Before It Rains (NHB Modern Plays)

Katherine Chandler

Summary

Funny, brave and beautifully told, Before It Rains is a tale of parenthood, protection and provocation set on a proud, forgotten Cardiff estate.
Gloria is a single mum who enjoys sitting in her deckchair drinking her troubles away on her allotment, while her gentle son, Michael, digs the soil and makes sure everything is in order. From a relocated, troubled home, Carl - wild, unpredictable and near feral - watches both the mother and son with interest, bouncing his ball.
'A slice of raw life...draws the audience right into the heart of how we cope with intimidation from outside and within.' - The Stage
'Sparse, tense and unnerving' - The Venue

Available since: 01/26/2015.

Print length: 88 pages.

Poetry & Theatre

Other books that might interest you

DO YOU FEEL GOD WALKING BESIDE...

Raymond Sturgis

We are living in difficult times, and for many of us, it has become harder than difficult. Many of us go to bed at night wondering how we made it through the day and if tomorrow will be our last. The political climate is divisive and hateful, while the entertainment of our lives is marred with sexual harassment and fights for social justice. Still, God walks with us. Families have been serving God for generations, and like many, they, too, are marred with hate and vindictive fabricators. It is easy to believe in God when your friends are your family and your neighbors stand with you for peace. See, God does walk with those that try to be good.

Show book

William Blake - The Epics

William Blake

William Blake was born on 28th November 1757 in London to parents of modest income that could only afford a basic education of reading and writing although he did attend a drawing school for a short time. His artistic skill was apparent relatively early and at the age of 14 he stopped working in his father’s hosiery shop and became an apprentice engraver. This apprenticeship finished when he was 21 and at 25 he married Catherine Boucher. He taught her to read and write and together in 1789 they published Songs of Innocence with text and engravings printed from copper plates and illustrations finished by hand with watercolours. It did not sell well and throughout his life he remained largely unrecognised often on the verge of poverty. This led to a deep depression for many years and he was often considered mad by his contemporaries. His creativity and imagination with its undercurrents of mysticism, spiritualism and philosophy are apparent in this selection of poems and whilst classed as a seminal figure in the Romantic Age it wasn’t until the late 19th century that his work was recognised. The 20th century saw an even greater appreciation of his poetry with Blake’s voyage beyond the rational and material chiming with the Beat poets, Dylan, Van Morrison and Jim Morrison of the band the Doors , named after Blake’s phrase Doors of Perception from his poem Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Further acclaim has been attributed to him from many scholars of art, psychology and of course literature. His poems have inspired composers such as Vaughn Williams, Britten and Taverner and Jerusalem a hymn still sung today. Blake’s vivid and intense work is still relevant to all to this day and he is recognised as a saint in the Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica. William Blake died on 12th August 1827 and in 1957 a memorial was erected at Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey.

Show book

The Tempest

William Shakespeare

A magical tale of enchantment, retribution and love. Prospero, the rightful Duke of Milan, is betrayed by his brother and exiled to a desert island with his daughter Miranda. With the help of Ariel, a spirit, he uses his supernatural powers to shipwreck his brother and others on the same island. With a series of illusions, he regains his rightful place and finds a husband for his daughter.

Show book

The Life of Riley Collection 1

Black Eye Entertainment

Created by Irving Brecher, The Life of Riley starred William Bendix as Brooklyn-born Chester A. Riley, a family man who worked as an airplane riveter at the fictional Cunningham Aircraft plant in California. The stories were usually set at home, cheerfully disrupting life with his malapropisms and ill-timed intervention into minor problems. His stock answer to every turn of fate "what a revoltin' development this is!" became a popular catch phrase. Paula Winslowe was Riley's wife, Peg; John Brown doubled as undertaker "Digger" O'Dell and as Riley's co-worker, Jim Gillis; Tommy Cook, Bobby Ellis and Scotty Beckett each played the role of Riley's son, Junior; and Sharon Douglas played the Riley's daughter, Babs. Alan Reed (the voice of Fred Flintstone) played multiple characters, including Riley's boss, Mr. Stevenson and Peg's father. Whereas Gillis gave Riley bad advice that got him into trouble, Digger gave him good advice that "helped him out of a hole." The Life of Riley aired on radio from 1944 until 1951 making a successful transition to television in 1949. Due to a contract dispute, Bendix couldn't initially play Riley on television so the role went to Jackie Gleason. In 1953, William Bendix was free to star as Riley on the small screen and continued with it until 1958.

10/5/46 "Good Neighbor Week"12/28/46 "New Year's Eve"3/29/47 "The New Chair"4/5/47 "Accused of being a Child Beater"4/12/47 "Is Peg Cheating?"4/19/47 "Riley think Junior is a Coward"5/3/47 "Launching Babs into Society"5/10/47 "Mother's Day Show"6/7/47 "Courting Peg at Camp"6/14/47 "Soap Box Derby"6/28/47 "Vacation without the Wives"7/5/47 "Riley Thinks Peg is Leaving Him"

Show book

God's Dice (NHB Modern Plays)

David Baddiel

Science and religion go head to head in David Baddiel's debut play: a ferociously funny battle for power, fame and followers.
When physics student Edie seems to prove, scientifically, the existence of God, it has far-reaching effects. Not least for her lecturer, Henry Brook, his marriage to celebrity atheist author Virginia – and his entire universe.
God's Dice is an electric tragicomedy about the power of belief and our quest for truth in a fractured world. It premiered at Soho Theatre, London, in October 2019, starring Alan Davies as Henry, and directed by James Grieve.

Show book

Rapture

Professor Carol Ann Duffy DBE

'Carol Ann Duffy is the most humane and accessible poet of our time, and Rapture is essential reading for the broken-hearted of all ages' - Rose Tremain 
The effortless virtuosity, directness, drama and humanity of Carol Ann Duffy's verse have made her our most admired and best-loved contemporary poet. Rapture, her seventh collection, is a book-length love-poem, and a moving act of personal testimony; but what sets these poems apart from other treatments of the subject is that Duffy refuses to simplify the contradictions of love, and read its transformations - infatuation, longing, passion, commitment, rancour, separation and grief - as simply redemptive or destructive.  
Rapture is a map of real love, in all its churning complexity. Yet in showing us that a song can be made of even the most painful episodes in our lives, Duffy has accessed a new level of directness that sacrifices nothing in the way of subtlety of expression. These are poems that will find deep rhymes in the experience of most readers, and nowhere has Duffy more eloquently articulated her belief that poetry should speak for us all.

Show book