Plays, playscripts, drama

Book SynopsisThere''s no decent way to say an indecent thingAn industrial port of a war-torn city. Women survivors wait to be shipped abroad. Officials come and go. A grandmother, once queen, watches as her remaining family are taken from her one by one. The city burns around them. First performed in 415BC, the play focuses on the human cost of war and the impact of loss.This new Student Edition of The Women of Troy includes a commentary and notes by Emma Cole, which looks at the Trojan War as represented in Greek literature and myth; the context in which Euripides was writing and within which the play was first performed; how it would have been originally staged and dramaturgical challenges met; as well as recent performance history of the play, including Katie Mitchell''s iconic 2007 production at the National Theatre. Euripides'' great anti-war play is published here in Don Taylor''s classic translation.

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Book SynopsisThe Big House Anthology is a celebration of the last decade of work and plays by a unique theatre company, featuring five original plays that offer a chance for stories with diverse casts to contribute to the canon of theatre''s literature.As a UK-based theatre company, The Big House empowers care leavers and other disadvantaged young people through performance and long-term support. Their plays are born from the hearts and minds of the young people they engage, with this anthology offering five very different plays: a runner struck down by MS; a rapper who spits and snarls and tries to find it in herself to forgive; a teenager who fights for wealth, status and respect in the underworld of county lines; a cackling cowboy they call Corona; and a dog that has been tracked, murdered and stuck in a stew. This anthology celebrates the explosive creativity that comes from mobilising and platforming diverse voices, and its importance in generating social change. FramTrade ReviewThe epic scale and hugely ambitious writing indicates the theatrical chutzpah of The Big House. Similarly, the accompanying interviews and production notes are enormously helpful and offer encouragement and advice ... All these plays offer something unique and distinctive. * Drama and Theatre *Table of ContentsForeword by Jez Butterworth Introduction by Maggie Norris Phoenix Rising by Andrew Day In Conversation with Writer Andrew Day Production Information Play In Conversation with Director Maggie Norris Knife Edge by David Watson In Conversation with Writer David Watson Production Information Play In Conversation with Director Maggie Norris Bullet Tongue (Reloaded) by Andrew Day How it was Written In Conversation with Writer Andrew Day Production Information Play In Conversation with Director Maggie Norris The Ballad of Corona V – The Remix by David Watson In Conversation with Writer David Watson Production Information Play In Conversation with Director Maggie Norris Redemption by James Meteyard In Conversation with Writer James Meteyard Production Information Play In Conversation with Director Maggie Norris

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Book SynopsisThe power of theatrical performance is universal, but the style and concerns of theatre are specific to individual cultures. This volume in the Global Theatre Perspectives series presents a reconstructed ancient performance text, four one-act indigenous African plays and five modern dramas from various regions of Africa and the Caribbean Diaspora. Because these plays span centuries and are the work of artists from diverse cultures, readers can see elements that occur across time and space. Physicalized ritual, direct interaction with spectators, improvisation, music, drumming, and metaphorical animal characters help create the theatrical forms in multiple plays. Recurring themes include the establishment or challenging of political authority, the oppression or corruption of government, societal expectations based on gender, the complex and transformational nature of identity, and the power of dreams. Though each play is its own unique entity, reading them together allows readersTable of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction The Triumph of Horus translated and edited by H. W. Fairman “Masque of the Boa-Constrictor,” a Yoruba masquerade Oba Ko`so (The King did not hang) by Duro Ladipo Fabula: Yawreoch Commedia “The Comedy of Animals” by Tekle Hawariat “When the Hunchback Made Rain” by Elvania Namukwaya Zirimu Death and the King’s Horseman by Wole Soyinka Anowa by Ama Ata Aidoo Sizwe Banzi is Dead devised by Athol Fugard, John Kani, and Winston Ntshona Dream on Monkey Mountain by Derek Walcott Couvade by Michael Gilkes Further Reading

