Search results for ""nick hern books""

A witty, tender, and occasionally surreal exploration of one family's experience of the NHS. A month after stating "we will stop the top-down reorganisation of the NHS that has got in the way of patient care", the government launched the biggest top-down reorganisation the service had seen in its 65-year history. Stella Feehily's play explores one family's journey through the digestive system of the NHS, and asks: what is the prognosis for this much-loved institution? This May Hurt A Bit premiered in March 2014, on a UK tour co-produced by Out of Joint and Octagon Theatre, Bolton.

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Essential tips and advice from stars of stage and screen. Actors know the best source of advice on the profession is other actors. Nothing compares with the wisdom and practical know-how acquired through years of working in the business. Advice from the Players features a host of tips and guidance on every aspect of the actor’s craft, direct from some of the best-known stars of stage and screen, including Julie Walters, Lenny Henry, Harriet Walter, Simon Callow, Mark Gatiss, David Harewood, Jo Brand, Simon Russell Beale, Lesley Manville, Zawe Ashton and Mathew Horne, amongst many others. Drawing directly on their own personal experience, they offer essential advice on topics including: Applying to drama school Getting an agent Auditions The dos and don’ts of rehearsal Acting for camera Acting comedy Coping with stage fright Surviving the tough times Staying inspired, and much more… Candid, passionate, sometimes contradictory, often very funny – Advice from the Players is a book to turn to whenever you’re in need of guidance or inspiration, whether you’re a working actor, at drama school, or involved in amateur theatre. It is also an invaluable introduction for those considering a career in the performing arts, and a fascinating read for anyone who wants to know what it’s really like to be a working actor.

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A powerful, inventive play that mixes real testimonials alongside existing and original music to explore one of the most important social concerns of today: homelessness amongst young people. Bullet doesn't want to call a hostel home. Eritrean Girl was smuggled here in a lorry. Singing Boy dreams of seeing his name in lights and Garden Boy just wants to feel safe. In 2013, homelessness amongst young people in the UK is at a record high, so when the big society doesn't work ― where do you go? An inner city high rise hostel, Target East, offers a roof. Nadia Fall's play Home brings to life the unheard voices of the young residents and staff who live and work behind the anonymous concrete walls. A bold verbatim play that asks what it really means to call somewhere home, it is offers ideal material for youth theatres and young performers. Home was first staged at The Shed, National Theatre, London, in 2013.

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A funny and touching new version of Pirandello's high-spirited drama, set at the heart of a rural community where property and family unleash fierce passions. Sicily, summer 1916. The women gather to harvest old Simone's almond crop. He's the richest landowner in the district but he has no heir. Local lad Liolà, untroubled by convention, has fathered three boys, each with a different mother. When another of the girls falls pregnant, Simone is persuaded he might recognize the baby as his own, much to his young wife, Mita's, despair. But he underestimates the power of Liolà, who has his own unusual sense of what's right and wrong - and a way with women to make your hair curl. Tanya Ronder's version of Luigi Pirandello's 1916 play Liolà was first performed at the National Theatre, London, in 2013.

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A witty and heartfelt look at a family falling apart – and pulling together – when life doesn’t turn out quite the way they imagined. Joint Winner of the Critics' Circle Most Promising Playwright Award, 2013. It's Andy Griffith's twenty-first birthday. Not that he's counting. But his mother Carol is. Counting the minutes until he arrives, counting the unexpected guests, counting the times that something like this has happened before. Rory Kinnear's first play, The Herd was first performed at the Bush Theatre, London, in September 2013.

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A hilarious and heart-warming comedy about football, friendship and finding your way. Luke wants Danny, but Danny's got a secret. Joe's happy in goal, but Geoff wants a headline gig. Viv just wants to beat the lesbians to the league title. Game on. Tom Wells' play Jumpers for Goalposts premiered at Watford Palace Theatre in 2013, before touring the UK, including a run at the Bush Theatre, London. This volume also includes Tom Wells' short play Jonesy, the underdog story of an asthmatic teen who dreams of making a name for himself as a 'Netball Maverick' and earning the respect of the lads from GCSE PE.

