited versions that shaped debate for much of the past 400 years ... There is intellectual consistency to [their] position. * Times Literary Supplement *The editors’ 168 pages of introduction and 103 pages worth of appendices provide an unprecedented level of contextualization on matters cultural, textual, and theatrical. * Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 *The scholarship … remains at the high standard expected from the Arden Series … Probably one of the most ambitious scholarly editions of the play to be published in the past century or so, if only for its attempt to present the textual complexities of the relationships between quartos and folio by printing all three early authoritative versions. * Sixteenth Century Journal *Table of ContentsIntroduction to the Revised Edition Introduction Hamlet Appendices Index

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Book SynopsisFirst issued by Methuen in 1959, this play was the first title in the Modern plays series aimed at the burgeoning readership of young theatregoer This title and five others are reissued, representing the range and vitality of the list of titles in print .Trade Review'Some of Delaney's themes may feel dated but her writing still glitters dangerously and wittily. A Taste of Honey remains a passionate statement about real people trapped in poverty, deprived of ambition and vulnerable to manipulation by the fickleness of others.' Independent (19 November 2008) 'Brawling, boozing, teenage pregnancy and fractured families: Shelagh Delaney's benchmark drama, first staged by Joan Littlewood in London in 1958, has lost none of its relevance 50 years on... The quirkiness and passion of Delaney's young voice still rings out... It remains passionate and pungent.' The Times (19 November 2008) 'Its raw eloquence, sometimes almost lyrical, its tough, swaggering humour...its frank brutality and unblinking humanity.' Sunday Times (23 November 2008)

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Book SynopsisThe Methuen Drama Student Edition of Twelve Angry Men is the first critical edition of Reginald Rose's play, providing the play text alongside commentary and notes geared towards student readers.In New York, 1954, a man is dead and the life of another is at stake. A ''guilty'' verdict seems a foregone conclusion, but one member of the jury has the will to probe more deeply into the evidence and the courage to confront the ignorance and prejudice of some of his fellow jurors. The conflict that follows is fierce and passionate, cutting straight to the heart of the issues of civil liberties and social justice. Ideal for the student reader, the accompanying pedagogical notes include elements such as an author chronology; plot summary; suggested further reading; explanatory endnotes; and questions for further study. The introduction discusses in detail the play''s origins as a 1954 American television play, Rose''s re-working of the piece for the stage, and Lumet''s 1957 film versiTrade ReviewIt's not hard to recognise contemporary universal parallels in Rose's play. . . . At the play's heart is a noble belief that truth, justice and the American way are still ideals to aspire to, however much they may sometimes be corrupted. * Herald *Reginald Rose's classic mid-20th-century American drama . . . built around the relentlessly powerful story of a lone juror in a New York murder case * Scotsman *Table of ContentsCHRONOLOGY PLOT COMMENTARY The television play (1954) The stage version (1955) The film version (1957) Genre Characters Social and political context Later productions and critical reception FURTHER READING PLAY TEXT NOTES QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY

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Book SynopsisStep into the world of the Irish wit, poet, and dramatist Oscar Wilde. Spot scenes from all across his works, including The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Importance of Being Earnest and The Happy Prince, alongside key figures from Wilde's life as you learn about his incredible creativity and the tragic life story that has made him an LGBTQ+ icon.1000-PIECE PUZZLE that measures 48.5 x 68 cm (19 x 27 in.) when completed.INCLUDES A PULL-OUT POSTER so you can spot all the characters and read their stories.'THE WORLD OF...' JIGSAWS are a fun way of celebrating the lives and works of creative greats. Also available in the series: The World of Frida Kahlo, The World of Jane Austen, The World of the Brontës, The World of James Joyce and more.PUBLISHED BY LAURENCE KING - Laurence King has been capturing imaginations and inspiring creativity in new and unexpected ways for

