Böcker i NHB Modern Plays-serien

A stunningly ambitious work from one of the UK's most influential playwrights. Someone sneezes. Someone can't get a signal. Someone shares a secret. Someone won't answer the door. Someone put an elephant on the stairs. Someone's not ready to talk. Someone is her brother's mother. Someone hates irrational numbers. Someone told the police. Someone got a message from the traffic light. Someone's never felt like this before. In this fast-moving kaleidoscope, more than a hundred characters try to make sense of what they know. Premiered at the Royal Court in September 2012. 'This exhilarating theatrical kaleidoscope... What is extraordinary about Churchill is her capacity as a dramatist to go on reinventing the wheel' The Guardian 'The wit, invention and structural integrity of Churchill's work are remarkable... She never does the same thing twice' The Telegraph 'A wonderful web of complex emotions, memories, secrets and facts' A Younger Theatre

Four boys face the tricky transition to adulthood in Ella Hickson's riot of a play. Premiered at High Tide Festival 2012, then Nuffield Theatre, Southampton, and Soho Theatre, London. The Class of 2011 are about to graduate and Benny, Mack, Timp and Cam are due out of their flat. Stepping into a world that doesn't want them, these boys start to wonder whether there's any point in getting any older. How will they find the fight to make it as adults? Before all that they're going to have one hell of a party. It's hot and there'll be girls. Predict a riot. 'Marvellous... a play that both powerfully captures the mood of a generation and addresses permanent truths with exhilarating flair' Independent 'Will leave you with laughter lines' Time Out 'Heartfelt directness of writing that taps into a generation torn between action and inertia' Guardian

A funny, touching and at times savage portrait of a family full of longing that's losing its grip - The Last of the Haussmans is a play examining the fate of the revolutionary generation. It premiered at the National Theatre in 2012, starring Julie Walters and Rory Kinnear. Anarchic, feisty but growing old, high-society drop-out Judy Haussman remains in spirit with the ashrams of the 1960s, while holding court in her dilapidated art deco house on the Devon coast. After an operation, she's joined by her wayward offspring, her sharp-eyed granddaughter, a local doctor and a troubled teenager who makes use of the family's crumbling swimming pool. Over a few sweltering months they alternately cling to and flee a chaotic world of all-day drinking, infatuations, long-held resentments, free love and failure. 'A knockout - entertaining, sad and outrageous. [Stephen Beresford] is going to be a major name' Observer 'Beresford's drama is frequently a hoot... you can't not enjoy' Metro 'Beresford's debut is thoughtful and fresh, delighting in the savagery of a dysfunctional family... deliciously comical... drips with smart lines' Evening Standard

A brilliant and unsettling play from one of the UK's leading dramatists. Premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in 2000. At the opening of the play, a young girl is questioning her aunt about having seen her uncle hitting people with an iron bar; by the end, several years later, the whole world is at war - including birds and animals. Far Away is a howl of anguish at the increasing - and increasingly accepted - levels of inhumanity in a world seemingly perpetually involved in conflict. 'You know you are in the hands of a master' The Sunday Times 'Churchill was expected to produce something explosive, but... she has exceeded the critics' highest expectations' The Observer

Rattigan's well-loved play about an unpopular schoolmaster who snatches a last shred of dignity from the collapse of his career and his marriage. Twice filmed (with Michael Redgrave and Albert Finney) and frequently revived. Andrew Crocker-Harris' wife Millie has become embittered and fatigued by her husband's lack of passion and ambition. On the verge of retirement, and divorce, Andrew is forced to come to terms with the platitude his life has become. Then John Taplow, a previously unnoticed pupil, gives Andrew an unexpected parting gift: a second-hand copy of Robert Browning's translation of Agamemnon - a gift which offers not only a opportunity for redemption, but the chance to gain back some dignity. This edition also contains Harlequinade, a farce about a touring theatre troupe, written to accompany The Browning Version in a double-bill under the joint title, Playbill. The plays are presented with an authoritative introduction, biographical sketch and chronology by Dan Rebellato.'The cruel inequalities of love always absorbed Rattigan, not least here - this is a play that has not dated.' The Times

