Books in the Modern Plays series

When he was small and his parents told him if he was good he would get a sweet, the boy knew it was not true. Getting the sweet had nothing to do with being good.'Badger Do Best' has landed, bringing with it a new world of rules and regulations. But the kids in the classroom are fighting back. Tired of being guinea pigs in yet another government scheme, can the class of 4N bring down the education regime set to pacify them?After years working in the classroom, Molly Davies imagines a mutiny of eight-year-olds in her play commissioned by the Royal Court. God Bless the Child received its world premiere in the Upstairs space on 12 November 2014, directed by Royal Court Artistic Director Vicky Featherstone.

We don't actually drink coffee at my coffee morning. - What do you do, then? - We discuss the violent overthrow of the government. Also, there's flower arranging.In this intensely imaginative and daringly brave-thinking play, award-winning playwright Rory Mullarkey imagines a wild road trip across Middle England. Together, Lady Catherine and her young protégé Leo enlist every tearoom, hot yoga class and Women's Institute group on a mission to change the country forever.This play was the 2014 Pinter Commission and the winner of the George Devine Award. It received its world premiere production at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs on 10 September 2014, starring Anna Chancellor as Lady Catherine and directed by James Macdonald.

The plot of this play centres around the return of celebrated gangster, Travis Flood, to his old manor after 20 years. Where has he been? And why did he go away in the first place? Philip Ridley won the Evening Standard's Most Promising Playwright Award for "The Fastest Clock in the Universe".

Madame Ranevskya returns from Paris as the family estate, including her beloved cherry orchard, is about to be sold to pay for mounting debts. Revelling in past glories and their extravagant lifestyle, the family ignore all offers of help.

There's no-one in the streets but us. You run that way and I'll run this way. Whoever gets back to the front door first without getting shot, wins.In a Palestinian town eleven-year-old Lubna and twelve-year-old Khalil are playing on the empty stairwell in their apartment block. As the siege intensifies outside, fear for their safety becomes as crippling as the conflict itself.Dalia Taha's play offers a new way of seeing how war fractures childhood. Fireworks (Al'ab Nariya) is part of International Playwrights: A Genesis Foundation Project and received its world premiere at the Royal Court Theatre, London, on 12 February 2015.

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.

Sometimes when I''m at work and waiting for customers I think about the two of us living like kings and not bothering about the future. Because there may not be any future to bother about, you know. Not for anybody, one of these days. And it''s a wicked world.Average couple Janet and Howard''s lives begin to unravel when Howard''s photographic memory helps win him a gameshow fortune. Janet doesn''t want their lives to change that much. She''s quite happy working at the supermarket, cooking for her husband three times a day and watching quiz shows in the evening. But once Howard unleashes his photographic brain on the world, the once modest used-car salesman can''t seem to stop. And what he sees as the logical conclusion to his success isn''t something Janet can agree to. Burgess''s 1961 darkly comic satire of drab English consumerism is adapted for the stage by Lucia Cox. This edition was published to coincide with the US premiere at the Brits Off-Broadway Festival, at 59E59 Theatre, New York, in May 2015.

We have all stared up at the stars and desperately tried to put into words what it is that we are feeling. This mission is an articulation of that wonder. It's 2029: the first human mission to Mars has disappeared without a trace; a reclusive Indian billionaire has funded Ghara I, a new attempt to achieve this dream; in Siberia, two Russian brothers reconnect by driving a Lada Sputnik 1.3 in search of the birth of space travel; at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, Maartje holds on to a secret about her sister;and on Mars, Imke and Oskar, a young Dutch couple, are mysteriously separated.Pioneer shuttles you from the Garden of Eden to mission control, and on to the surface of Mars.A sci-fi thriller, this edition was published to coincide with curious directive's national tour, which opened in March 2015.

How to Keep an Alien is a funny and tender autobiographical tale in which Irish Sonya and Australian Kate meet and fall in love, but Kate's visa is up and she must leave the country. Together they must find a way to prove to the Department of Immigration that they have the right to live together in Ireland. The paper trail of evidence for 'the visa people' takes them on a global odyssey from County Offaly to the Queensland Bush. It's a tricky business coming from opposite ends of the earth. It takes an Olympian will and the heart of a whale, but above all else, paperwork. How to Keep an Alien is written and performed by Sonya Kelly, with Justin Murphy. Sonya Kelly's debut show, The Wheelchair on My Face, won a Scotsman Fringe First Award in 2012 and was the New York Times Critics' Pick. This edition was published to coincide with a revival of the original production, including performances at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh.

We wanted to be someone. Some . . . I dunno . . . thing.Nig and Wee Joe used to be soldiers. They have done monstrous things. Now nobody is listening and nobody gives a fuck either way. Their lives are full of cognitive behavioural therapy, valium and guilt.One last operation offers the chance to bring meaning to their actions. It also brings them face to face with 'L', who represents the new and unpredictable reality of war in Northern Ireland.This tense and darkly funny play from Jimmy McAleavey takes a fearless look at why men go to war. This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, on 4 June 2015.

I cook here, create here,make here be as much of life as I canbecause outside of thisI'm not safe,I don't know the way.Chef tells the gripping story of how one woman went from being a haute-cuisine head chef to a convicted inmate running a prison kitchen. Leading us through her world of mouth-watering dishes and heart-breaking memories, Chef questions our attitudes to food, prisoners, violence, love and hope. Inspired by an interview Mahfouz conducted with celebrity chef Ollie Dabbous, Chef studies food as the ultimate art form taking stimulus from Dabbous's obsession with simplicity and making something the best it can be. Featuring Sabrina Mahfouz's distinct, lyrical style in abundance, Chef received its premiere at the Underbelly, Cowgate, during the 2014 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, winning a Fringe First, and was produced at the Soho Theatre, London, in June 2015.