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Book SynopsisMy name is Christopher John Francis Boone. I know all the countries of the world and the capital cities. And every prime number up to 7507.Christopher, fifteen years old, stands beside Mrs Shears''s dead dog. It has been speared with a garden fork, it is seven minutes after midnight, and Christopher is under suspicion. He records each fact in the book he is writing to solve the mystery of who murdered Wellington. He has an extraordinary brain and is exceptional at maths, but he is ill-equipped to interpret everyday life. He has never ventured alone beyond the end of his road, he detests being touched and he distrusts strangers. But Christopher''s detective work, forbidden by his father, takes him on a frightening journey that turns his world upside-down.Simon Stephens''s adaptation of Mark Haddon''s bestselling, award-winning novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time offers a richly theatrical exploration of this touching and bleakly humorous tale.This eTrade ReviewPlaywright Simon Stephens . . . not only frames the action, but also sets up a rich tension between fiction's invention and the obsession with facts, forensics and systemised data that is a symptom of Christopher's autism . . . this is a highly skilful adaptation -- Michael Billington * Guardian *A curiously successful case of a hit novel turned into a play . . . This is a profoundly moving play about adolescence, fractured families, mathematics, colours and lights -- Michael Coveney * Independent *This adaptation by the acclaimed playwright Simon Stephens is intensely, innately theatrical; it is also funny and extremely moving -- Laura Thompson * Daily Telegraph *Seeing an adaptation of a book that you have loved can inspire a certain nervousness but fans of A Curious Incident should have no such worry when going to see the National’s faithful and imaginative adaptation. It is a triumph, capturing the depth and touching nature of the original text and adding theatrical sensibilities to great effect. Highly recommended. * Londonist *As adaptations of much-loved fiction go, Simon Stephens' perky and imaginative version . . . is an instant classic * What's On Stage *Simon Stephens' clever adaptation of Mark Haddon's bestselling novel about a teenage boy with Asperger's syndrome is like a cute dog that leaps up and wants to lick you all over. There's no point in resisting – and there's no need ... The novel gets you inside Christopher's head, but the stage version does more, giving Christopher's internal response to the world an external manifestation. -- Lyn Gardner * Guardian *This is a really superior stage adaptation. Instead of just transposing the book. Stephens has recreated it for the stage. . . It doesn't shirk the discomfort of being a child with special needs, but –as Christopher learns to believe in himself- it also quietly illustrates some of the excitement of living in your own world. -- Aleks Sierz * Tribune *A bittersweet story told with verve and passion. -- Siobhan Murphy * Metro *

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Book Synopsis‘What doctor know about our illness? Just give you pills to sick you stomach and a doctor certificate. What they know about a black woman soul?’ In North London, Del and Viv are soul-sick. Del doesn’t want to be at home; staying out late – 3 p.m.-the-next-day late – is more her thing. Viv scours her schoolbooks trying to find a trace of herself between their lines. When Enid takes her daughters to the local obeah woman for some traditional Caribbean soul-healing, secrets are spilled. There’s no turning back for Del, Viv and Enid as they negotiate the frictions between their countries and cultures. Two generations. Three incredible women. Winsome Pinnock's play Leave Taking is an epic story of what we leave behind in order to find home. It premiered in 1987, and was revived at the Bush Theatre, London, in 2018, in a production directed by the Bush’s Artistic Director, Madani Younis. Winsome Pinnock has written numerous plays, including Talking in Tongues, for which she won the George Devine and Pearson Best New Play Awards. ‘The godmother of Black British playwrights’ GuardianTrade Review'A devastatingly powerful story of a British-Caribbean family... why Winsome Pinnock's play isn't on the English Literature syllabus is a mystery to me, given its shocking contemporary relevance... this play warms and devastates' * Time Out *'A beautiful, humourous and often impossibly sad portrayal of the immigrant experience... Pinnock's dialogue is a subtle marvel, offering all the poetry and rhythm of the Jamaican accent, where phrases sing with layers of meaning. It is a brilliantly wrought piece of drama' * WhatsOnStage *'An epic story that spans generations and puts the narratives of four formidable women on the centre stage... Leave Taking is an undeniably important addition to our theatrical landscape' * Broadway World *'There are few plays in British theatre that speak so directly, resonantly and truthfully to the experience of the black woman. Winsome Pinnock's first full-length play does this with such profound eloquence – it is rousing to watch… Leave Taking is timely in its politics, yet timeless in its themes' * The Stage *'Three decades since its debut Winsome Pinnock's pioneering portrayal of the lives of black Britons feels shockingly contemporary... Pinnock was a pioneer and her piece still hits home through its often shocking honesty about the hazards facing black people in Britain' * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisMrs Kay's 'Progress Class' are unleashed for a day's coach trip to Conway Castle in Wales - in an exuberant celebration of the joys and agonies of growing up and being footloose, fourteen and free from school. This edition contains the music for the play.