A simple and delightfully inventive re-telling of the stories from the Arabian Nights. This revised edition was published alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company's production in 2009. It is wedding night in the palace of King Shahrayar. By morning, the new Queen Shahrazad is to be put to death like all the young brides before her. But she has one gift that could save her - the gift of storytelling. With her mischievous imagination, the young Queen spins her dazzling array of tales and characters. On her side are Ali Baba, Es-Sindibad the Sailor and Princess Parizade - adventurers in strange and magical worlds populated by giant beasts, talking birds, devilish ghouls and crafty thieves. But will her silver-tongued stories be enough to enchant her husband and save her life? 'Superb... weaves a potent spell of enchantment as it moves from cruelty to happiness and from the blissfully ribald to the deeply affecting' Telegraph 'A masterful piece of storytelling... a truly magical piece of theatre that delights the senses' Whatsonstage.com 'The family show to see this le' Guardian

Mary Shelley: daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft; lover of Shelley; author of Frankenstein' Helen Edmundson's compelling play explores a crucial episode in the early life of Mary Shelley - her meeting and scandalous elopement aged sixteen with Percy Bysshe Shelley, and its consequences for her sisters, her stepmother and above all, her troubled father, the political philosopher William Godwin. 'Gripping... without ever reducing Mary Shelley to an issue drama, Edmundson suggests the destructive nature of a life lived without compromise' The Times

An urgent play about the senseless killing of a black schoolboy, from one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary British playwriting. Premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in 2008. Death never used to be for the young. You get up. You go bout your business. You expect to come back. random was adapted for television in 2011, winning a BAFTA for Best Single Drama. 'debbie tucker green's writing is so raw and immediate that it can feel as if she's hacking into your heart with a rusty tin opener.' Time Out

An exhilarating coming-of-age drama for a solo performer. Fringe First Award, Edinburgh 2010 Scorching heat. A fight. A car chase. A siege. When her boyfriend is attacked on the street, feisty eighteen-year-old Katie is thrust on a white-knuckle ride through one extraordinary evening. Amidst the baying for blood and the longing for love, Katie is forced to decide her future. 'Electrifying combination of streetwise earthiness and heartbreaking vulnerability... terrific' Scotsman

The average person will speak 123,205,750 words in a lifetime. But what if there were a limit? Oliver and Bernadette are about to find out. Sam Steiner's award-winning play Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons imagines a world where we're forced to say less.

A play about conflicted desire and dangerous loyalties in a world trembling in the grip of a devastating epidemic.

An insightful and revealing play, inspired by real events, which explores society's uncomfortable embrace of the outsider.

Ella Hickson's version of J.M. Barrie's much-loved story puts the character of Wendy firmly centre stage, in an adaptation that is refreshingly modern but never loses the charm of the original.

An exhilarating and unsentimental exploration of working-class life in Belfast.

A play about what happens when a Prime Minister ad-libs on live TV, exploring how language seeps into public consciousness and reverberates with far-reaching consequences that will last for generations. Premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London.

A celebration of a great English heroine, Anne Boleyn dramatises the life and legacy of Henry VIII's notorious second wife, who helped change the course of the nation's history. Premiered at Shakespeare's Globe in 2010. Best New Play, Whatsonstage.com Awards Traditionally seen as either the pawn of an ambitious family manoeuvred into the King's bed or as a predator manipulating her way to power, Anne - and her ghost - are seen in a very different light in Howard Brenton's epic play. Rummaging through the dead Queen Elizabeth's possessions upon coming to the throne in 1603, King James I finds alarming evidence that Anne was a religious conspirator, in love with Henry VIII but also with the most dangerous ideas of her day. She comes alive for him, a brilliant but reckless young woman confident in her sexuality, whose marriage and death transformed England for ever. 'This is no dry and dusty history lesson... a witty and engrossing impression of the times that gave birth to our first Elizabethan age, and the subsequent reformation' British Theatre Guide 'The play bursts through the constraints of costume drama'The Independent 'What an absolute delight... a beautifully-written piece of theatre that instantly draws you in into the life and times of both Anne Boleyn and King James I' Whatsonstage.com

A remarkable dramatic portrait of life in New York City in 1930, as the Harlem Renaissance starts to feel the bite of the Great Depression.