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A funny and insightful glimpse into the power of female friendship. Five women with five different stories on a girls' night in to remember. It's Breda's birthday, but life's not been going according to plan of late and she's in no mood to celebrate. Her friends, however, have other ideas... Elaine Murphy's play Shush was first staged at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, in 2013.

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A gripping drama about Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in Britain. A divorcee with a young child to care for, Ruth works in the kind of nightclubs where there’s more than just a drink on offer. The girls work hard, play hard and dream of a movie-star life. Then she meets the wealthy, womanising David, a racing driver with whom she becomes obsessed. Fame comes - but not in the way she imagines. Why does their relationship end in murder? Why does she plead not guilty but offer no defence? Why does she show no remorse? And who is she trying to protect? Amanda Whittington's play The Thrill of Love dramatises the true story of Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in Britain, and takes a fresh look at the woman behind the headlines. The Thrill of Love was first staged at the New Vic Theatre, Newcastle-under-Lyme, in 2013.

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A collection of short plays by exciting new Irish writers, selected and introduced by the literary manager of the Abbey Theatre. These eight short plays by some of the most exciting new Irish playwrights around were commissioned and staged by the Abbey Theatre, Dublin. All of the plays are written for one man and one woman - with one exception, which is written for two men - and are ideal for performance in studio theatres, one-act play festivals, and as duologues. Together, the plays showcase the Abbey's commitment to nurturing and introducing the very best new Irish writing. Includes the plays: Stop/Over by Gary Duggan When Cows Go Boom by Stacey Gregg Love in a Glass Jar by Nancy Harris Meeting Miss Ireland by Rosemary Jenkinson Salad Day by Deirdre Kinahan Nineteen Ninety-Two by Lisa McGee Investment Potential by Phillip McMahon Ribbons by Elaine Murphy

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A chillingly Kafkaesque world where nothing is quite as it seems, and where office politics can lead to unlawful questioning, torture and even murder… Afra has decided to make a complaint. She is certain that her grievance is legitimate: she is perfectly clear about her rights. And she has no intention of giving up until she has some satisfaction. Nick Whitby's play The Complaint was first performed at Hampstead Theatre, London, in May 2012.

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A startling and darkly comic drama about childhood, family and fantasy. Winner of the Bruntwood Prize 2011. Siblings Tiana, Tionne and Tanika have found themselves home alone. Tiana's keeping it all together by taking charge of housework and homework. But Tionne's experiments are getting stranger and Tanika's starting to act up. As the outside world begins to press in, the three will do anything to keep their secret safe from the adults who come to call. Janice Okoh's play Three Birds was first performed at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, in February 2013 before transferring to the Bush Theatre, London, in March. 'A play that is as humane as it is savage... as funny as it is alarming. It is written with as much warmth as it is with truth. It's funny and theatrical and alert and alive. It's terrific.' Simon Stephens, playwright and Chair of the Judges for the 2011 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting

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A vivid and compelling thriller about belief and retribution. Mustafa is in prison for the death of a teenage boy during an exorcism. Racked with guilt at the loss of an innocent life and isolated in a world where his beliefs are constantly challenged, he's trying to avoid trouble. But when prisoners who taunt him suffer mysterious injuries and prison officers start behaving strangely, Mustafa realises the spirit he tried to banish is still with him, and he must confront it once again. Naylah Ahmed's play Mustafa was first performed at Soho Theatre, London, in 2012 in a co-production by Kali Theatre and Birmingham Rep.

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A gripping and urgent play about a well-meaning teacher who intervenes on behalf of a troublesome student, with terrifying consequences. When white secondary-school teacher Amanda is pushed to the ground by black student Jason, she's reluctant to report him as she knows exclusion could condemn him to a future as troubled as his past. But when Jason decides to protect himself by spinning a story of his own, Amanda is sucked into a vortex of lies in which victim becomes perpetrator. With the truth becoming less clear and more dangerous by the day, it isn't long before careers, relationships and even lives are under threat. Vivienne Franzmann's first play, Mogadishu won the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting in 2008 and the George Devine Award in 2010. It was first produced at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, in 2011.

