Books by Michael Yates

Remember when typewriters ruled the world? It's the age of Margaret Thatcher, Britain's first woman prime minister. But the best chance most women have to get close to power - or even close to a job - is to join a Government-sponsored training course for shorthand typists. So prim Susan and sexy Frankie and depressive Sandra and busybody Pat get together to conquer the keyboard. Even if they have to suffer clapped-out keys, broken backspaces, sticky spacebars and shocking shifts. And these women also speak their minds - about men, politics, men, work, men, children, men and each other! So look out! Because they can only take so much from crippled carriage returns before they rise in rebellion. From such injustice and tyranny, the best jokes are often made. Because they cut deepest. And the result is hilarious and heart-breaking in this fast-moving play by Michael Yates.

The Gangers: High Noon in Yorkshire The avenger rides into town looking for the men who killed his friend. In his saddlebag, he carries a Colt 44. But this is no wild west scenario. This is Yorkshire. The avenger is Sergeant Lorenzo Joseph of the British army. And the background is the Railway Boom of the 1870s. This is a world where progress and poverty, industry and anarchy combine in a volatile mix. The shanty towns of the railway-building navvies are as lawless as the cattle towns of the American west. But there is a more gentle, civilised side. Sergeant Joseph encounters Mollie Proudlove, the poetry-loving, 12-year-old daughter of the local vicar. And she falls innocently in love with her handsome knight on a white horse. Meanwhile, in the darkness of the shanty town, gang leader Moleskin Jimmy lies poised to strike again - at the Sergeant, at Mollie, or at anyone else who gets in his way. In this situation, how can justice triumph and innocence survive?

It's the start of the 21st century. And a single bullet will change two lives. Raymond is a shy young man. He wishes he'd gone to Uni. But his father wants him in the family business. And his father is a gangster and a killer. Barry wants to be a poet. But he's also - in his own words - a user of the mental health services. And his two best friends are the late John Lennon and the even later Erwin Rommel, Hitler's one-time military boss. In a Yorkshire bus station a shot rings out. It's the shot that brings Raymond and Barry together - and sets off a sequence of violent events that ends in terrible murder and even more terrible poetry.

Three one-act plays by Michael Yates. LIFE SENTENCE: Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned - especially when she has a meat cleaver in her hand! A dark comedy about the violent games lovers play. Winner of the Stanley Arnold Trophy at Sheffield One-Act Play Festival. TILL MY EYES BLEED: Loyal Mel hires the theatre to host a wake for his best friend Adrian. But it becomes apparent - to everyone except Mel - that Mel's wife had enjoyed a passionate affair with Adrian. Will Mel guess the truth before the end of the night? SUNDAY AFTERNOON AGAIN: Eight-year-old Lenny has two big worries: His mum and dad are always fighting, and there's a wicked witch living next door! A poignant play about growing up, chosen for Liverpool's Write Now One-Act Play Festival, and described by critic Laurence Raw as "sharply observed... vividly demonstrates how the past exerts a powerful influence over the present."