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Book SynopsisFrom an inauspicious beginning at the tiny Left Bank Theatre de Babylone in 1953, followed by bewilderment among American and British audiences, "Waiting for Godot" has become one of the most important and enigmatic plays of the past fifty years and a cornerstone of twentieth-century drama. As Clive Barnes wrote, "Time catches up with genius. . . . "Waiting for Godot" is one of the masterpieces of the century." The story revolves around two seemingly homeless men waiting for someone--or something--named Godot. Vladimir and Estragon wait near a tree, inhabiting a drama spun of their own consciousness. The result is a comical wordplay of poetry, dreamscapes, and nonsense, which has been interpreted as mankind's inexhaustible search for meaning. Beckett's language pioneered an expressionistic minimalism that captured the existential post- World War II Europe. His play remains one of the most magical and beautiful allegories of our time.

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Book SynopsisThis revised Student Edition includes an introduction by Bess Rowen, Visiting Assistant Professor at Villanova University, US, which looks in particular at the play''s treatment of rape, vulnerable people, mental institutions (especially in connection to Williams''s own family), sexuality and sexual desire.A Streetcar Named Desire shows a turbulent confrontation between traditional values in the American South - an old-world graciousness and beauty running decoratively to seed - set against the rough-edged, aggressive materialism of the new world. Through the vividly characterised figures of Southern belle Blanche Dubois, seeking refuge from physical ugliness in decayed gentility, and her brutal brother-in-law Stanley Kowalski, Tennessee Williams dramatises his sense of the South''s past as still active and often destructive in modern America.METHUEN DRAMA STUDENT EDITIONS are expertly annotated texts of a wide range of plays from the modern and classic repertoires. A well as thTable of ContentsChronology Introduction Cultural Context: The United States in the 1940s The Glass Menagerie and the Beginning of an Era Williams and the Writing Process Realism, Naturalism, and Expressionism Method Acting and Elia Kazan Depicting Rape and Vulnerability Sex and Sexuality Production History and Adaptations Further Reading A Streetcar Named Desire Notes

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Book SynopsisQueen Victoria''s Golden Jubilee, 1887. At East London''s Tilbury Docks, Rani Das and Abdul Karim, step ashore after the long voyage from India. One has to battle a society who deems her a second-class citizen; the other forges an astonishing entanglement with the ageing Queen Victoria who finds herself enchanted by stories of an India over which she rules, but has never seen. Through narrative, music and song, The Empress blends the true story of Queen Victoria's controversial relationship with her Indian servant and Munshi' (teacher), Abdul Karim, with the experiences of Indian ayahs who came to Britain during the 19th century. With private romance being mapped onto world history, the action cuts between the ship and different royal residences, offering bright contrasts as well as surprising affinities. In doing so, the play uncovers remarkable unknown stories of 19th-century Britain and charts the growth of Indian nationalism and the romantic proclivities of one of Britain''sTrade ReviewGupta's play records the rage felt at the injustices of imperial domination. * Guardian *The epic journey of the five characters in The Empress is not only magical and intoxicating, but historically enlightening. * Birmingham Mail *Table of ContentsChronology COMMENTARY PLAYWRIGHT CONTEXT 1. Late-19th-century imperial context 2. Context within which the play was written and rehearsed in 2012/13 3. RSC’s commissioning strategy for new plays THEMES 1. Class 2. Race 3. Gender 4. Religion 5. British Empire CHARACTERS (HISTORICAL & FICTIONAL) & CHARACTERISATION DIALOGUE DRAMATIC DEVICES 1. RSC production: sets, costumes, role of instrumental music and song 2. Use of short scenes to create a visual and textual mosaic RESPONSE Audience and press response PLAY TEXT FURTHER READING AND VIEWING

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Book SynopsisThe heroic Greek dramas that have moved theatergoers and readers since the fifth century B.C.Towering over the rest of Greek tragedy, the three plays that tell the story of the fated Theban royal family—Antigone, Oedipus the King and Oedipus at Colonus—are among the most enduring and timeless dramas ever written. Robert Fagles's authoritative and acclaimed translation conveys all of Sophocles's lucidity and power: the cut and thrust of his dialogue, his ironic edge, the surge and majesty of his choruses and, above all, the agonies and triumphs of his characters. This Penguin Classics edition features an introduction and notes by the renowned classicist Bernard Knox.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and dTrade Review“I know of no better modern English version.”—Sir Hugh Lloyd-Jones, Oxford University “A marvel of craftsmanship and intelligence.”—Emily Vermeule, Harvard University “The most impressive verse translations of Sophocles that have been made.”—Stephen SpenderTable of ContentsThe Three Theban Plays - Sophocles Translated by Robert Fagles with Introductions and Notes by Bernard KnoxAcknowledgmentsTranslator's PrefaceGreece and the TheaterSOPHOCLES: THE THREE THEBAN PLAYSIntroduction to AntigoneAntigoneIntroduction to Oedipus the KingOedipus the KingIntroduction to Oedipus at ColonusOedipus at ColonusA Note on the Text of SophoclesTextual VariantsNotes on the Translation: Antigone, Oedipus the King, Oedipus at ColonusSelect BibliographyThe Genealogy of OedipusGlossary