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Book SynopsisWinner of the 2022 Critics'' Circle Award for Best New PlayNominated for the 2022 Olivier Award for Best New PlayA man should never turn down two things. Sex, and appearing on television.1968 a year of protest that divided America. As two men fight to become the next President, all eyes are on the battle between two others: the cunningly conservative William F. Buckley Jr., and the iconoclastic liberal Gore Vidal. Beliefs are challenged and slurs slung as these political idols feud nightly in a new television format, debating the moral landscape of a shattered nation. Little do they know they're about to open up a new frontier in American politics, and transform television news foreverBest of Enemies is the electric new play by James Graham (Quiz, Labour of Love), directed by Jeremy Herrin, inspired by the documentary by Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon.This revised and updated edition was published to coincide with the West End transfer to the Noel Coward Trade ReviewRushes at the audience like a newshound after a story. * Observer *James Graham's captivating drama is raw and timely. * The Times *Astoundingly Good. * Time Out London *These monumental moments in American history, along with other key moments of the time that explored in the play, could be a captivating starting point for students' work and allows a range of themes to be explored. * Drama and Theatre *

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Book Synopsis1986. Ghana's prestigious Aburi Girls Boarding School. Queen Bee Paulina and her crew excitedly await the arrival of the Miss Ghana pageant recruiter. It's clear that Paulina is in top position to take the title until her place is threatened by Ericka a beautiful and talented new transfer student. As the friendship group's status quo is upended, who will be chosen for Miss Ghana and at what cost?Bursting with hilarity and joy, this award-winning comedy explores the universal similarities (and glaring differences) facing teenage girls around the world. This edition is published to coincide with the UK premiere at the Lyric Theatre, Hampstead, in June 2023.

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Book SynopsisFrom long-haired Fleshly Poets' to intense, ultra pre-Raphaelite' artists, few stylistic movements in the history of art and literature have provoked the imagination and indignation of British playwrights as much as the Aesthetic Movement.During an intense and short-lived period from 1877 to 1881, the London stage saw fierce competition as playwrights and theatre managers raced to capture the zeitgeist, capitalizing on the unorthodox, eccentric and highly theatrical proponents of the Aesthetic Movement. The quite too utterly utter' Apostles of this new school were satirized to such an extent that the Illustrated London News (1881) complained that the London stage was thickly sown over with a crop of lilies and sunflowers', with aesthetes in every burlesque and comic opera produced'. This edited volume brings the four key plays satirizing the Aesthetic Movement together for the first time in an easily accessible format, allowing scholars and students to

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Book SynopsisIn this deeply moving and life-affirming tale, a mother must nurture her five-year-old son through an unfathomable situation with only the power of their imagination and their boundless capacity to love.Written for the stage by Academy Award nominee Emma Donoghue, this unique theatrical adaptation featuring songs and music by Kathryn Joseph and director Cora Bissett takes audiences on a richly emotional journey told through ingenious stagecraft, powerhouse performances, and heart-stopping storytelling. Room reaffirms our belief in humanity and the astounding resilience of the human spirit.This updated and revised edition was published to coincide with the Broadway premiere in Spring 2023.Trade ReviewRoom soars! Visually arresting and emotionally rich, Emma Donoghue’s Room is boldly realised for the stage … harrowing … astonishingly moving. * Toronto Star *Emma Donoghue's adaptation of her novel works beautifully onstage, and the songs capture heightened moments with sensitivity. A story of survival and love — something we all need to hear more of at this time. * Now Magazine *The most striking thing about Emma Donoghue’s stage version of her award-winning novel, Room, is its intense imaginative quality… Kathryn Joseph’s songs, co-written with Cora Bissett, burst from the texture of the play like some heightened form of speech… The story of Room is in some ways a harrowing one, that brings many in the audience to tears. Yet it is also a tremendously beautiful, vivid and uplifting show about the power of a mother’s love * The Scotsman *Haunting and reflective music and lyrics. They emerge naturally from the narrative … Compelling viewing (even in you know the ending.) This coproduction… is a triumph * Times of London *A strangely moving work about the power of imagination and the pain of adjustment to a new reality. … I found the prospect of the play intimidating. In the end, I was deeply touched by its testament to human resourcefulness * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisScorchingly intelligent and as powerful as a gut punch. The TimesThree ordinary girls, Tisana, Ruhab and Haleema. Best friends forever. All the big issues: love, sex, religion... and being kidnapped from their hometown in Nigeria.Fiercely funny and powerfully political, Theresa Ikoko''s Girls explores enduring friendship, girlhood and the stories behind the headlines that quickly become yesterday's news.Winner of the 2015 Alfred Fagon Award and 2016 George Devine Award, Girls is published in Methuen Drama''s Modern Classics series, featuring a new introduction by Daniel Bailey.

