Books by Mark Ravenhill

Paul is an ordinary man with a shocking secret. At home, he is a loving husband and father. At work, he administers the cut. In a society sickened by his profession, Paul struggles with his conscience and longs to tell the truth.

After fifteen years inside, political activist Nick emerges to find that the old causes of the 80s have become the lost causes of the 90s. As he struggles to get to grips with this new world, he collides with the new generation. Bonded by a love of pills, parties and therapy-speak, Nadia, Tim and Victor take Nick on a search for the happy-ever-after.Sharp, satirical and pulsating with energy, Some Explicit Polaroids weaves an engaging urban fairytale for today. In an age where political change seems a distant memory, Ravenhill asks "how did we get from there to here?" and "where do we go now?"

Scenes from Family Life is a charged and punchy play about relationships and the last two people left on earth. Lisa and Jack are teenagers, but they are about to become adults; Lisa is pregnant, and neither of them can wait for the baby to arrive and their lives to start. But then Lisa vanishes - into thin air. Jack panics until she comes back, but then she disappears again, and then it turns out that everyone is dematerialising, all over the planet people are disappearing. Quickly, the only people left in the world are Jack and his heavily pregnant friend Stacy. Jack adjusts to the silent and primitive world; but for Stacey it begins to turn into a nightmare. And when the vanished start to return, Jack has to learn how complex adult relationships are.

Olivia is a hot young starlet. Now all she needs is the script which will save her from B movie hell, a script which balances artistic integrity with blockbuster bucks. James thinks he's got the perfect pitch - a script which combines a torrid love story with the dark spectre of terrorism and big, big explosions. If he can only persuade Olivia, he's got the perfect Product.

A famous artist invites her old friends to her luxurious new home. For one night only, the group is back together. But celebrations come to an abrupt end when the host suffers an horrific accident. As the victim lies in a coma, an almost unthinkable plan starts to take shape: could her suffering be their next work of art?Pool (No Water) is a visceral and shocking new play about the fragility of friendship and the jealousy and resentment inspired by success.

When Franz's mother escaped to the West with one of her identical twin boys, she left the other behind. Now, twenty-five years later, Karl crosses the border in search of his other half. As history takes an unexpected turn, the brothers must struggle to reconnect. Mark Ravenhill's visceral play examines the hungers released when two countries, separated by a common language, meet again.

It's London 1726, and Mrs. Tull's got problems. The whores are giving her a hard time, a man in a dress is looking for a job, her husband has a roving eye and the apprentice boy keeps disappearing for 'a wander'. Meanwhile in 2001 a group of wealthy gay men are preparing for a raunchy party. Mother Clap's Molly House, is a black comedy with songs is a celebration of the diversity of human sexualtiy, an exploration of our need to form families and a fascinatig insight into a hidden chapter in London's history.

Twenty-eight years before The Importance of Being Earnest, a young woman gives birth to a baby boy. Is it an accident when the Nanny places him in a handbag and her unpublished novel into the pram? In 1998 a new baby is stolen and an academic discovers an unpublished novel of more than usual revolting sentimentality. From Victorian wet nurses to 90s sperm banks, Mark Ravenhill's play examines the role of parenting in an age of diverse sexualities, biological engineering and Tinky Winky's handbag.

Taking inspiration from Oedipus and Chilean children who were taken from their biological parents to support the Pinochet regime, Golden Child follows a young man's journey discovering that the people he knew to be his parents his whole life are not actually his parents.

A collection of three plays for young actors written by Mark Ravenhill: Citizenship, Scenes from a Family Life and Totally Over You. Includes an introduction by the author.

"Gay Gary", his stoner schoolfriend, turns out to be gay by nickname only; deClerk, the Citizenship teacher, is gay but stressed out and professionally cautious and cannot help; Amy, Tom's self-harming, unhappy friend, has sex with him as an experiment and then Tom meets Martin, who helps him to answer some questions while raising many others.

By the author of "Shopping and F***ing", this play is a dark and often brutally funny journey through a world of virtual reality.

Two texts for music theatre by distinctive playwright Mark Ravenhill. Told through a series of songs, Ten Plagues explores humanity's struggle with sickness and death and The Coronation of Poppea is a new version of Monteverdi's opera depicting the triumphant adultery between Poppea and Emperor Nero.

Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat is Mark Ravenhill's epic cycle of plays exploring the personal and political effect of war on modern life, produced in various locations around London in April 2008.

Two exhilarating plays by the author of Shopping and F***ing: pool (no water) is a visceral and shocking new play about the fragility of friendship and the jealousy and resentment inspired by success; Citizenship is a work for young people written for the National Theatre's Shell Connection Programme.

The four boyfriends, with the help of the members of their school's drama class, set up a witty scenario designed to fool the girls into thinking that they should never have called off their relationships - because one day soon the lads will be the world-famous boyband Awesome. The current obsession with celebrity is satirized with the lightest of touches in this intelligent comedy for teenagers.7 women, 7 men

This bittersweet comedy about growing up is presented in the Methuen Drama series, with a new introduction by Professor Dan Rebellato.

''Ravenhill has more to say, and says it more refreshingly and wittily, than any other playwright of his generation'' Time OutShoot/Get Treasure/Repeat: ''A dramatic cycle that is, in its way, epic, but is splintered into many small shards. touches deftly on the impact of war on everyone involved'' Financial TimesOver There:''Ravenhill explores postwar Germany''s division and unification through the power battles between twin brothers. The result is fantastically clever and ingenious'' GuardianA Life in Three Acts: ''By turns charming, funny, informative and, in its final segment, lump-in-the-throat moving as Bourne charts the loss of friends and lovers to Aids, and contemplates old age'' GuardianTen Plagues: ''A remarkable song-cycle. it''s the portrait of grief beyond measure that''s so affecting and which this moving hour of solitudinous lamentation, confusion and defiance brings beautifully to the fore.'' TelegraphGhost Story: ''both a satire and a moving story about illness'' GuardianThe Experiment: ''Mark Ravenhill keeps things creepy in his monologue, The Experiment, in which he plays the satiny-voiced, slippery narrator. The story, and the narrator''s level of complicity, keeps shifting. Ravenhill asks us to consider which version, if any, might be acceptable, and how much we might be willing to avert our eyes from for the greater good.'' Independent

Five recent hit plays by one of the most talented writers to emerge from the 1990s who made his mark with the seminal Shopping and F***ing.

Drawing on sources from Aeschylus to The Lion King, Chekhov to Complicite, tragedy to advertising, the book argues for theatre's importance as a site of resistance to the ruthless spread of the global market. Foreword by Mark Ravenhill

Mark Ravenhill's play "Mother Clap's Molly House" explores the gay subculture of 18th-century London.

A collection of Mark Ravenhill's plays: "Shopping and Fucking"; "Faust"; Handbag"; and "Some Explicit Polaroids".

"In Shopping and Fucking, Mark Ravenhill made theatre relevant to the Thatcher generation. Now he's put videos and Net-surfing in Faust. And it's no less stunning" (Guardian)

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