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Book SynopsisThe Whitbread 2000 Book of the Year is a haunting and captivating work of historical fiction for children.The Coram man takes babies and money from desperate mothers, promising to deliver them safely to a Foundling Hospital in London. Instead, he murders them and buries them by the roadside, to the helpless horror of his mentally ill son, Mish.Mish saves one, Aaron, who grows up happily unaware of his history, proving himself a promising musician. As Aaron''s new life takes him closer to his real family, the watchful Mish makes a terrible mistake, delivering Aaron and his best friend Toby back into the hands of the Coram man.It tells the story of a dark time in English history. Fans of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and Goodnight Mr Tom will love this. A great read for children aged 10+.Look out for Jamilla''s other titles:The Eye of the HorseThe Robber Baron''s DaughterThe Track of the WindWheel of SuryaCoram Boy won the 2000 Whitbread Children''s Book of the Year, was shortlisted forTrade Review‘Jamila Gavin is one of our greatest writers’ – S.F. Said

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Book SynopsisIn Joe and Kate Keller's family garden, an apple tree - a memorial to their son Larry, lost in the Second World War - has been torn down by a storm. But his loss is not the only part of the family's past they can't put behind them.

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Book SynopsisNew York City, 1930. Following a decade of explosive creativity, the Harlem Renaissance is starting to feel the bite of the Great Depression. In the face of hardship and dwindling opportunity, Angel and her friends battle to keep their artistic dreams alive. But, when Angel falls for a stranger from Alabama, their romance forces the group to make good on their ambitions, or give in to the reality of the time. Pearl Cleage's Blues for an Alabama Sky was first performed in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1995. It was revived at the National Theatre, London, in 2022, directed by Lynette Linton, with a cast including Samira Wiley and Giles Terera. Pearl Cleage is a celebrated American playwright, novelist, poet and political activist, and was one of the first Black women in America to achieve national recognition as a dramatist. Her plays, also including Flyin' West and Bourbon at the Border, provide a remarkable and penetrating look at the African-American experience over the last century. 'As a woman, as an African-American, her artistic objectivity and sensitivity to history combine with her capacity to dig for truth' Ruby Dee 'One of the voices singing in the wilderness' Ossie DavisTrade Review'Deliciously funny and deeply affecting... a bittersweet delight' * Evening Standard *'A supreme achievement... I've rarely seen a play in which the imprint of identification and affection for the protagonists is so strong and so involving. It's a work that makes you want to lean in, holding your breath as their fortunes shift and stir, hoping for the best but somehow always fearing the worst... It has a humanity that provokes profound emotion' * WhatsOnStage *'Transfixing... an old-fashioned melodrama with sly winks to Ibsen and Tennessee Williams, but the issues [Cleage] addresses are freshly resonant... A tale for our times' * Guardian *'Compelling... makes a fraught, fascinating era of Black cultural history feel real and alive... And it paints rich, complex friendships with a warmth that stays with you, long after its final notes have faded' * Time Out *'Scintillating... will catapult [Pearl Cleage] to everyone's attention and precipitate a frantic scramble to uncover other gems from her back catalogue... quite the best evening I have spent at the National in a long time' * iNews *'Nothing short of mesmerising... leaves audiences on the edge of their seat' * Broadway World *'A breathless whirl of Jazz Age joy and blues... a seamy pleasure... glorious' * Telegraph *'Wonderful and bittersweet... There's more than a hint of Tennessee Williams in Cleage's story, but she brings her own quick wit and quiet understanding to her characters, which means you grow deeply attached to them' * Financial Times *

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Book SynopsisPlaywright and novelist Nigel Williams''s stage adaptation of William Golding''s story was first professionally produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-upon-Avon in July 1995. ''Remarkably true to the novel in spirit . . . the theatre lends itself particularly well to the ritualistic aspects of the story - chanting, dancing, marching, forming a circle round the victim, stamping out a fire . . . You end up feeling you have seen a fable of infinite implications enacted in a little room.'' Sunday TelegraphThis special acting edition, particularly suitable for schools and amateur groups, contains the full playtext as well as notes on staging, a full properties list and lighting and sound cues.