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Book SynopsisNational Theatre Connections 2024 draws together ten new plays for young people to perform, from some of the UK''s most exciting and popular playwrights. These are plays for a generation of theatre-makers who want to ask questions, challenge assertions and test the boundaries, and for those who love to invent and imagine a world of possibilities.The plays offer young performers an engaging and diverse range of material to perform, read or study. Touching on themes like trans-rights, the mental health crisis, colonial history, disability activism, and climate change, the collection provides topical, pressing subject matter for students to explore in their performance.This 2024 anthology represents the full set of ten plays offered by the National Theatre 2024 Festival (eight brand-new plays, and two returning favourites), as well as comprehensive workshop notes that give insights and inspiration for building characters, running rehearsals and staging a producti

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Book SynopsisNewcastle, London, America. You can go anywhere, it's still the same old shit. People just getting by, in any way they know how. But I tell you what they don't have, they don't have a 1 Thursday!17-year-old Jen and Stacey are best friends. Since forever.Stacey always dreamed of being a dancer. And she's actually got the talent for it. Only her school career advisor hasn't even been to London, let alone heard of Urdang. Jen is smart. Like Oxbridge smart. But all smart' gives her is the ability to see that there's no use trying to change the story prewritten for her, growing up in an underfunded and forgotten Bradford in the 2010s.They only have one place they can escape to Club Ocean on a Thursday night. Freedom for Jen and Stacey. A beautiful and hilarious coming-of-age story, Kat Rose-Martin''s 1 Thursdays captures and celebrates the trials and tribulations of what it means to be young, Northern and working class, when for one Vodka-blurred second, you're allowed to forg

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Book SynopsisMaimuna Memon is a Lancashire born writer, composer, musician and actor. She is Co-Founder and Resident Composer of Wildcard Theatre Company. Maimuna's one woman concept album musical Manic Street Creature was a smash hit at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, winning the 2022 Mental Health Fringe Award. Maimuna has written music and lyrics for Electrolyte (a gig theatre piece which had a sell out run at the Edinburgh Fringe 2018/19 and won the Scotsman Mental Health Award), Nine Lessons and Carols at the Almeida Theatre and Welcome To Iran for the National Theatre and Stratford East (cancelled due to the pandemic but then adapted for BBC Radio 3). Maimuna is commissioned by The Bush and Bolton Octagon Theatre for her new musical Sparrow Girl, an autobiographical four woman show about choice and heritage. She was nominated for a 2023 Olivier Award as Best Supporting Actress in a Musical for her role in the National Theatre's Standing at the Sky's

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Book SynopsisWould you mind if I asked you a troubling question?An Oscar-winning American actor, an English director and a Northern Irish playwright are about to begin rehearsals for a new play one that could transform each of their careers. But when it turns out that they're not on the same page, the night threatens to spiral out of control.Power dynamics, cultural identity and the perils of being a woman in the entertainment industry; nothing is off limits in this pitch-black comedy from the award-winning playwright David Ireland.This edition is published to coincide with the revival at Riverside Studios, London, in December 2023.

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Book SynopsisEROS!! Do your thing!It''s 1950s London, and Ferdy, Bernie, Dennis and Lennie arrive from the West Indies full of expectations and aspirations.Eager to make successes of themselves, they are optimistic about what the future holds. Building this new life will take focus and sacrifice, and the young men make the bold decision to forswear wine and women for three whole years and devote themselves to their future in London. However, Sybil, Mary, Zulieka and Kathy have other ideas and the men''s resolve is put to the test as the reality of life in a less-than-welcoming England makes forgoing the warmth of female company hard to resist. Will the men stick with their idea of the Big Life, or will Eros have the final say? A joyful and uplifting journey, where the story of Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost meets that of the Windrush generation in a fun-packed Ska musical. The Big Life returns to the stage twenty years after its Stratford

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Book SynopsisGizza job. Go on, gizzit, go head, giz it if you've got it, giz it, I can do it. Giz it then. Go head, gizza job.80sLiverpool. Chrissie, Loggo, George, Dixie and Yosser are used to hard work and providing for their families. But there is no work and there is no money. What are they supposed to do? Work harder, work longer, buy cheaper, spend less? They just need a chance.Life is tough but the lads can play the game. Find the jobs, avoid the sniffers'' and see if you can have a laugh along the way.40 years after Alan Bleasdale's ground-breaking television series of the same name was essential viewing, this edition is published to coincide with the co-production between the Liverpool Royal Court and London''s National Theatre, in April 2024.