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England is in crisis. Fields are flooded, food is scarce and fear grips the land. William Bloor, a foxfinder, arrives at Judith and Samuel Covey's farm to investigate a suspected fox infestation. The Coveys' harvest has failed to meet their target and the government wants to know why. Trained from childhood, William is fixated on his mission to unearth the animals that must be to blame for the Coveys' woes. But as the hunt progresses, William finds more questions than answers… A darkly comic, spell-binding dystopian drama, Dawn King's Foxfinder won the 2011 Papatango New Writing Prize and premiered at the Finborough Theatre, London. Foxfinder had its West End premiere at the Ambassadors Theatre, London, in 2018, in a production directed by Rachel O'Riordan.

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Four full-length plays and two previously unpublished shorts from the multi-award-winning author of Jerusalem. Jez Butterworth burst onto the theatre scene aged twenty-five with Mojo, 'one of the most dazzling Royal Court main stage debuts in years' (Time Out). This first volume of his Collected Plays contains that play plus the three that followed, as well as two short one-person pieces published here for the first time – everything in fact that precedes Jerusalem, 'unarguably one of the best dramas of the twenty-first century' (Guardian). Plays One includes: Mojo, staged in 1995 but set in the Soho clubland of 1958, 'superbly captures the atmosphere of the infant British rock and roll scene where seedy low-lifers hustle for the big time' (Daily Telegraph). It is 'Beckett on speed' (Observer) by a 'dramatist of obvious talent and terrific promise' (The Times). The Night Heron (2002) is set in the Cambridgeshire Fens amongst assorted oddballs, birdwatchers and the local constabulary. 'It's funny, it's sad, it's haunting and it also strangely beautiful. Above all, it is quite unlike anything you've ever seen before' (Daily Telegraph). In The Winterling (2006) a gangland fugitive is visited by two associates from the city who have other things on their mind than a jolly reunion. 'The dialogue is testosterone taut, a sense of menace invades every conversation... and as tales of torture and treachery unfold, the black comedy never misses' (Time Out). Leavings (previously unpublished), a short monologue about an old man whose dog has gone missing. The housing estate in Parlour Song (2008) is 'a place of illicit desire and painful memories, of bad dreams and mysterious disappearances... a play that combines the comic, the erotic and the downright disconcerting with superb panache' (Daily Telegraph). The Naked Eye (previously unpublished), a short monologue about a family preparing to watch Halley's Comet as it passes through the night sky. Introducing the plays is an interview with Jez Butterworth specially conducted for this volume.

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A magical and deeply compassionate play about identity and the capacities of the human spirit. At a time when science and religion have conspired to make freak shows shameful, Robert Riley, owner of Riley's Odditorium, struggles to find ways to keep his company afloat. There's no money in the coffers and they've had to eat the horse. Only the mermaid act is bringing in the punters and she's just holding her breath… Lynda Radley's play Futureproof was first staged at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, in August 2011, in a co-production with Dundee Rep. It won an Edinburgh Fringe First Award.

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Victor Frankenstein, a brilliant and ambitious young student, discovers the secret of creating life from the remains of the dead. But elation at his triumph is replaced by horror when he sees his monstrous creation. Abandoned by the one who made him, Frankenstein's Creature is left to a world that fears and rejects him, and soon his innocence turns to misery - and a murderous desire for revenge... Every word in Patrick Sandford's 'vigorous adaptation' (The Times) is lifted directly from Mary Shelley's classic gothic novel. One of the greatest horror stories of all time, and one that still grips readers today almost two hundred years after its first publication. Patrick Sandford's adaptation of Frankenstein was first performed at Nuffield Theatre, Southampton, in 2004. All the more successful for staying faithful to the dark spirit of the original book, this adaptation includes notes on the first production and can be performed with a minimum of set and props, making it well suited for staging by schools and amateur theatre groups, as well as by professional companies.