Trees don''t have ears.How are you so sure?As they attempt to flee the Best Nation in the World, North Korean sisters Minhee and Junhee are torn apart at the border. Each must race across time and space to be together again - navigating the perilous Land of the Free and the treacherous terrain of personal belief.Food has learned to sprint. Money is so fast it doesn''t wait to be printed. Gossip travels swifter than germs.You For Me For You was first presented in the US at Woolly Mammoth Theatre, Washington D.C., in Autumn 2012 and received its UK premiere at London''s Royal Court in the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs on 3 December 2015.

Camelot: The Shining City is a modern re-telling of the myth of King Arthur, by award-winning playwright James Phillips.Developed in collaboration with Slung Low, specialists in spectacular theatrical experiences, and Sheffield People's Theatre, Camelot: The Shining City is written for a company of over 150 actors, bringing the medieval story to breathtaking life. An epic story told in three parts, this edition was published to coincide with the world premiere, staged on 9 July 2015.

Shane is another thirty-year-old weekend millionaire, still living at home with his parents. Tonight, he's hitting the town. On Monday, he'll start again.

Some poems are better written in flesh . . .After Wall Street and Tahrir Square, after ISIS and the NSA, after Ferguson and Eric Garner: here come the poets.In a downtown poetry slam with a place on the team to be won, eight young poets prepare to do battle. But backstage it's all kicking off with love triangles, families to feed and wounds to rip open. And in the end, is it about winning - or finding the words that need to be said?Octagon received its world premiere at the Arcola Theatre, London, on 16 September 2015.

In a chapel service in rural Wales, all is not what it seems . . . A stage adaptation of one of the most celebrated and controversial short-story collections in the history of Anglo-Welsh literature. Originally published in 1915, the searing stories of My People - darkly comic, poignant, with flashes of savagery - exposed the hypocrisy and avarice nestling side-by-side in a Nonconformist community in the rural West Wales of the early 1900s.First produced n the centenary year of the publication of the original collection, this radical reimagining makes us question whether the events depicted in these remarkable stories are consigned to the past, or can we discern uncomfortable parallels in our modern life?This programme text edition was published to coincide with the world premiere of the stage adaptation on 5 November 2015 at Clwyd Theatr Cymru, in a co-production with Invertigo Theatre.

Remember you saying you could speak to anything if you wanted to. Right? Did you say that? Remember that. Said you could speak to the stars. Just had to know how to do it.It's raining in the Midlands. Again. It won't stop. Someone's standing in it. They're shivering. They're cold. They're waiting for someone they haven't seen in a very long time. They've got a rucksack full of alcohol. And a fish.A touching play about abandoned responsibilities, what we choose to remember and what we thought we'd forgotten.This programme text edition was published to coincide with the world premiere at the Old Red Lion theatre, London on 10 November 2015.

I SEE YOU (English) NGIYAKUBONA (Zulu) EK SIEN JOU (Afrikaans) NDIYAKUBONA (Xhosa)I don't need your sorries white boy, yes. You heard right. You know white people think we are the same? We both look black. But only one of us is black . . . Speak to me in your mother-tongue and I will let you go.Post-Apartheid South Africa, after dark.Ben meets Skinn for a night out. But the party is interrupted by the police. Ben, a young student who doesn't know his own history, is accused of a crime he didn't commit. And Officer Buthelezi, a former freedom fighter, can't let it go.Based on a real encounter.This programme text was published to coincide with the world premiere of the play at the Royal Court Theatre, Upstairs, on 25 February 2016.

Epic.In small ways. Jason, a wannabe DJ, is making his way through the streets of Dublin on a chemically enhanced trip, stumbling from one misguided misadventure to another. Somewhere between the DJs, decks, drug busts and hilltop raves, he stumbles across a familiar face from the past: his brother, Daniel.Daniel is an educated, homeless addict, living on the streets of Dublin. The brothers haven't seen or spoken to each other in three years but over a lost weekend they reconnect and reminisce over tunes, trips, their history and their city. Two brothers living on the edge, perhaps they have more in common than they think, but how long can this buzz last?This programme text edition of Dublin Oldschool was published to coincide with the revival of the play at the Project Arts Centre, Dublin, on 11 January 2016.

I am the Edith fucking Piaf of the empty womb. Je ne regrettay fucking rien.Jude has always known she doesn''t want kids. Her sister Susie isn''t sure if her ovaries are twingeing or if she just needs a wee.One day, in a café full of ''yummy mummies'', Jude loses the plot and kicks a pram. Then gets arrested. Then gets sent to anger management. Susie goes along for the ride and uses the opportunity to confess a secret.This funny and touching play premiered at the Brighton Fringe Festival, before a critically acclaimed run at the Edinburgh International Festival Fringe, 2015. An unflinching look at what it means to be a modern woman, this programme text was published to coincide with a national tour in spring 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.

See in my opinion there are two types of people in the world.There are people who actually do something with their lives?Who have some kind of values or something?And then there are people like you.A small town. Today. Following a long incarceration, Andy returns to her hometown to restart her life. After securing a job at the local slaughterhouse, the challenges of reentry unfold as she reconnects with her teenage son, B, a staunch vegetarian with a life he''s unwilling to share with his mother.Writer Abe Koogler has written a funny, surprising and moving search for connection in modern America. Kill Floor received its world premiere at New York''s LCT3/Lincoln Center Theater in October 2015 and played at American Theatre Company, Chicago, from March 2016.