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Book SynopsisNominated for Best New Play at the 2023 Olivier AwardsI found a king in me and now I love youI found a king in you and now I love meFather figures and fashion tips. Lost loves and jollof rice. African empires and illicit sex. Good days and bad days. Six young Black men meet for group therapy, and let their hearts - and imaginations - run wild.Inspired by Ntozake Shange''s essential work For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow is Enuf, For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Hue Gets Too Heavy is a profound and playful work, co-commissioned by Boundless Theatre, from multi-award-winning company Nouveau Riche and playwright Ryan Calais Cameron.For Black Boys... gained critical acclaim for the world premiere in October 2021 at New Diorama Theatre, before successfully transferring to London''s Royal Court Theatre in March 2022. This edition was published to coincide with th

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Book SynopsisSo we've been cast in a post-war English Nationalist Anti-Fascist Kebab Shop reimagining of Henry V set in the future?The death of a national sweetheart. A friendship tested by a bloody act. An infamous production of Shakespeare''s Henry V. A tell-all dark comedy that peels back the skin of English cultural identity to reveal the steaming battlefields that lie beneath. Would you die for your country?From rehearsal room microaggressions, to the battlefields of France, into the bureaucracy of applying for citizenship, join Shakespeare''s Globe Ensemble veterans Nina Bowers and Philip Arditti in English Kings Killing Foreigners as they explore their histories alongside England''s own as unwilling actors in a national story.This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere of RealFake Theatre and Camden People's Theatre co-production at Camden People's Theatre in April 2024.

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Book SynopsisI was broken into a year ago and I was struggling for a bit afterwards. I'm fine now though.In the wake of a home invasion, Faye can't sleep. She's fine though. All she's had to eat this week is a box of dry Rice Krispies. She's fine though, really she isDesperate to shake her insomnia, Faye enlists the help of her brother, Naoise, to try a form of exposure therapy. But Naoise has a devastating secret that's about to come to light.Lie Low is a dark new play from writer Ciara Elizabeth Smyth about fear, trauma and family, offering a theatrical exploration into the human brain and its response to sexual assault. This edition was published to coincide with the London premiere at the Royal Court, in May 2024.

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Book SynopsisWinner of a Fringe First Award 2024Shortlisted for the Popcorn Writing Award 2024Look, there are two ways to go. Do you freeze in place, looking backwards all the time or do you move on?Summer 2021. Lockdown is over. Just.Three months ago Milo lost his wife to Covid. She was only forty five. So young.Tonight he has invited his two oldest pals, Davie and Liane, to come round and drink some wine, listen to some tunes and reminisce about the olden days.And there's something else He wants them to meet the new love of his life. Her name is Greta. They met online. And she's twenty years old.From the celebrated writer of Decky Does a Bronco and I Can Go Anywhere, Douglas Maxwell's So Young sees an innocuous evening slide towards ruin as old friends face the challenges of middle age the pull of the past and the promise of the future.This edition was published to coincide with the Tra

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Book SynopsisEvery kang deserves a crownThings are heating up in Memphis as the annual Hot Wing Festival rolls into town. With their sights set on the crown, Cordell, his partner Dwayne and friends Isom and Big Charles team up again as the New Wing Order, with a new attitude and a mouth-watering new wing recipe.But after an unexpected family emergency, their plans get derailed as the men navigate the meaning of love, family and staying true to yourself.Full of laughter, song and healing, Katori Hall's Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy makes its London debut in a fiery new production at the National Theatre.

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Book SynopsisSee with your Ears. Poor Effy. Sent to live with her aunt and uncle in a block that won't allow dogs. What's a girl to do? She smuggles her furry friend in, of course. Keeps him under a blanket. Feeds him biscuits. Ssh Toto, quiet. But it can't last forever. Effy needs saving. And Toto is up to the task. Experienced through headphones, Toto Kerblammo! mixes live and recorded performance to deliver a tender and powerful story about listening, friendship and finding hope in the darkest of places. Tim Crouch is one of the most important writers and theatre-makers in the UK' (The Stage). His award-winning plays include An mOak Tree, The Author, Beginners, I, Malvolio and Truth's a Dog Must to Kennel. This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere at the Unicorn Theatre, London, in October 2024.