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Two plays by award-winning playwright Ella Hickson. Precious Little Talent is about a father desperate not to forget his daughter and two young people determined not to be forgotten by the world. It was first performed at the Bedlam Theatre, Edinburgh, as part of the 2009 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and later, in a revised, full-length production, at the Trafalgar Studios, London, in April 2011. Hot Mess is a dark and lyrical tale about friendship, loss and loneliness. Twins Polo and Twitch were born with only one heart between them: where Polo is not looking to be loved, Twitch can do nothing but. Hot Mess was first performed at the Hawke & Hunter Below Stairs Nightclub, Edinburgh, in August 2010, as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

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Lucy Kirkwood's delightful version of the classic fairytale, first seen in a production devised and directed by Katie Mitchell at the National Theatre for Christmas 2010. ‘I expect you have been told fairytales before. But you have never really heard a fairytale until you have heard it told by a real fairy.’ The theft of a single rose has monstrous consequences for Beauty and her father. Because this is no ordinary rose...and this is no ordinary fairytale. Narrated by a pair of mischievous fairies, a very helpful Rabbit, and a Thoughtsnatcher machine, this timeless story is sure to surprise, delight and enchant. A wild and twisted tale, full of exciting and intriguing challenges for drama groups wishing to stage their own production. Lucy Kirkwood's Beauty and the Beast was first performed at the National Theatre, London, in December 2010.

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An insider's guide to achieving that dream career – by one of the brightest stars in musical theatre. Being in a West End or Broadway musical is the dream of thousands of talented performers. But competition is intense and reaching the spotlight can often require a leap into the dark. So You Want To Be In Musicals? by Ruthie Henshall is your comprehensive guide to building – and sustaining – a successful career in musical theatre, and introduces you to everything you need to know about: Training – how to select a drama school, what to do to get in, and what to do once you’re there Auditioning – how to choose and prepare your pieces, and foster a positive attitude towards auditions Rehearsing – how to construct your character, work with the director, and develop your own creative process Performing – how to deal with nerves, what to do as an understudy, and how to sustain that eight-show-a-week routine Working – how to get an agent, how to market yourself effectively, and how to maintain a healthy body and mind Along with a wealth of honest, straightforward advice, the book is packed with instructive anecdotes from Ruthie's own glittering career.

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A masterpiece of power and politics that explores the battle between honour and corruption, between truth and betrayal. Born into ancient nobility and son of the most powerful statesman in the land, Ferdinand is willing to forsake his fortune for the love of Luise, daughter of a humble musician. But in a world governed by deception and greed, where power is everything, their future happiness and liberty are beyond their control. Adapted from Friedrich Schiller's 1784 play Kabale und Liebe, Mike Poulton's Luise Miller was first staged at the Donmar Warehouse, London, in 2011.

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A shattering and heartbreaking play, joint winner of the Bruntwood Playwriting Competition. From the moment he came into the world as the snow fell and the cold wind blew, Oscar's existence has been a stagger through an underworld peopled by loners and losers. He's aching to piece it together, but the figures that clot his life are unwilling to fix him when they're unable to fix themselves. Oscar must discover if a bird with a broken wing can learn to fly, or is destined to stay earthbound for ever. Andrew Sheridan's play Winterlong was joint winner of the 2008 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting. It was first staged at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, in 2011.

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Many theatre practitioners think of physical theatre as one thing and text-based theatre as another. In this book, Dymphna Callery, author of Through the Body: A Practical Guide to Physical Theatre, shows how exercises and rehearsal techniques associated with physical and devised theatre can be applied to scripted plays. Working ‘through the body’ enables performers to discover what really makes a play work. Drawing on key practitioners, including Jacques Lecoq, Joan Littlewood, Peter Brook and Simon McBurney, The Active Text offers a complete approach to working with a scripted play, leading the reader through a process of active exploration and experimentation that includes: Uncovering a play’s internal dynamics Using improvisation and theatre games Exploiting the languages of the body Getting inside the words that are spoken (as well as those that aren’t!) Discovering image structures Understanding the impact on the audience Throughout the book, the author draws on a core selection of well-known texts (from Sophocles and Shakespeare to Brecht, Arthur Miller, Steven Berkoff and Sarah Kane), showing how an active approach to text can challenge assumptions about even the most familiar of plays. Packed with theatre games, improvisation exercises and rehearsal techniques, The Active Text is an inspirational guide for performers, directors, students and teachers. It will revitalise work in the rehearsal room, workshop or classroom – anywhere that dramatic text needs to be brought to life.