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Book SynopsisWitty and buoyant comedy of manners is brilliantly plotted from its effervescent first act to its hilarious denouement, and filled with some of literature''s most famous epigrams. Widely considered Wilde''s most perfect work, the play is reprinted here from an authoritative early British edition. Note to the Dover Edition.

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Book SynopsisTessa is a young, brilliant barrister. She has worked her way up from working-class origins to the top of her game: defending, cross-examining and winning. But an unexpected event forces her to confront the patriarchal power of the law, where the burden of proof and morality diverge. Prima Facie by Suzie Miller is an award-winning play for a solo actor, taking us deep into a world where emotion and integrity are in conflict with the rules of the game. After several acclaimed productions in Australia and winning the Australian Writers' Guild Award for Drama, the play received its European premiere at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London's West End in April 2022. It starred Jodie Comer, the Emmy and Bafta Award-winning star of TV's Killing Eve, making her West End debut.Trade ReviewA damning portrait of justice denied women… teems with rich nuance, testing sympathies… like a punch to the guts. --Telegraph; Suzie Miller's play is an outstanding piece of theatre that has a phenomenal impact. --Reviews Hub; An impassioned play about an important subject... blazing. --Time Out; Suzie Miller’s script is shrewd and economical in its analysis of how the system treats assault survivors... timely and timeless. -- Evening Standard; A Striking drama... Suzie Miller's text is pacy and punchy. --Independent; A polemical monologue that makes its point in style.... the cumulative effect is quite something. --The Times; A searing, intense indictment of the ways the legal system perpetuates the patriarchal order that has created it in the first place… The relevance of this unsettling drama for our present moment of #MeToo is obvious… joins the ranks of such works as Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You and Nina Raine’s Consent… What we come to know is certainly disturbing, but, as in all great theatre, it strikes one as a true privilege to have made the journey --The Arts Desk

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Book SynopsisA complex and intense portrait of the mechanics of a family - and a marriage - through the eyes of four siblings struggling to define themselves beyond their parents' love and expectations. Bob and Fran have worked hard to give their four children the opportunities they never had. Now, with the kids ready to make lives of their own, it's time to sit back and smell the roses. But the change of the seasons reveals some shattering truths, leaving us asking whether it's possible to love too much. Andrew Bovell's beautifully touching, funny and bold play Things I Know To Be True was premiered in Adelaide, Australia, as a co-production between Frantic Assembly and the State Theatre Company of South Australia. It received its British premiere in 2016, co-produced with Warwick Arts Centre in association with Chichester Festival Theatre and the Lyric Hammersmith.Trade Review'Both down to earth and gently magical. It's the sort of uniquely theatrical evening that might just convert those suspicious that theatre doesn't speak to them' The Times; 'An understated gem of a play... [its] searing honesty about family relationships stays with you long after the curtain falls' Radio Times; 'A thing of beauty... Bovell offers us a portrait of family life in all its gory reality - and it is an absolute gem... so exquisitely observed it makes you wince' Telegraph; 'A mix of warm humanity and sadness... there's an intelligent attentiveness to the little details of domesticity, some sour and others honeyed' Evening Standard 'A beautiful and painfully perceptive family portrait... genuinely haunting and fervently recommended' Independent; 'Beautiful and devastating... a powerful look at the coexistence of narcissism and unconditional love in family life' The Stage;'Exquisitely articulate... a drama that explores big ideas through an almost unbearable intimacy' The Arts Desk; 'Bovell's hypnotic, poetic use of language and his unusual plotting structure... are piercingly beautiful' Arts Hub Australia

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Book SynopsisThe present volume gathers all of Beckett''s texts for theatre, from 1955 to 1984. It includes both the major dramatic works and the short and more compressed texts for the stage and for radio.''He believes in the cadence, the comma, the bite of word on reality, whatever else he believes; and his devotion to them, he makes clear, is a sufficient focus for the reader''s attention. In the modern history of literature he is a unique moral figure, not a dreamer of rose-gardens but a cultivator of what will grow in the waste land, who can make us see the exhilarating design that thorns and yucca share with whatever will grow anywhere.'' - Hugh KennerContents: Waiting for Godot, Endgame, Happy Days, All That Fall, Acts Without Words, Krapp''s Last Tape, Roughs for the Theatre, Embers, Roughs for the Radio, Words and Music, Cascando, Play, Film, The Old Tune, Come and Go, Eh Joe, Breath, Not I, That Time, Footfalls, Ghost Trio,...but the clouds..., A Piece of Monologue, Rockaby, Ohio Impromptu, Quad, Catastrophe, Nacht und Traume, What Where.