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Book SynopsisJoin Lola on her backstage adventure in the first picture book created with the National Theatre.It''s showtime! Lola is a little actor with big dreams. But when disaster strikes on opening night and an important prop goes missing backstage, can Lola save the show in time?A fun and engaging picture book for both daytime and bedtime, packed with backstage drama and laugh-out-loud moments, with references to theatre roles and departments. The perfect gift for any little one that loves the theatre.This book is ideal for fans of Chris Haughton and Michelle Robinson.Trade ReviewThis fabulous collaboration with the National Theatre is a rip-roaring romp […] Beautifully illustrated and full of fun, Lola really does turn out to be the G.O.A.T. * WRD Magazine *What a brilliant idea to introduce children the areas of a theatre they are never likely to see - but which are vitally important when putting on a show… I have never seen a book do anything similar for small children - a great idea for all our young theatre goers. * The School Librarian *Created in association with The National Theatre, this fun adventure set on opening night, has most of the action taking place behind the scenes. […] Guilherme Karsten’s funny, vibrant artwork is suitably dramatic. * Red Reading Hub *This is a lovely book to share or use at story time, in early years and KS1 classrooms, to talk about theatre and plays. * Just Imagine *

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Book SynopsisA Student Edition of Brecht's classic parable, set in an unjust society where good can only survive by means of evil. The text of the play is accompanied by an extensive commentary and study notes.

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Book SynopsisA Student Edition of Wedekind''s classic 1891 expressionist play about adolescent sexuality.Wedekind''s notorious play Spring Awakening influenced a whole trend of modern drama and remains relevant to today''s society, exploring the oppression and rebellion of adolescents among draconian parents and morals. This seminal work looks at the conflict between repressive adulthood and teenage sexual longings in a provincial German town.Highly controversial and with themes of sexuality, social attitudes and adolescence, the play is a popular and provocative text for study, especially at undergraduate level.This translation by Edward Bond first brought the play to English audiences when it premiered at the National Theatre in 1974. Receiving high praise (''scrupulously faithful both to Wedekind''s irony and his poetry.'' The Times), this version is now considered to be the definitive English translation.This Student Edition features expert and helpful annotation, including a scen

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Book SynopsisThe first volume of Alan Ayckbourn''s collected work contains his morality plays from the 1980s. It includes the plays A Chorus of Disapproval, A Small Family Business, Henceforward . . ., and Man of the Moment.

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Book SynopsisOne of Shakespeare's late plays rewritten in contemporary language. In her modern translation of Cymbeline, Andrea Thome takes up one of Shakespeare's most complex plays. Thome's update brings the play's language into the present, highlighting new resonances and providing a more accessible version of Shakespeare's play for today's audiences. One of Shakespeare's final plays, Cymbeline tells the story of the British king Cymbeline and his daughter, Imogen. It is a tale of deceit and jealousy, with accusations of infidelity that often draw comparisons to Othello and The Winter's Tale. This translation of Cymbeline was written as part of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's Play On! project, which commissioned new translations of thirty-nine Shakespeare plays. These translations present the work of The Bard in language accessible to modern audiences while never losing the beauty of Shakespeare's verse. Enlisting the talents of a diverse group of contemporary playwrights, screenwriters

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Book SynopsisFew institutions have as profound an impact on the American theatrical landscape as the Tony Award-winning Williamstown Theatre Festival, located in Williamstown, Massachusetts. New Plays from Williamstown Theatre Festival 2015-2021 provides a sample of the dozens of plays that have been created and/or premiered at the Festival during the Artistic Directorship of Mandy Greenfield. In addition to stories that shine a light into new or underexplored corners of the human condition, these plays frequently feature complex and boundary-pushing central roles for women actors. These six plays are manifestations of living, American playwrights grappling with and breathing dramatic life into the conflicts and questions at the heart of who we were, who we are, and who we will become. These plays imagine and interrogate pieces of the human experience we are still in the midst of unpacking and understanding.Complete with introductions by each of the authors reflecting on their work, these hTrade ReviewThe quality shines through in this selection. * British Theatre Guide *Table of Contents1. Introduction by Mandy Greenfield 2. Brief History of Williamstown Theatre Festival 3. Note from Martyna Majok COST OF LIVING by Martyna Majok 4. Note from Anna Ziegler ACTUALLY by Anna Ziegler 5. Note from Sylvia Khoury SELLING KABUL by Sylvia Khoury 6. Note from Bess Wohl GRAND HORIZONS by Bess Wohl 7. Note from Dominique Morisseau PARADISE BLUE by Dominique Morisseau 8. Note from Harrison David Rivers WHERE STORMS ARE BORN by Harrison David Rivers

