Other books that might interest you

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  Terminus (NHB Modern Plays)

  Mark O'Rowe

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  A blackly comic vision of Dublin infested with demons, from the author of Howie the Rookie.
  Edinburgh Fringe First Award 2008
  Three people are ripped from their daily lives and catapulted into a fantastical world of singing serial killers, avenging angels and lovesick demons.
  Hold tight as the ordinary turns extraordinary in Mark O'Rowe's urban fantasy.
  'hilarious, stunning, surprisingly touching and enormously satisfying... a fantastic piece of writing' - Irish Times
  'dazzling... O'Rowe is expanding his language and dramatic form as far as they can go' - Guardian
  'gripping, grotesque and deliriously good... [Terminus] makes O'Rowe pretty much the most exciting contemporary Irish playwright' - Sunday Tribune

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  Henry IV A Tragedy in Three Acts

  Luigi Pirandello

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  A talented actor and historian falls off his horse in a historical pageant while playing the role of Henry IV. When he comes to, he believes himself to be Henry. For the next twenty years his nephew, Count de Nolli, funds an elaborate hoax in a remote villa, where actors play the roles of Henry's privy councillors and simulate the 11th century court. 
   
  On request from his dying mother, de Nolli brings a Doctor referred to as the latest in a succession to try to cure Henry (whose real name, if it is not Henry, is never mentioned). All the action of the play occurs in this one day of the visit. - Summary by Wikipedia 
   
  Narrator: KHandHenry IV: Peter TuckerThe Marchioness Matilda Spina: P. J. MorganFrida: Amanda FridayThe young Marquis Charles Di Nolli: Vin ReillyBaron Tito Belcredi: Delmar H DolbierDr. Dionysius Genoni: ToddHWHarold (Frank): Will IraceLandolph (Lolo): Levi ThrockmortonOrdulph (Momo): Adele de PignerollesBerthold (Fino): Mary JJohn: Mark ChulskyFirst Valet: Alex LaneSecond valet: Andrew ColemanProof-listened by Jeanie & Roohi

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  The Pardoners Tale

  Geoffrey Chaucer

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  These three tales from The Canterbury Tales are read in the original Middle English by Richard Bebb under the direction of Britain’s foremost Chaucer scholar, Derek Brewer. This was Bebb’s last recording – he died shortly after finishing it – but though ill at the time, his strong professional ethic ensured that it lacks none of the brightness and accuracy that he brought to his two other Chaucer recordings on Naxos AudioBooks: The General Prologue and The Knyghtes Tale.

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  Daughter (NHB Modern Plays)

  Adam Lazarus

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  Here is a father who loves his daughter. You can tell from the way he held her when she was born after a difficult delivery; you can tell from the way he dances with her to her favourite songs; you can tell from the way he will do anything to protect her.
  He's not going to apologise for every other little thing he's ever done. Who knows, you might have done them too…
  Told with unsettling charm, Daughter is a darkly satirical monologue about fatherhood, love and toxic masculinity, by Canadian playwright and performer Adam Lazarus.
  Daughter received its UK premiere at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2018, where it became one of the most talked about shows at the festival, before transferring to Battersea Arts Centre, London, in 2020.
  This edition contains the complete text of the play alongside an introduction by the author and essays about the impact of the play and the issues it raises.
  
  'Powerful and unsettling. Keeps pushing and pushing at the line as if daring us to draw it' - Independent
  'Magnetic. The audience are unsure whether to give a standing ovation or stage a walk-out' - Guardian
  'Electrifying. A timely portrait of everyday misogyny hiding in plain sight' - Herald

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  Revolt Against the Sun - The...

  Nazik al-Malaʾika

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  The Iraqi poet Nazik al-Malaika was one of the most important Arab poets of the twentieth century. Over the course of a four-decade career, her contributions to both the theory and the practice of free verse (or tafʿilah) poetry confirmed her position as a pioneer of Arab modernism.
  Revolt Against the Sun presents a selection of Nazik al-Malaika's poetry in English for the first time. Bringing together poems from each of her published collections, it traces al-Mala'ika's transformation from a lyrical Romantic poet in the 1940s to a fervently committed Arab nationalist in the 1970s and 1980s. The translations offer both an overview of her life and work, and an insight into the political and social realities in the Arab world in the decades following the Second World War.
  Featuring a comprehensive historical and critical introduction, this bilingual reader reveals how one woman transformed the landscape of modern Arabic literature and culture in the twentieth century. It is a key resource for students and teachers of Arabic and world literature, as well as for readers interested in discovering an alternative narrative of modern Iraqi culture.

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  Black Words Matter - Poets From...

  Paul Laurence Dunbar, Langston...

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  This anthology focuses on African-American poets.  We start in the 18th century and end with the Harlem Renaissance.  Many poets featured are, and were, rarely heard and have been painfully neglected.  To be of colour was deemed at best to be second class so few of our poets had the privileges most of us take for granted or a means to market. Down the ages they illuminate the stain on our humanity and its ever-repeating cycle.  
  Over ages, eons and countless generations humanity has sought to better itself.  Ideas and cultures have sprung forth creating fertile conditions for change and advancement.  We have gathered together as families, clans, tribes and nations in the clear knowledge that together more can be achieved for the individual.  New systems have evolved, waxed and waned, been replaced or discarded by bright shiny new ones.   
   
  From afar the chances of humanity bettering itself must seem promising.  But today's generations find themselves searching not only for answers from others but also from themselves, for solutions to turn a world where privilege, wealth and power reside with the few to be the right of the many.  These unequal times will not give way easily. Entrenched interests will promise change and deliver little.  This is the real history of the human race.  We will claim that education, health care and jobs are for everyone and yet continue to mis-educate, to ignore primary care and offer jobs that even a robot would think twice about. 
   
  Those oppressed by race, creed, gender or colour will find the invisible walls of the status quo difficult to overcome. But there is hope - if we collectively want action.  When we don’t merely call for that change but when we demand that change from ourselves, and from society.  When we charge our political leaders to serve our interests rather than their own. 
   
  We may be created equal but society, and ourselves, sort, layer and assemble us all into groups, those it can keep underfoot and those who will have an unequal share. Real change requires all of us to change, to recognise that equal opportunity starts from equal access to resources. We need to praise ourselves less and provoke ourselves to do more, together.  If the pain is shared the rewards can be shared. 
   
  This volume does not dwell only on equality but covers a very wide range of subjects from recognised masters of the craft such as Paul Laurence Dunbar and Phyllis Wheatley to lesser known poets like Mary E Tucker and Charles Lewis Reason. 
   
   
  The reality is that we are more interested in changing our phones than changing our attitudes and the real changes that will bring.  Both can be done in an instant. In an era of disposable everything we stick rigidly to keeping what we have and yet, bleat that oppression is wrong.  Fair-weather activists. The news cycle will pass.  So does the moment…..until the next time. 
   
  In this collection of poems poets down the ages illuminate the stain on our humanity and its ever-repeating cycle. They call and illustrate the need for change.   
   
  It's an enduring problem that seeks sensible and enduring solutions.   
   
  If it be our will both we and society can change. 
  They call and illustrate the need for change.

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