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Habeas
Corpus. Play. Alan
Bennett Simply staged, this play introduces the
Wicksteeds, a family for whom the determination to put sex
and the satisfaction of the body before everything else is
the ruling passion of their lives. Permissive society is
taken to task in this farcical comedy in which the
characters move in and out through a maze of mistaken
identities and sexual encounters. As Wicksteed says, 'He
whose lust lasts, lasts longest'.
The
Habitation of Dragons. Drama.
Horton Foote, It's 1935 in Harrison, Texas. George Tolliver has decided to run for county attorney general, but his older, and more successful, brother Leonard tries to dissuade him because the family's backing has already gone to another local lawyer, his brother-in-law Billy. George runs, though, after lashing out at the more successful Leonard for less than moral support in the past. At the same time, their late father's brother Virgil appears on the Tolliver family's doorstep, asking for shelter now that he's old and broke. It's a hard decision for the widowed Mrs. Tolliver since Virgil once abandoned them years ago when they needed money; still, they take him in. Within days, Leonard's wife Margaret is found out to be having an affair with Wally Smith, her husband's handyman. On the very same afternoon, both of Margaret and Leonard's young boys drown while swimming in the river with Wally. Believing this to be a punishment for her adultery, Margaret has a breakdown and is institutionalised. In his grief, Leonard lets his law practice crumble and in despair reveals to his mother that he's always known his father committed suicide and did not die accidentally. Things aren't made any easier when Margaret's brother, Billy, murders his sister's lover .... and now a neighbour wants to blackmail the Tollivers with a packet of love letters sent from Margaret to Wally Smith. Eventually, Margaret returns home to beg her husband's forgiveness. At first Leonard refuses, but he realises he does want to start over again and he forgives Margaret before she shoots herself with the gun Leonard was going to use on himself. George, having had to make up for Leonard's absence, has rediscovered his calling as a lawyer and has finally risen to the responsibilities of his own new marriage, impending fatherhood and leading the sorrowful Tolliver household. Hadrian
the Seventh. Play.
Peter Luke In his shabby bedsitter, Rolfe is writing
his book, 'Hadrian the Seventh'. He reads of the Pope's
death, and from now on the story of Rolfe's book becomes the
action of the play - the events which befall Rolfe's
autobiographical hero, George Rose, now seem to happen to
Rolfe himself. He is summoned to Holy Orders, taken to Rome,
elected Pope and assassinated. The play ends with a return
to Rolfe's lodging where two bailiffs arrive with a Warrant
of Execution. Hamp.
Play. John Wilson Hamp crawls out of a shell-hole at
Passchendale and walks away from the battle. He is
court-martialled for desertion in the face of the enemy.
Many people try to make him realise that the court could
insist on the maximum penalty. Obtusely, Hamp has utter
faith in his counsel's power of words and believes that
everybody is too busy with the war to trouble about his
insignificant crime. But it is decreed: Hamp has to meet a
death as unceremonious as the Army can make it. Period
1917
Angus, returning home to convalesce after
a serious heart attack brought on by City job stress, fords
a less than peaceful household. Sid and Gary, archetypal
British workmen, are endeavouring to finish a kitchen
extension; son Philip conducts a 24-hour shares dealership,
and inept brother Roger and his long-suffering wife, Gwen,
bring their never-ending financial problems round. The
Handyman. Play. Ronald
Harwood Cressida and Julian live comfortably in the English countryside with their elderly Ukrainian odd job man and friend of the family, Romka. Suddenly the police arrive. What has Romka done? Is he guilty? Is there a time limit on revenge and punishment? The Handyman looks at questions surrounding culpability, retribution, universal responsibility and the possibility of evil. 'Harwood's best and finest play. Its questions hurt because they are never theoretical: they are wrung from the flesh and mind of his characters.' Sunday Times Hapgood.
Play. Tom Stoppard Duality is the name of the game in Tom
Stoppard's intricate spy thriller, seen at the Aldwych
Theatre in 1988, where double agents, duplicity, twins and
quantum physics are inextricably bound together. Hapgood
runs a British counter-espionage agency in Mayfair and
someone is leaking information to Moscow ... The
Happiest Days of Your
Life.
Farce. John Dighton The masters of Hilary Hall School for
Boys are told that St Swithin's, a girls' school, will be
billeted upon them. The staff try desperately to conceal the
fact that boys and girls are housed together, but in vain,
for the parents find out. They are about to remove their
offspring when a message arrives: a third school is to share
Hilary Hall. Against this common enemy, both staff and
parents unite to barricade the gates. Period 1940s Happy
Birthday.
Comedy. Marc Camoletti, adapted by Beverley
Cross Bernard invites his mistress, Brigit, to
his home on her birthday despite the fact that his wife
Jacqueline is present. To lull Jacqueline's suspicions he
has also invited his oldest friend, Robert, and asks him to
complete the cover-up by pretending that Brigit is his own
mistress. Thus are laid the foundations for a shaky edifice
of frantic complications, in which identities, plots and
bedrooms are changed around with ever-increasing
confusion.
Jane Harbottle is pregnant but fears
telling her husband Peter in case it jeopardises his career.
But she does tell Stella and Mike. The Harbottles' neighbour
Polly confuses the issue by telling Peter that Stella is
pregnant. Meanwhile Grigore, an exuberant Greek businessman,
arrives. As Grigore gets higher, and Polly dafter, Peter
struggles with a sprained ankle and a secret of his own.
Small wonder that Jane starts throwing the antique dinner
service around. Will the comic chaos ever settle down long
enough for the truth to emerge?