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Book SynopsisYou can't live your life thinking everything you text will become public knowledge.Censoring yourself is no way to live.Everyone needs Jim.His mother.His best friend.His brother.A hopeful future President.But can Jim really help anyone, when he isn't sure who he is any more, or what he actually believes? An expert in electoral strategy, he's forged a successful career by advising politicians how to communicate with voters. But following seismic shifts in the political landscape, he's disillusioned. And his marriage is in crisis. As he juggles the demands on his life through his smartphone, will the lure of success and fame prove irresistible?The Narcissist is a gripping, inventive and witty take on personal and political communication in the internet age by celebrated US playwright Christopher Shinn. This edition was published to coincide with the premiere at Chichester Festival Theatre in August 2022.

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Book SynopsisEmmet Kirwan is an Irish Actor, Playwright and poet. His play Dublin Oldschool won the Stewart Parker award and has been performed at The National Theatre London it has recently been made into a feature film . He is also known for writing and performing the IFTA award winning poetry short film Heartbreak (2017) and being the writer and star of the Irish television comedy series Sarah and Steve (2010).

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Book SynopsisAli Pritchard is a writer, actor, director, and producer. In 2012 Ali founded Alphabetti Theatre at the age of 22, making him one of the UK's youngest artistic directors running a venue. He has a BA honours in Drama & Scripting from Northumbria University, and a Higher Diploma in Contemporary Vocals from The Academy of Contemporary Music. Ali is a visiting lecturer at a number of higher educational organisations across the North East, and in 2013 following a yearlong graduate fellowship at Northumbria University, he won the Best Postgraduate Lecturer award. Under Ali's leadership, Alphabetti have become a crucial part of the arts ecology in the region. Alphabetti is now a fully registered charity and has just secured a 10 year lease for their current premise a 75 seater venue with its own bar, rehearsal room, studios and workshop. With their bold Pay What You Feel ticketing scheme, which is unique for the city - they have been able to engage with a new and diverse audience. The majority of their yearlong programme of 280 300 performances are part of this scheme. Following the first full year in the venue Alphabetti welcomed 10,000 audience members and worked with 1,100 artists.

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Book SynopsisCesca Echlin is a writer and director based in London. Her past roles include working as Executive Assistant on series 2 of the TV show I Hate Suzie, where she assisted the screenwriter/playwright Lucy Prebble as part of her role and gained experience in television production from prep to post, particularly the development of scripts throughout the process. She has also worked as an editorial assistant to writer Xandra Bingley and as part-time assistant to screenwriter Sam Lansky. Cesca has volunteered part time at the theatre company Clean Break since 2019. Recent projects include the staging of her debut play Looking for Giants at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2023, which was met with critical acclaim. Her second, in-development play Short Pleasures Long Woes was selected as part of Omnibus Theatre's Engine Room: Next Page series in January 2024.

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Book SynopsisIn this stripped back, 'anti-theatre' solo show, Alex starts receiving Instagram messages from his deceased ex-boyfriend Ben, causing his perception of reality and his own past to be challenged.

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Book SynopsisIn a sleepy town in the Wild West, the women drift through their days like tumbleweed. Their husbands, swept up in the goldrush, have been missing for almost a year and show no sign of returning. In fact, the town is almost cut off from outsiders entirely, with only one drunken sheri for protection.

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Book SynopsisThe world''s greatest physicist, Johann Wilhelm Mobius, is in a madhouse, haunted by recurring visions of King Solomon. He is kept company by two other equally deluded scientists: one who thinks he is Einstein, another who believes he is Newton. It soon becomes evident, however, that these three are not as harmlessly lunatic as they appear. Are they, in fact, really mad? Or are they playing some murderous game, with the world as the stake? For Mobius has uncovered the mystery of the universe--and therefore the key to its destruction--and Einstein and Newton are vying for this secret that would enable them to rule the earth.