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Book SynopsisIn one of the poorest cities in America – Reading, Pennsylvania – a group of factory workers struggle to keep their present lives in balance, ignorant of the financial devastation looming in their near future. Based on the playwright's extensive interviews with residents of Reading, Lynn Nottage's play Sweat is a tale of friends pitted against each other by big business, and a topical reflection of the present and poignant decline of the American Dream. The play premiered in Oregon in 2015, before being produced at the Public Theater, New York, in 2016, and the following year on Broadway, where it won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It received its UK premiere at the Donmar Warehouse, London, in 2018, directed by Lynette Linton, and went on to win Best Play at the 2019 Evening Standard Theatre Awards.Trade Review'Lynn Nottage's devastating account of American industrial decline is a masterpiece... empathy radiates from every word; Nottage's own sweat has paid off in what is emphatically one of the great American plays' * Time Out *'Profound, terrifying, earthy and witty... exquisitely empathetic... outstanding' * Evening Standard *'Magnificent… does what drama at its very best can do — it tells the story of our times through one tight-knit and vividly drawn group of people… it's funny, angry and immensely sad, making a profound plea for those who have been chewed up and spat out by geopolitical forces beyond their control… a humane, heartbreaking and necessary play' * Financial Times *'A play of passion, eloquent about the way life can grind a person down... at times staggeringly sad, this is an American story, but also a global one... a nuanced and moving study of a town in decline' * The Stage *'Nottage is simply brilliant at capturing the authentic voices of workers caught up in a drama they never wanted or expected' * The Times *'Breathtaking... tackles the devastating impact of loss of work and of de-industrialisation on modern America... captures brilliantly the way work, however hard or demanding, gives people an identity and purpose... I can't think of any recent play that tells us so much, and so vividly, about the state of the union' * Guardian *'Written by a dramatist of ambitious scope and fierce focus, Sweat is a bracingly topical portrait of American dreams deferred. It warrants serious applause' * New York Times *'A moral, passionate, and richly articulated cri de coeur' * Chicago Tribune *'A powerful critique of the American attitude toward class, and how it affects the decisions we make. Sweat has fraternity at its heart, but also the violence, and the suspicion that can result from class aspirations' * New Yorker *'Sweat never feels less than authentic — and crucial... Nottage gives us fully realized characters who, even when acting on their worst fears, are grippingly human' * Deadline *'A timely drama... goes where few playwrights have dared to go — into the heart of working-class America' * Variety *'A passionate and necessary drama, a masterful depiction of the forces that divide and conquer us… Along with the rage, despair, and violence, there's humor and abundant humanity' * Time Out New York *

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Book Synopsis''Yes, you squashed cabbage leaf . . . you incarnate insult to the English language: I could pass you off as the Queen of Sheba''Pygmalion both delighted and scandalized its first audiences in 1914. A brilliantly witty reworking of the classical tale of the sculptor who falls in love with his perfect female statue, it is also a barbed attack on the British class system and a statement of Shaw''s feminist views. In Shaw''s hands, the phoneticist Henry Higgins is the Pygmalion figure who believes he can transform Eliza Doolittle, a cockney flower girl, into a duchess at ease in polite society. The one thing he overlooks is that his ''creation'' has a mind of her own.With an Introduction by NICHOLAS GRENETrade ReviewBy the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature“[Shaw] did his best in redressing the fateful unbalance between truth and reality, in lifting mankind to a higher rung of social maturity. He often pointed a scornful finger at human frailty, but his jests were never at the expense of humanity.” —Thomas Mann “Shaw will not allow complacency; he hates second-hand opinions; he attacks fashion; he continually challenges and unsettles, questioning and provoking us even when he is making us laugh. And he is still at it. No cliché or truism of contemporary life is safe from him.” —Michael Holroyd “In his works Shaw left us his mind. . . . Today we have no Shavian wizard to awaken us with clarity and paradox, and the loss to our national intelligence is immense.” —The Sunday Times “He was a Tolstoy with jokes, a modern Dr. Johnson, a universal genius who on his own modest reckoning put even Shakespeare in the shade.” —The Independent “His plays were superb exercises in high-level argument on every issue under the sun, from feminism and God, to war and eternity, but they were also hits—and still are.” —The Daily Mail

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Book SynopsisArthur Miller''s extraordinary masterpiece, Death of a Salesman changed the course of modern theatre, and has lost none of its power as an examination of American life. ''A man is not an orange. You can''t eat the fruit and throw the peel away''Willy Loman is on his last legs. Failing at his job, dismayed at his the failure of his sons, Biff and Happy, to live up to his expectations, and tortured by his jealousy at the success and happiness of his neighbour Charley and his son Bernard, Willy spirals into a well of regret, reminiscence, and A scathing indictment of the ultimate failure of the American dream, and the empty pursuit of wealth and success, is a harrowing journey. In creating Willy Loman, his destructively insecure anti-hero, Miller defined his aim as being ''to set forth what happens when a man does not have a grip on the forces of life''.

