Bücher der Reihe Modern Plays

A play and production from one of the world's most innovative theatre companies

A play for younger people, DNA is a poignant and, sometimes, hilarious tale with a very dark heart. It opened at the National Theatre in February 2008.

Then in a beautiful cloud of Holy, I go out the door to meet with my people, to see if I really am. With the angelus and two and six in my pocket, I am a rich and holy possible Jesus. I stop and talk to everyone I meet: 'Hello, I might be Jesus.'Meet Pakie. An orphan, a storyteller, an adventurer, a survivor. He may not be the sharpest sandwich in the tool box, but Pakie knows a thing or two about the history of his native town - from the vicious Vikings, to the less-than Christian Brothers. Pakie's a laugh a minute . . . but he's got secrets. Secrets the God-fearing people of Oggle may not be ready to hear.Written by renowned Irish actor Peter Gowen, The Chronicles of Oggle is a hilarious and heartbreaking story of small towns and even smaller minds.

Written in 1864, Arrah na Pogue is an entertaining, hilarious tale of romance and rmisadventure with rascally rebels, despicable villains and love struck youths.

Tartuffe, or The Impostor (pronounced: [taRtuf]; French: Tartuffe, ou l'Imposteur), first performed in 1664, is one of the most famous theatrical comedies by Moliere, and the characters of Tartuffe, Valere, and Dorine are considered among the greatest classical theatre roles. This is a translation for the stage by Ranjit Bolt.

Internationally acclaimed play of cross-cultural friendship

Anthony Burgess's stage play of his infamous cult novel and film of the same name. This is the story of Alex and his teenage gang, "The Droogs", their life of rape and murder, and "ultraviolence", and the moral dilemma that arises when Alex is brainwashed into good citizenship.

Oh, Misha, it's terrible to be an educated woman. An educated woman with nothing to do. What am I here for? Why am I alive? They should make me a professor somewhere, or a director of something ... If I were a diplomat I'd turn the whole world upside down ... An educated woman ... And nothing to do.Village schoolmaster Mikhail Vasilyevich has it all: wit, intelligence, a comfortable and respectable life in provincial Russia, and the attentions of four beautiful women - one of whom is his devoted wife. As summer arrives and the seasonal festivities commence, the rapidly intensifying heat makes everyone giddy with sunlight, vodka - and passion.Michael Frayn's comedy of errors, drawn from Chekhov's untitled and posthumously discovered early play, is a tale of nineteenth-century Russian life replete with classic misunderstandings, irrepressible desires and nostalgia for a vanishing world. Wild Honey received its premiere in the National Theatre's Lyttelton space, London, on 19 July 1984. This edition was published for the revival at the Hampstead Theatre in December 2016.

Now. Tonight. Before we're sent back to the front. Take every bit of money you got. Ditch everything else.July 1916. Albert Ingham and Alfred Longshaw are crouched in a muddy, rat-infested trench in France. These sharp and funny young soldiers from a battalion of the Manchester Pals are about to take part in one of the most savage assaults in the history of human warfare, The Battle of the Somme.Their survival is a miracle. Their company has lost 600 men. Overwhelmed by the sheer horror of the experience, neither of them dare stare extinction in the face again. So, when they are ordered to transfer to the Machine Gun Corps and return to the blood-soaked front line, they decide, for the first time in their young lives, to take their fragile destiny in their own trembling hands.But becoming a deserter, that most embarrassing and shameful sort of fighting man, takes more courage than they ever knew they had.Mark Hayhurst's play is a gripping thriller that exposes the impact of the First World War on soldiers and their families. It follows his acclaimed debut at Chichester Festival Theatre with Taken at Midnight in 2014, which transferred to the West End the following year. First Light received its world premiere at Chichester's Minerva Theatre on 10 June 2016.

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A town a ten thousand people. What parade do we get? I''m a parade. I''m a one-man parade. Halloween. A small town in the west of Ireland. There''s a party to get to and Mikey and Casey have everything they need . . . Booze. Cash. Drugs. Each other. The only problem is they''re stuck. Stuck on a roof. Stuck together. And as they wait for the Guards to stop circling the house, they find out there are some truths you just can''t climb down from. A raucous and unlikely romantic drama, twenty feet up. If We Got Some More Cocaine I Could Show You How I Love You premiered at the Old Red Lion theatre, London, in August 2016

I thought everything would change, after the war. And now, no one even mentions it. It is as if we all got together in private and said whatever you do don''t mention that, like it never happened.It''s the late 1940s. Calm has returned to London and five people are recovering from the chaos of war.In scenes set in a quiet dating agency, a bombed-out church and a prison cell, the stories of these five lives begin to intertwine and we uncover the desire and regret that has bound them together.Sarah Waters''s story of illicit love and everyday heroism takes us from a dazed and shattered post-war Britain back into the heart of the Blitz, towards the secrets that are hidden there.Olivier-nominated playwright Hattie Naylor has created a thrilling and theatrically inventive adaptation of a great modern novel.The stage adaptation of The Night Watch was premiered at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, on 16 May 2016.

Antigone, defying her uncle Creon's decree that her brother should remain unburied, challenges the morality of man's law overruling the laws of the gods. The clash between her and Creon with its tragic consequences have inspired continual reinterpretation. This translation was made for a BBC TV production of the "Theban Plays" in 1986.