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A modern morality tale about the corrosive effect of money. Though Amy and Simon have the money and children that life has so far denied Nick and Rachel, their friendship forged years ago has remained constant. But when they hand their less fortunate friends the cash to realise their dreams, this simple act of charity brings long-submerged resentments bubbling to the surface. Fiona Peek's play Salt was joint winner of the 2008 Bruntwood Playwriting Competition, and was first staged at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, in 2010.

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A sassy, offbeat comedy-drama about rebelling against your roots. Rivka wants the perfect Orthodox wedding. With two weeks to go, she has the man, the dress – and the wig. But when doubt is cast on her wig, everything starts to unravel. Rivka finds herself far from home, up a tree and in the midst of an anti-road protest, not knowing whether she’ll be able to go back to where she came from… Or even if she wants to. Samantha Ellis' play Cling To Me Like Ivy was inspired by a chance remark by Victoria Beckham in 2004 which sparked a crisis within the Orthodox Jewish community about the wigs worn by married women. The play was first performed at The Door, Birmingham Repertory Theatre, in February 2010, followed by a UK tour.

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A classic from the Spanish Golden Age, Calderón's richly poetic, epic masterpiece explores illusion, reality, fate and destiny against the backdrop of a mythical Polish kingdom. 'If I'm asleep, don't let me wake. If this is real, don't let me dream.' To protect the country from the horrors prophesied, the young Prince Segismundo is condemned for all eternity to be shut away from his country and his birthright. Banished to a secret world high in the mountains and cut off from the sun, he can only dream of a life reversed: of palaces, empires, freedom – revenge… Helen Edmundson's version of Calderón's Life is a Dream was premiered at the Donmar Warehouse, London, in 2009.

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Two great artists - Robert Louis Stevenson and Paul Gauguin - confront their own mortality in the strange and supernatural Polynesian islands they made their home. 'Long pig: A white man to be eaten' Deep in the Polynesian islands of the Pacific Ocean, hungry spirits circle the homes of Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson and artist Paul Gaugin, who lived and died on the islands only a few years apart. Stevenson has spent thirty years in rigorous combat with the Grim Reaper, but is he finally ready to concede defeat? Gauguin has bought rum, arsenic and morphine for his suicide cocktail and is certain he's not long for this world, but he'll be damned if they give him a Catholic burial in consecrated ground. As their final hours approach, they face the eternal question: is it how we prepare for death that really governs the way we live? Nigel Planer's play Death of Long Pig was first staged at the Finborough Theatre, London, in 2009.

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Acclaimed poet and playwright Liz Lochhead's Dracula stays refreshingly close to Bram Stoker's classic novel. Asked to adapt it by the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, she immersed herself in the book. 'After a sleepless night,' she writes in the Introduction, 'my hair was standing on end, what with the mad Renfield in his lunatic asylum eating flies and playing John the Baptist to his coming master… and with Lucy's description of her "dream" of flying with the red-eyed one above the lighthouse at Whitby, and Jonathan's "dream" of the three Vampire Brides' advances upon him and of their being repelled at the last minute by the furious Dracula… 'This was before I'd even got to the abducted children or "the loving hand" of Lucy's fiancé staking her through the heart… or that shocking rape-like bit where, with Mina's newly-wed husband Jonathan asleep in a flushed stupor by her side, Dracula, at her throat, takes his fill of her life's-blood… 'Still, what really attracted me to the story was Rule One for becoming a vampire-victim: "First of all you have to invite him in."' Liz Lochhead's stage adaptation of Dracula was first performed at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, in 1985. Ideal for schools and drama groups, this Dracula is all the more chilling for the respect it shows for Stoker's original nightmare creation.

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A blackly hilarious exploration of deceit, paranoia and murderous desire, as the spirit of the Blues lands in leafy suburbia. Demolition expert Ned lives in a nice new house on a nice new estate on the edge of the English countryside. He loves his job. Barbecues. Car-boot sales. Fitness programmes. Outwardly his life is entirely unremarkable. Not unlike his friend and neighbour Dale. So why has he not slept a wink in six months? Why is he so terrified of his attractive wife Joy? And why is it every time he leaves on business, something else goes missing from his home? Jez Butterworth's play Parlour Song was first performed at the Atlantic Theater, New York, in Febraury 2008, before receiving its European premiere at the Almeida Theatre, London, in March 2009.