Full of warmth, understanding and humour,
this is an affectionate and appealing portrait of an
ordinary family struggling with change, bereavement and the
generation gap. On his graduation day in 1978, John looks
back over his teenage years, from 1967-1973, recalling all
the embarrassments, tensions, joys and sorrows of family
life in West Yorkshire. Older and better educated, he finds
himself alienated from his working-class family who cannot
understand his growing intellect and theatrical
aspirations.
This darkly-hued comedy concerns a
brother and two sisters, and what happens when the elder
sister, Susan, introduces her fiancé who becomes
attracted to the younger sister Deborah. But the three
members of the family are still as emotionally vulnerable
and innocent as they were as children. The introduction of a
stranger into their midst is the catalyst that exposes their
weaknesses to us, but will it be enough to break the family
free of their childhood chains?
Written a year after September in the Rain, we here encounter the same two characters, Liz and Jack, addressing the audience about the biographical details of the characters they play, and then slipping into those characters. Small, lovingly detailed extracts from the couple's lives are shown from their early courtship days, through to their retirement, but not in chronological order, so we constanty weave a path through their long life together. The Financial Times described the play as 'Neat, touching and joyously celebratory'.
A fairy story with a difference. The hero breaks with tradition in that he has the failings of an ordinary young man; the heroine is a radical; the 'baddie' is a not-unlikeable villain; the fairy is a graduate of a most unusual university. The adventures of these and other characters are slyly manipulated by a wizard whose absentminded magic produces unexpected results. Needless to say, there is a happy ending, but this too has an unforeseen twist.
Viv, an unemployed university graduate is looking after the house for her parents and has surrounded herself with Oxford graduate friends/lodgers. As the Brixton riots begin to break out on the streets, four of the inmates are too taken up with their own domestic feuds to notice what is happening in the world outside. Eventually Viv succeeds in getting rid of them but not before the situation has shown the empty lives of these style-crazed people and their lack of human sympathy. Hard Fruit - Jim Cartwright A SPRING PREMIERE AT THE ROYAL COURT THEATRE From the author of Road and The Rise and Fall of Little Voice comes a new play about life in the North. Sump and Choke are friends who have bonded through martial arts. What happens to their relationship surprises them both. Hard Fruit premieres at The Royal Court Theatre in April 2000. Hard Times. Play. Stephen Jeffreys, adapted from the novel by Charles Dickens M2 F2 (minimum). Various interior and exterior settings. The wide expanse of Dickens's novel on
the riches and hardships of the Industrial Revolution is
triumphantly brought to life in this skilful adaptation. The
nineteen or so main speaking parts are portrayed by two
actors and two actresses, although it can be produced on a
larger scale with each role cast individually. 'The strength
of this version ... is its preservation of the satiric
vitality of Dickens's original, and a real feel for the
superb rhetoric of his prose.' Time Out Harvest.
Play. Ellen Dryden The Fenton family are gathered in their
village chapel for the funeral of their oldest member.
Marian, who has moved away and is now an outsider, is
critical of the close-knit family; she is furious to hear
that her brother has given up university to remain at home.
After a final confrontation with Peter, the minister, she
slips quietly away as the family sing a hymn heartily in the
chapel, which is now beautifully decorated for the Harvest
Festival. Haunted.
Play. Eric Chappell Nigel Burke, aspiring playwright, is
neurotic and agoraphobic and hasn't written a word for three
months, to the chagrin of his wife, agent and friends. He is
visited by the mysterious Potter, who knows of Nigel's
interest in Byron and gives him a goblet used by the poet.
Drinking from the goblet brings about subtle changes in
Nigel's confidence and manner-and then, out of nowhere,
Byron himself appears! Haunted is a flippant and
exciting play from the author of Natural Causes. The
Haunted Through Lounge and Recessed Dining Nook at Farndale
Castle. Comedy. David
McGillivray and Walter Zerlin Jnr The ladies of the Farndale Avenue Housing
Estate Townswomen's Guild Dramatic Society make yet another
spectacle of themselves, complete with their harassed
producer and some extremely vigorous sound effects, in this
sinister, spine-chilling mystery of murder and mayhem that
is guaranteed to bring the house down, or at least a
substantial part of the set. Having
Our Say, The Delany Sisters' First 100
Years. Drama. Emily Mann The original music composed by Baikida Carroll for the Broadway production is available. Write to Dramatist Play Services for particulars Having Our Say opens as 103-year-old Sadie and 101 year-old Bessie Delany welcome us into their Mount Vernon, New York, home. As they prepare a celebratory dinner in remembrance of their father's birthday, they take us on a remarkable journey through the last hundred years of the American nation's history, recounting a fascinating series of events and anecdotes drawn from their rich family history and careers as pioneering African-American professionals. Their story is not simply African American history or women's history. It is our history, told through the eyes of two unforgettable women as they look not only into the past, but also ahead into the 21st century. Hay
Fever.
Comedy. Noel Coward The Bliss family are ultra-Bohemian. One
Saturday, they all casually announce that they have invited
guests for the weekend, and each Bliss is furious. When the
guests arrive, they suffer an uncomfortable tea and then,
after dinner, have to play a word game which only the family
understand. The evening is capped by a histrionic display by
the whole family which succeeds in sending their terrified
guests scuttling away by the first train the following
morning. Period 1925 Haywire.
Comedy. Eric Chappell Alec Firth is having an affair with his
assistant, Liz, and has organized his domestic life so that
they can go to Spain on holiday without making Alec's wife
Maggie remotely suspicious. What could possibly go wrong'?
The answer: plenty. On the doorstep, in dizzyingly rapid
succession, are: Phoebe, Alec's mother, who has discharged
herself from her old people's home; Alec's son Jamie, with a
broken ankle; and his daughter Mandy, heavily pregnant and
not planning to marry the child's father ... |