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Book SynopsisTennessee Williams''s evocation of loneliness and lost love, The Glass Menagerie is one of his most powerful and moving plays. This Penguin Modern Classics edition includes a new introduction by Robert Bray.Abandoned by her husband, Amanda Wingfield comforts herself with recollections of her earlier, more gracious life in Blue Mountain when she was pursued by ''gentleman callers''. Her son Tom, a poet with a job in a warehouse, longs for adventure and escape from his mother''s suffocating embrace, while Laura, her shy crippled daughter, has her glass menagerie and her memories. Amanda is desperate to find her daughter a husband, but when the long-awaited gentleman caller does arrive, Laura''s romantic illusions are crushed.Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) was born in Columbus, Mississippi. When his father, a travelling salesman, moved with his family to St Louis some years later, both he and his sister found it impossible to settle down to city life. He entered college during the Depression and left after a couple of years to take a clerical job in a shoe company. He stayed there for two years, spending the evenings writing. He received a Rockefeller Fellowship in 1940 for his play Battle of Angels, and he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1948 and 1955. Among his many other plays Penguin have published The Glass Menagerie (1944), A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), The Rose Tattoo (1951), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), Sweet Bird of Youth (1959), The Night of the Iguana (1961), and Small Craft Warnings (1972).If you enjoyed The Glass Menagerie, you might like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.''Tennessee Williams will live as long as drama itself''Peter Shaffer, author of Equus

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Book SynopsisFew more poignant true stories emerged from World War II than the diary of young Anne Frank. Published long afterwards by her father, the only family survivor, it records the minutiae of twenty-five months that two Jewish families spent in hiding from the Gestapo in an Amsterdam warehouse attic. The constant secrecy, growing hunger and friction of living in such cramped conditions could not dull Anne''s vibrant personality or her passion for living.

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Book SynopsisHilarious and touching, this play for six women is set in a beauty parlour in Louisiana. Through four scenes spanning three years the staff and customers engage in small-town gossip but we see a deep strength and purposefulness emerge when Shelby - a diabetic - dies following a kidney transplant operation.

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Book SynopsisJez Butterworth's hugely acclaimed, prize-winning play - a comic, contemporary vision of life in England's green and pleasant land. On St George's Day, the morning of the local country fair, Johnny 'Rooster' Byron, local waster and Lord of Misrule, is a wanted man. The council officials want to serve him an eviction notice, his son wants to be taken to the fair, a vengeful father wants to give him a serious kicking, and a motley crew of mates wants his ample supply of drugs and alcohol. Jerusalem premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in July 2009 in a production directed by Ian Rickson and starring Mark Rylance. It transferred to the Apollo Theatre in the West End in January 2010, and played on Broadway in 2011. Jez Butterworth's play won the Evening Standard Best Play Award and the Critics Circle and Whatsonstage.com awards for Best New Play.Trade Review'Unarguably one of the best dramas of the twenty-first century' * Guardian *'Tender, touching, and blessed with both a ribald humour and a haunting sense of the mystery of things... one of the must-see events of the summer' * Telegraph *'Jez Butterworth's gorgeous, expansive new play keeps coming at its audience in unpredictable gusts, rolling from comic to furious, from winsome to bawdy' * Observer *'Storming... restores one's faith in the power of theatre' * Independent *'Show of the year' * Time Out *'Arguably the best play of the 21st century so far, a work whose importance and resonance has only increased since its premiere in 2009' * Whatsonstage (in January 2022) *

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Book SynopsisA profound, luminous masterpiece by one of Ireland''s greatest playwrights.This edition was published in 2023 with a beautifully redesigned text and cover, to coincide with the National Theatre'' revival. It is 1936 and harvest time in County Donegal. In a house just outside the village of Ballybeg live the five adult Mundy sisters; their older brother, a missionary priest returned from Uganda; and the youngest sister's seven-year-old son, Michael. Over the course of two days in the family's life, Brian Friel evokes not only the interior world of a group of human beings trapped in their domestic situation, but the wider landscape public and private, Christian and pagan of which they are nonetheless a part.There is no doubting we are in the thrall of as masterly a dramatist as the theatre possesses.' The Times

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Book SynopsisBased on an original new story by J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany and Jack Thorne, a new play by Jack Thorne, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the eighth story in the Harry Potter series and the first official Harry Potter story to be presented on stage. The play will receive its world premiere in London''s West End on 30th July 2016.It was always difficult being Harry Potter and it isn''t much easier now that he is an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, a husband, and father of three school-age children.While Harry grapples with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs, his youngest son Albus must struggle with the weight of a family legacy he never wanted. As past and present fuse ominously, both father and son learn the uncomfortable truth: sometimes, darkness comes from unexpected places.