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

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A powerful stage adaptation of Nobel Prize winner Annie Ernaux's critically acclaimed 'masterpiece' (The Guardian), premiered in this English translation at the Almeida Theatre, London, in 2024.

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The West End edition of the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical.

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A riveting play about a creative writing professor at Yale and her brilliant, rebellious student, exploring the limits of what one person can ask of another.

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An epic, panoramic play about how the political fault-line has been redrawn. Premiered by the Royal Shakespeare Company and Headlong in October 2024.

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Two plays by Matt Hartley: his entertaining one-woman play, The Wife of Cyncoed, premiered at the Sherman Theatre, Cardiff, in 2024; and Idyll, a captivating short play premiered by Pentabus Theatre in 2021.

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'Feel the rhythms Of your own heartbeat As I tell you a story My story' A woman, shaken by a broken relationship, finds herself discovering love in the last place – and with the last person – she ever expected. Based on Jade Anouka's own experience, and told through poetry, HEART is a raw and honest exploration of love, loss and self-discovery, celebrating the resilience of the human spirit and the beauty of human connection. It was first performed by Anouka herself, as an Audible Original audio play, before being presented on stage at the Minetta Lane Theatre in New York, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and Brixton House in London. This edition of the play also includes a selection of the author's poems.

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A play about one of the most remarkable medical breakthroughs of our time: the procedure that led to the first 'test-tube baby' and the creation of IVF.

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'Shisha lounges are an essential part of the Muslim experience, bruv, like the Fillet-O-Fish.' Chunkyz Shisha Lounge is a home away from home for Jihad, Rashid and Asif, a space where community whispers are heard, jokes are told, and new hustles are born. But its future is under threat, having become a target for local politicians. Aspiring journalist Jihad wants to fight back. After winning a competition to produce his own documentary, he sets out to create something that gives a voice to his community and challenges the usual stereotypes that fill the airwaves. Will he be able to create something that makes his boys proud? Or will his dreams of becoming a journalist come at a cost too high to bear? Mohamed-Zain Dada's debut play, Blue Mist is a story about South Asian Muslim men navigating a system that isn't built for them. It premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in October 2023, directed by Milli Bhatia, in a co-production with SISTER.

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'After thousands of years, I have a mouth… So if you don't mind, Mum, Dad, I'm going to speak. I'm going to shout. When I become a human I'm going to use some words. Can you still hear me? Is my microphone on?' Young people have inherited a burning world. In Jordan Tannahill's urgent and lyrical play, they reckon with the generations who have come before them, questioning the choices that have been made, and the ones that they will yet be forced to make. In Is My Microphone On? an ensemble of young performers hold the audience to account, and invite them to experience the world together anew. The play was commissioned by the Theater der Welt festival in Germany, premiered in English by Canadian Stage, Toronto, in 2021, and performed by youth theatres across the UK as part of the 2023 National Theatre Connections Festival. It offers opportunities for a large, flexible cast of any size or mix of genders, and can incorporate chorus work, movement and music.

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'If you not give elephant proper burial he'll haunt you forever.' They call him Mlima, the mountain – a magnificent elephant slaughtered by poachers for his tusks. Beginning in a game park in Kenya, we follow the trajectory of the tusks through the international ivory-trade market, while Mlima's spirit is close behind, marking all those complicit in his barbaric death. Lynn Nottage's play Mlima's Tale is a thought-provoking, heart-wrenching, rage-inducing portrait of humankind's capacity for corruption and greed, and our continued destruction of the natural world. It was first produced at The Public Theater, New York City, in 2018, and received its British premiere at Kiln Theatre, London, in 2023, directed by Miranda Cromwell.

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The story Charles Dickens might have written after drinking too much gin… Follow half-orphan Pip's extraordinary exploits with sisters Pippa and Poppy and best friend Harry Biscuit, as they attempt to escape the calculating clutches of the dastardly Mr Gently Benevolent, defeat the hideous Hardthrasher siblings, and deflect disaster at every turn! Will evil be vanquished by virtue? Can love triumph over hate? Mark Evans' stage play Bleak Expectations is a hilarious, chaotic caper, featuring dastardly villains, preposterous names, pulse-quickening romances, heart-rending death scenes, and definitely, probably, hopefully a happy ending. Based on the award-winning BBC Radio 4 series, the play opened at The Watermill Theatre, Newbury, in 2022, directed by Caroline Leslie. It transferred to the Criterion Theatre in London's West End in 2023, where it featured a medley of many well-known actors and comedians. It offers rich opportunities to amateur theatre companies looking for a gloriously daft Dickensian romp which will have their audiences joyfully transported and begging for more.

