Other books that might interest you

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  Big Big Sky (NHB Modern Plays)

  Tom Wells

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  Kilnsea, East Yorkshire. Angie and Lauren are closing up the café for another winter; the birds have gone south and taken the tourists with them. The last visitor is Dennis, stopping by for his pasty and beans. But there's another arrival – one that's unforeseen and life-changing for them all.
  
  Big Big Sky is a beautifully tender play by Tom Wells, who was originally from Kilnsea. The play explores nature's influence on love, friendship and family – the belief that anyone who's lost can be found, even in the remotest of places. It was premiered at Hampstead Theatre in July 2021, directed by Tessa Walker.

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  The Complete Sonnets of William...

  William Shakespeare

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  The Bard, William Shakespeare, is the supreme talent of playwriting and perhaps also of those 14 lines of verse we call the Sonnet. 
   
  The Elizabethan Sonnet Cycle was a popular form for poets in the 16th Century with masterful works by many including Sir Phillip Sidney Edmund Spenser and Michael Drayton.  Many others wrote sonnets interspersed amongst their other works such as John Donne and even Queen Elizabeth herself. 
   
  But ranking above all others is William Shakespeare.  Some of his sonnets are known in part or whole by all of us such as Sonnet 116 Let me not to the marriage of true minds.  Sonnet 97 ‘How long has my absence been’ and Sonnet 18 ‘Shall I compare thee to a Summers day’. Many of the others are as equal in insight, magnificence, tender expressions, sweeping statements and sheer brilliance. 
   
  Whilst in total they number 154 there is little other poetry of Shakespeare’s to compare them to unless of course the majesty of his plays is also thought of as poetry. 
   
  It matters not.  Instead let us feast on these sumptuous readings as we journey together through one of the greatest experiences the English language and its son William Shakespeare have ever created.

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  The Real & Imagined History of...

  Tom Wright

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  Arriving from his East Midlands beginnings into a London thick with the grime of industrialisation, Joseph Merrick is an anomaly. In a city of factories that churn out uniformity, there is no place for someone like him.
  But Merrick and the city are evolving into something new. We follow him through the workhouse, the freak show, and the hospital, as he searches for acceptance in a society that just wants to stare at him.
  Powerful, angry and surprising, Tom Wright's acclaimed play imagines an alternative history of the person who came to be known as 'the Elephant Man'. It restores Joseph Merrick to the center of his own story: a man fighting for his right to be and to belong.
  The Real & Imagined History of the Elephant Man was first performed at Melbourne's Malthouse Theatre, before receiving its European premiere at Nottingham Playhouse in 2023, directed by Stephen Bailey, and supported by a grant from The Royal Theatrical Support Trust.
  'A challenging, moving play about spectacle, difference and identity'Limelight Magazine
  'Everyone should be moved by such poetic and accomplished theatre'The Age
  'Astonishing… it's doubtful whether there has ever been a better example of theatre's ability to be inclusive at the same time as being able to shock'British Theatre Guide
  'A powerful piece of theatre'Reviews Hub

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  Goblin Market

  Christina Rossetti

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  Christina Rossetti's long narrative poem about two innocent sisters, Lizzie and Laura, tempted by the delicious, magical fruit sold by goblin merchants as they walk through the glen...  
  Morning and evening 
  Maids heard the goblins cry: 
  ‘Come buy our orchard fruits, 
  Come buy, come buy...' 
  An Almost Tangible production, read by Sarah Twomey, directed by Carl Prekopp.

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  Pine (NHB Modern Plays)

  Jacqui Honess-Martin

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  A delightfully unfestive comedy about a group of recent graduates doing seasonal work selling Christmas trees.
  'Tis the season to be jolly. But the employees at Christmas Pines are certainly not.
  Gabby has a first-class honours degree and an MA, but somehow she's stuck - for the third year running - counting Norwegian Spruce. Betty wishes she was ice-skating with her mates at Somerset House rather than 'gaining work experience'. Joe is nursing a broken hand, and heart, by lugging trees. Taj can't decide whether he's in love with Gabby or Betty. And they're all being driven out of their minds by Christmas songs on repeat…
  Jacqui Honess-Martin's play Pine explores the value of learning on the job, the rose-tinted expectations of recent graduates, and the inability to see the wood for the trees.
  It premiered at Hampstead Downstairs, London, in December 2015.

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  Death and the Maiden

  Ariel Dorfman

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  "Generally, it's the tortured who turn into torturers."Carl Gustav JungSuspense mounts when Paulina and her husband offer hospitality to a stranger. Paulina thinks she recognizes, in their guest, the man who tortured her in prison, and she subsequently takes him hostage to find out the truth. A stunningly blunt and compelling play, Death and the Maiden explores brilliantly the issues of torture, power, vulnerability, ethics, and trust. An award-winning play by Chilean writer Ariel Dorfman, forced into exile in 1973.An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring John Kapelos, John Mahoney, Carolyn Seymour and Kristoffer Tabori.

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