Adapted for the stage by the author, The Speckled People is a German-Irish memoir of growing up in Dublin during the 1950s. This family drama tells a profoundly moving story of a young boy trapped in a war of identity and language.

This work is the last play by Sarah Kane, the controversial contemporary British playwright, who died aged 28 in February 1999. A single voice, dragged through therapy and endless medication, reveals the true experience of clinical depression.

Love ain't something you just say. Just this word. It's something you do. A twenty-first-century love story. Caneze meets Sully in the college canteen. The heat rises over triple chilli sauce in Nando's. She makes her move in the sweet smoke of a shisha bar. A touchpaper is lit . . . but neither of them bargained on the lengths to which her brother would go to keep them apart. Blood is a heartfelt play by Emteaz Hussain, the writer of Tamasha's Sweet Cider. It received its world premiere in a production by Tamasha Theatre company in March 2015.

-A Lyric Hammersmith production ... First performance of this production at the Lyric Hammersmith on 07 October 2016---Added title page.

NINE LIVESSee over here it''s not like over there. Here there are neon lights. Here there are queens. Here there are rainbow flags draw high.One man and a suitcase filled with the past, uncertainty, high heels, brokenness, African dancing shells and hope.Ishmael has been outed, along with his lover, David. He has sought sanctuary in the UK, but is this evidence enough? As Ishmael waits to hear his fate, he encounters new friends - and enemies, all the while looking for a place to call home again. Zodwa Nyoni threads together humour and humanity to tell the real personal story behind asylum headlines.Nine Lives was developed as part of the West Yorkshire Playhouse''s A Play, A Pie and A Pint programme in 2014 and received a UK national tour in 2015.COME TO WHERE I''M FROMTongue-tied child got lost in migration. Tongue-tied child got lost in separation. Tongue-tied child got lost in assimilation.Theatre company Paines Plough''s Come To Where I''m From programme offers a theatrical tapestry of the UK, woven by writers asking if home really is where the heart is. Since 2010, 88 playwrights from across the UK have returned to their home towns to write plays about the places that shaped them. This publication features Zodwa Nyoni''s 2013 monologue for the series - a meditation on place, belonging and the author''s Zimbabwean roots.

Reissue of a classic Methuen Modern Play in a newly restored version with a new Introduction by Joan Littlewood

In spite of my desperation I have been patient, in spite of my bewilderment I have been understanding, in spite of my feeling of utter abandonment ... I've been hanging on in there. Trying to help you come through this terrible thing.While Eleanor wants a child, her willing partner, Richard, is too busy running the Dead Funny Society.But in a week when British comedy heroes Frankie Howard and Benny Hill both kick the bucket, the society gather for a celebration, which promises to be full of hilarity and laughter - well, for everybody except the disgruntled Eleanor anyhow.Terry Johnson's hilarious comedy of mortality and marriage was premiered at the Hampstead Theatre in January 1994. This edition was published for the West End revival in October 2016 at the Vaudeville Theatre, London.

Christopher, stands beside Mrs Shears's dead dog. It has been speared with a garden fork, it is seven minutes after midnight, and Christopher is under suspicion. He records each fact in the book he is writing to solve the mystery of who murdered Wellington.

Good evening. I'm Inspector Carter. Take my case. This must be Charles Haversham! I'm sorry, this must've given you all a damn shock. After benefitting from a large and sudden inheritance, the inept and accident-prone Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society embark on producing an ambitious 1920s murder mystery. They are delighted that neither casting issues nor technical hitches currently stand in their way. However, hilarious disaster ensues and the cast start to crack under the pressure, but can they get the production back on track before the final curtain falls? The Play That Goes Wrong is a farcical murder mystery, a play within a play, conceived and performed by award-winning company Mischief. It was first published as a one-act play and is published in this new edition as a two-act play.

In Methuen Drama's Modern Classics series, this edition of Brecht's anti-war masterpiece translated by John Willett features an extensive introduction and Brecht's notes and textual variants.

I'm a hard worker. I don't push him to the . . . You know I don't go out for breaks when I'm not supposed to. I don't stay in the loo when I'm not supposed to. If I was that kind of person I could have him done for discrimination . . . I just get on with things you know.Four people arrive to work the night shift in a meat factory. They meet for the first time. They are employed as cleaners by a temp agency. They are all on zero-hours contracts.Every shift, they clean. Every four hours, they take a break. They drink tea or coffee together. They read magazines. They chat. As it gets light, they go home or to another job. The cycle goes on. And on. Strangers. Until something stirs, until isolated people get too close to one another, too fast.Alexander Zeldin's brutally honest and darkly humorous play, written through devising with the ensemble of the premiere production, exposes stories of an invisible class. It received its world premiere at The Yard on 1 July 2014 and transferred to the National Theatre's Temporary Theatre on 28 April 2015.

Reissue of this Methuen classic to tie in with a major new production

My Mother Said I Never Should premiered in 1987 at the Contact theatre in Manchester and was subsequently presented in 1989 at the Royal Court Theatre in London.

First issued by Methuen in 1959, this play was the first title in the "Modern plays" series aimed at the burgeoning readership of young theatregoer This title and five others are reissued, representing the range and vitality of the list of titles in print .