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Book SynopsisA heartbreaking tale of orphans, angels, murder and music - dramatised from the Whitbread Award-winning novel set in 18th-century England. In 18th-century Gloucestershire, the evil Otis Gardner preys on unmarried mothers, promising to take their babies (and their money) to Thomas Coram's hospital for foundling children. Instead, he buries the babies and pockets the loot. But Otis's downfall is set in train when his half-witted son Meshak falls in love with a young girl, Melissa, and rescues the unwanted son she has had with a disgraced aristocrat. The child is brought up in Coram's hospital, and proves to have inherited the startling musical gifts of his father - gifts that ultimately bring about his father's redemption and a heartbreaking family reunion. Helen Edmundson's adaptation of Jamila Gavin's award-winning novel, Coram Boy, was first performed at the National Theatre, London, in 2005. It won the Time Out Live Award for Best Play. 'A rich and almost Gothic drama' - Philip PullmanTrade Review'A triumph... can still make your heart soar' * The Times *'The story has a gripping intensity... there is a tremendous sense of momentum' * Independent *'Family shows don't come much more harrowing than this - but nor do they come any finer... as gripping, terrifying, beautiful and moving as anything you will see in the theatre this year... Helen Edmundson's adaptation does full justice to the dark power of the original, while also transforming it into a thrilling piece of theatre' * Daily Telegraph *'A highly superior show that should appeal to adults and children alike' * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisA sizzling drama of desire, avarice and deception set in the American Deep South, Tennessee Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is published in Penguin Modern Classics. 'Big Daddy' Pollitt, the richest cotton planter in the Mississippi Delta, is about to celebrate his sixty-fifth birthday. His two sons have returned home for the occasion: Gooper, his wife and children, Brick, an ageing football hero who has turned to drink, and his feisty wife Maggie. As the hot summer evening unfolds, the veneer of happy family life and Southern gentility gradually slips away as unpleasant truths emerge and greed, lies, jealousy and suppressed sexuality threaten to reach boiling point. Made into a film starring Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a masterly portrayal of family tensions and individuals trapped in prisons of their own making. Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) was born in Columbus, Mississippi. When his father, a travelling salesman, moved with his

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Book SynopsisI want you to do yourself proud, Joey. You go and drive those Germans back where they''ve come from, and then come home to me.At the outbreak of World War one, Joey, young Albert''s beloved horse, is sold to the cavalry and shipped to France. Caught up in enemy fire, fate takes Joey on an extraordinary odyssey, serving on both sides before finding himself alone in no man''s land. But Albert cannot forget Joey and, still not old enough to enlist, he embarks on a treacherous mission to find him and bring him home.War Horse was revived for a major UK tour in 2024-2025. The playtext has a brand new cover to coincide with the tour, but it still contains the original text, first published in 2007. Nick Stafford''s adaptation for the stage of the celebrated novel by the Children''s Laureate (2003-05) Michael Morpurgo leads us on a gripping journey through history. War Horse premiered at the National Theatre, London, in October 2007.

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Book SynopsisA hugely-acclaimed black comedy exposing the dark side of the Midwestern American family. When the large Weston family is reunited in Oklahoma after the disappearance of their father, they let loose a maelstrom of repressed truths and unsettling secrets. Tracy Letts's play August: Osage County was first performed by Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago in June 2007. It was first staged in the UK at the National Theatre in 2008. August: Osage County won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Tony Award for Best Play and the Critics' Circle Award for Best Play.Trade Review'One of the truly great nights of American theatre' * Independent *'Something special... a dramatic tour de force, first smouldering and then blazing with acrimony, appalling behaviour and vicious home truths' * Telegraph *'Fully deserves to join the roll call of classic American plays' * Independent on Sunday *'A triumph' * Sunday Times *'Sensationally entertaining...Tracy Letts' fiercely funny, turbo-charged tragicomedy is, flat-out, no asterisks and without qualifications, the most exciting new American play Broadway has seen in years' * New York Times *

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