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Book SynopsisAt the centre of his own universe sits matinee idol Garry Essendine: suave, hedonistic and too old, says his wife, to be having numerous affairs. His line in harmless, infatuated debutantes is largely tolerated but playing closer to home is not. Just before he escapes on tour to Africa the full extent of his misdemeanours is discovered. And all hell breaks loose. No?l Coward''s Present Laughter premiered in the early years of the Second World War just as such privileged lives were threatened with fundamental social change.

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Book SynopsisThis is Tom Stoppard''s award-winning play, set in Derbyshire. The orderly classicism of Lady Croom''s Capability Brown grounds are being turned into picturesque romantic chaos, as fashion dictates, by landscape architect Culpability Noakes. In a Regency room overlooking the work is Lady Croom''s brilliant adolescent daughter - Thomasina Coverly, with her handsome, clever tutor Septimus Hodge. Their maths lesson is disturbed by, among others, the imperious, amorous Lady Croom and Ezra Chater, a cuckold and minor poet, determined on satisfaction. One hundred and eighty years later, in the same room, a corresponding group, comprising a mathematician, a biographer/historian, and a vulgar academic, try to unravel the events of 1809 - with spectacularly wrong results.

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Book SynopsisAll is not well in the Ankh-Morpork Opera House. A ghost stalks the dark corridors, leaving strange letters for the management and ... killing people. Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg, two Lancre witches, investigate, and are soon involved in all kinds of skulduggery, mayhem and ear-splittingly loud singing. Quirky and original characters, a labyrinthine plot and numerous witty one-liners make this a treat for Discworld fans and ''uninitiated'' theatregoers alike.

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Book SynopsisIn The Wasp''s Nest, Hercule Poirot''s come between a bitter triangle of lovers to prevent a sinister murder before it takes place. In Yellow Iris, a distressed phone call from a mystery woman brings Hercule Poirot to the hotel Jardin des Cygnes, where a man commemorates the four-year anniversary of his wife''s sudden death - a death under very suspicious circumstances that Poirot himself witnessed. Gathered is everyone present on that fateful night and now Poirot must and a killer in the midst, before they strike again.

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Book SynopsisA small cast, short version of an intimate psychological thriller taken from Philomel Cottage. Enid rejects her fianc? for newcomer Gerald and moves to a remote country cottage with him - where a dark and terrible climax takes place.

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Book SynopsisA teenager in a North Country town, Billy Fisher weaves a world of his own out of his day dreams. He is an incurable liar, idle and dishonest, and to escape from his dull job as an undertaker''s clerk and his dreary domestic background he imagines himself in so many different situations that truth and fiction become hopelessly intermingled. His family is unable to understand or control him, though they realize that he is a good for nothing. The cast is completed by the three girls to whom he is simultaneously engaged. When he is given the chance to start a new life, he turns it down, preferring his dreams to reality.

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Book SynopsisThis is a comedy of prosperous suburbia, with corruption as its theme and core. A charming, apparently happily married couple, the Actons, live comfortably in their newly-furnished home, but feeling always that life owes thein just a little more: a car, an expensive lawnmower, money for parties and so on. Temptation comes in the shape of Leonie Pimosz, a very high class brothel-keeper. It is not long before pretty, sweet Mrs Acton becomes involved with her and the Acton fortunes are startlingly improved. Soon it becomes clear that Mrs Acton''s new career is by no means unusual; indeed, the wives of all their friends are acquainted with Madame Pimosz, and the husbands are quite content to keep up with the Joneses in this as in everything else. But the denoument is startling and horrific.

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Book SynopsisIn the seemingly quiet town of Bere Knighton there is never a dull moment for Dr. Richard Forth. Not only does h have a hectic work schedule and an awkward friendship with his ex-girlfriend, but his wife, Barbara, is constantly ill and nobody knows what is wrong with her. When Eric Dawson, a stranger, claims to have known Richard''s second fiancee - a woman richard claims does not exist - Barbara''s health worsens and she isn''t the only one. With bad luck spreading almost as quickly as bad news, it seems somebody is out to kill Barbara, and anyone else who gets in their way.

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