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'Hope? Hope, is that you?' Years and years ago, Hope disappeared. Now, she's back. To find something she left behind. But in the People's Republic of Koka Kola – a world of dwindling resources, corruption and corporate giants – what happens to Hope? A surreal and frenetic quest through a hyper-capitalist country, Tom Fowler's play Hope has a Happy Meal premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in June 2023, directed by Lucy Morrison, in a co-production with SISTER.

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This encouraging, no-nonsense guide walks you through the whole process of applying for drama school – including doing your initial research, selecting the right school for you, choosing and preparing your audition pieces, nailing the audition and dealing with recalls. This revised and updated edition incorporates recent changes to the application process such as online auditions, ensuring you have the most up-to-date information. Perfect for any aspiring actor, as well as anyone advising or coaching them, it will answer your questions, bust commonly held myths and give you all the knowledge you need to boost your chances of getting into drama school. The Compact Guides are pocket-sized introductions for actors and theatremakers, each tackling a key topic in a clear and comprehensive way. Written by industry professionals with extensive hands-on experience of their subject, they provide you with maximum information in minimum time.

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'If you can cook, if you know flavour and taste and texture, people will pay you to do it. People always need to eat. Always.' They don't seem an obvious match. Joanne is spiky, defensive, a survivor; Paul is quiet, considered – and hiding profound grief for his father. But the pleasure he takes in cooking – and the astonishing food he prepares – creates a bond between them. When the hotel where they both work closes and they start to spiral into poverty, it throws everything up in the air – first their plans for a cookbook and a restaurant, and, eventually, even their dreams of a future together... Gareth Farr's play Biscuits for Breakfast is a tender, heartfelt drama about families – the ones we inherit and the ones we create – and the struggle to survive when times get tough. It opened at Hampstead Theatre, London, in 2023, directed by Tessa Walker.

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As a gay Lebanese-American Maronite Christian in rural Pennsylvania, Joseph Douaihy has a pretty complicated life. But when his father dies as the result of a prank, things truly take a turn for the bizarre. Stephen Karam's play Sons of the Prophet confronts, with intelligence, empathy and tenderness, the inevitability of loss and the equally inevitable comedy which results from our attempts to cope with its consequences. It premiered in Boston in April 2011, transferred Off-Broadway later that year, won the Lucille Lortel, New York Drama Critics' Circle and Outer Critics Circle Awards for Best Play, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It received its European premiere at Hampstead Theatre, London, in 2022, directed by Bijan Sheibani.

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'I knew that you could strike out on your own. I may not have been the best father in the world, but I did get that right.' When Eddie returns home to Shropshire, he falls back into his fractious, complicated relationship with his father, both skirting around things long left unsaid. As their connection starts to evolve, can they break through and find the new beginning they both need? Tom Wentworth's Little Bits of Ruined Beauty is a darkly comic play examining the subtle shift from cared-for to carer, and how dignity and independence are maintained in isolated rural areas. It was premiered in 2022 by Pentabus on a tour of the UK, directed by Nickie Miles-Wildin, and commissioned and supported by Unlimited, celebrating the work of disabled artists.

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'You know you act like you're not from here.' Entrenched in her picturesque Devonshire village, Ivy Tiller is preparing to wage a war. Her target: the invasive grey squirrel. Her goal: to oust the invaders and restore the native red squirrels as the 'rightful' inhabitants. Galvanised by her important mission, Ivy's determination swells to uncomfortable heights. Bea Roberts' blackly comic play Ivy Tiller: Vicar's Daughter, Squirrel Killer challenges our assumptions about who belongs and who thrives, and exposes the dark side of the rural idyll. It was first performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company at The Other Place, Stratford-upon-Avon, in October 2022.

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