Other books that might interest you

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  London Road (NHB Modern Plays)

  Alecky Blythe

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  A revolutionary musical, based on the 2006 Ipswich murders, with a book by acclaimed verbatim playwright Alecky Blythe. Named Best Musical at the 2011 Critics' Circle Theatre Awards.
  In late 2006 the everyday life of the quiet rural town of Ipswich was shattered by the discovery of the bodies of five women.
  The residents of London Road had struggled for years with the soliciting and kerb-crawling that they frequently encountered. As Steve Wright, the occupant of No. 79, was arrested, charged and then convicted of the murders, the immediate community grappled with the media frenzy and what it meant to be at the epicentre of this tragedy.
  Playwright Alecky Blythe recorded extensive interviews with the people of Ipswich. Composer Adam Cork's score is a response to the melodic and rhythmic speech patterns captured on those recordings. London Road is an experimental and challenging work which reveals the ways in which even the darkest experiences can engender a greater sense of our mutual dependence.
  London Road premiered at the Cottesloe, National Theatre, London, in April 2011.
  'an astonishing document about a beleaguered yet resilient community... a startling, magically original success' Evening Standard
  'the most genuinely interesting and innovative new musical I've seen for ages' Michael Coveney, WhatsOnStage

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  The Valley of the Squinting Windows

  Brinsley McNamara

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  Valley of the Squinting Windows is a classic Irish novel set in central Ireland c. 1914–16 in Garradrimna is a tiny village where everyone is interested in everyone else's business.
  
  
  Twenty years before the events of the book, Nan Byrne has a relationship with a local man, Henry Shannon, hoping to marry him for his wealth. She falls pregnant but Henry refuses to marry her. After a miscarriage, the baby is buried at the bottom of the garden. Henry marries another woman and later dies, while Nan herself emigrates to England and marries Ned Brennan. They later move back to Garradrimna, where the villagers rejoice in telling Ned about his wife's past.
  
  
  Ned is brought low by the humiliation of his wife's past promiscuity. He drinks and makes a little as a labourer, whereas Nan works every day at sewing to support their only child, John, studying in England to become a Catholic priest. However, she becomes as cruel, petty, and jealous as the rest of Garradrimna, conniving with the postmistress to sabotage Myles Shannon's chance at romance with an English girl, to get revenge on the Shannon family for rejecting her.
  
  
  Her son John returns to Garradrimna for a holiday, where he befriends Ulick Shannon (son of Henry) and falls for Rebecca Kerr, a schoolteacher. Ulick and Rebecca have a relationship however, and when Rebecca becomes pregnant she is disgraced and expelled from the village. Ulick abandons her and John murders him, weighing the body with lead and hiding it in the lake. Rebecca leaves for Dublin and an uncertain future. An old gossip informs Nan and John that she witnessed the night Nan gave birth to Henry's child – in reality, the child was born alive and was given to Henry and his wife – who they raised as their son, Ulick Shannon.

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  Master Harold and the Boys

  Athol Fugard

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  Academy-Award winner Athol Fugard, one of theatre's most acclaimed playwrights, finds humor and heartbreak in the friendship of Harold, a 17-year old white boy in 1950's South Africa, and the two middle aged black servants who raised him. Racism unexpectedly shatters Harold's childhood and friendships in this absorbing, affecting coming of age play.The play, initially banned from production in South Africa, is a Drama Desk Award winner for Outstanding New Play.An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring Leon Addison Brown, Keith David and Bobby Steggert.

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  Miss Julie (NHB Classic Plays)

  August Strindberg

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  Midsummer's Eve, Sweden. A night when the sun doesn't set. A night of drinking and dancing. A night to break the rules.
  When Julie finds herself alone on her father's estate, she throws caution to the wind and gate-crashes the servants' party. In the sultry heat of that long, light night, she finds herself in a dangerous tryst with her father's manservant, Jean. What begins as a flirtatious game, as the two vie for power, slowly descends into a savage fight for survival.
  August Strindberg's Miss Julie was written at a time of industrial and social unrest, a ground-breaking masterpiece that still provokes and shocks audiences today. Award-winning playwright Howard Brenton brings Strindberg's genius to life in this brilliant adaptation premiered at Theatre by the Lake, Keswick, in July 2017.
  'riveting... as real and sensational now as ever and as socially and politically pertinent'- Guardian

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  Tangled Yet Coiled - A...

  Tom Burgess

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  Tangled Yet Coiled is a collection of 22 poems exploring the climate emergency, the unifying potential of nature, and experiences of wilderness that vault the ego, that captivate and sustain. It is written with the hope of turning powerlessness into small acts of courage and championing the natural beauty found in humans and all living things.

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  The Goodbye Girl

  Neil Simon

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  In this unique audio adaptation of Neil Simon’s screenplay, Paula McFadden’s a down-on-her-luck actress who’s forced to take in a new roommate — the eccentric, noisy, and generally unpleasant Eliot Garfield — who also happens to be an actor. As their careers and finances hit new lows, their reluctant partnership threatens to turn into something neither one wants.An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast recording, starring (in alphabetical order): Ellis Greer as Donna and others; Anna Mathias as multiple characters; Matthew Floyd Miller as Eliot Garfield; Amy Pietz as Paula McFadden; Raini Rodriguez as Lucy; André Sogliuzzo as multiple characters; Inger Tudor as Mrs. Crosby and others; Matthew Wolf as Mark Bodine and others; Adam Wylie as multiple characters.Directed by Rosalind Ayres.

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