Search results for ""Author Jo Clifford""

‘Our duty is plain. To bring an end to peace.’ An empire gone wrong; an empire completely gone, in fact. A nation with delusional ideas of its place in the world, making poor choices, involved in clumsy foreign adventures, constantly on the edge of war. At home, class divides are stark yet all attention is on a Duke’s ceremonial marriage. And surging through the chaos, the absurdities of masculinity threaten to destroy everything. An epic fable set in the faraway Spanish Golden Age, Jo Clifford's play Losing Venice is a joyously original, witty take-down of dangerously daft machismo and the deranged behaviour of countries that have lost an empire and still not yet found a role… First seen at the 1985 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Losing Venice was revived at the Orange Tree, Richmond, in 2018.

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A wildly imaginative, hilariously provocative and deeply moving play from one of Scotland's most important playwrights. The philosopher David Hume and the father of modern economics, Adam Smith, wake up in Edinburgh in the early twenty-first century. To their bewilderment, joy and horror, it is a world where all the knowledge they ever dreamt of is at everyone's fingertips and the utopia of a free-market economy is a reality. But at what cost to the planet and to humanity? With their fellow traveller, Eve, a Scottish everywoman, Hume and Smith embark on an extraordinary journey of enlightenment - from the concrete New Towns of Scotland's central belt, to Silicon Glen, ecstasy and the gay clubs of Edinburgh. Jo Clifford's play The Tree of Knowledge was first performed at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, in 2011.

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Drama Classics: The World's Great Plays at a Great Little Price García Lorca's passionate, lyrical tale of longing and revenge: a twentieth century masterpiece. Translated from the Spanish and introduced by one of Scotland's finest playwrights, Jo Clifford.

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A beautifully simple adaptation of one of Dickens's best-loved novels, bringing it thrillingly to life for the stage. When the orphan Pip meets the convict Magwitch in a graveyard and is forced to help him escape, his life takes a series of unexpected turns. Invited to the house of the mysterious Miss Havisham, he falls in love with her adopted daughter, the beautiful but cold-hearted Estella. Then the generosity of an unknown benefactor sends him to London to become a gentleman. But the truth behind his change of fortune, once revealed, is not what Pip expects... Jo Clifford's adaptation of Great Expectations was first performed at Richmond Theatre, London, in 2012, before transferring to the West End. Eminently actable and stageable, this version is also ideal for schools and amateur theatre companies. This edition contains introductions by Simon Callow, Lucinda Dickens Hawksley (great-great-great granddaughter of Charles Dickens) and Clifford herself.

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Drama Classics: The World's Great Plays at a Great Little Price Federico García Lorca's extraordinarily powerful drama, the last he wrote before his assassination, explores the darkness at the heart of repression. When Bernarda's husband dies, she locks all the doors and windows. She tells her grown-up daughters to sew and be silent. 'There are eight years of mourning ahead of us. While it lasts not even the wind will get into this house.' But locks can't hold back the growing tide of desire. This English version of The House of Bernarda Alba, published in the Nick Hern Books Drama Classics series, is translated and introduced by Jo Clifford, and also contains a chronology and suggestions for further reading.

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Three of Federico García Lorca's most famous plays in a single volume, translated from the Spanish and introduced by one of Scotland's finest playwrights, Jo Clifford. 'There's fire burning in my head. There's an ocean drowning my heart.' Lorca's passionate, lyrical tales of longing and revenge put the spotlight on the rural poor of 1930s Spain and are considered masterpieces of twentieth-century theatre. These plays exhibit Lorca's intense anger at the injustices of society, and his determination to create art that might remedy it. The collection contains Blood Wedding, Yerma and The House of Bernarda Alba, in sensitive and playable translations, and a full introduction to Lorca, his times and his work. The Nick Hern Books Drama Classic Collections series brings together the most popular plays from a single author or a particular period. They offer students, actors and theatregoers a series of uncluttered, accessible editions, accompanied by comprehensive introductions. Where the originals are in English, there is a glossary of unfamiliar words and phrases. Where the originals are in a foreign language, the translations aim to be both actable and accurate – and are made by translators whose work is regularly staged in the professional theatre.

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