Books in the NHB Modern Plays series

Five of the most exciting voices in theatre explore the pressures on our public services as one young woman buckles under pressures of her own.

A double bill by Terence Rattigan, featuring two plays of striking contrast that display his astonishing range as a writer.

The average person will speak 123,205,750 words in a lifetime. But what if there were a limit? Oliver and Bernadette are about to find out. Sam Steiner's award-winning play Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons imagines a world where we're forced to say less.

A play about conflicted desire and dangerous loyalties in a world trembling in the grip of a devastating epidemic.

An insightful and revealing play, inspired by real events, which explores society's uncomfortable embrace of the outsider.

An exhilarating and unsentimental exploration of working-class life in Belfast.

A celebration of a great English heroine, Anne Boleyn dramatises the life and legacy of Henry VIII's notorious second wife, who helped change the course of the nation's history. Premiered at Shakespeare's Globe in 2010. Best New Play, Whatsonstage.com Awards Traditionally seen as either the pawn of an ambitious family manoeuvred into the King's bed or as a predator manipulating her way to power, Anne - and her ghost - are seen in a very different light in Howard Brenton's epic play. Rummaging through the dead Queen Elizabeth's possessions upon coming to the throne in 1603, King James I finds alarming evidence that Anne was a religious conspirator, in love with Henry VIII but also with the most dangerous ideas of her day. She comes alive for him, a brilliant but reckless young woman confident in her sexuality, whose marriage and death transformed England for ever. 'This is no dry and dusty history lesson... a witty and engrossing impression of the times that gave birth to our first Elizabethan age, and the subsequent reformation' British Theatre Guide 'The play bursts through the constraints of costume drama'The Independent 'What an absolute delight... a beautifully-written piece of theatre that instantly draws you in into the life and times of both Anne Boleyn and King James I' Whatsonstage.com

A timely play based on the true story of an imprisoned Nobel Laureate. On 3 April 2011, as he was boarding a flight to Taipei, the Chinese Artist Ai Weiwei was arrested at Beijing Airport. Advised merely that his travel "e;could damage state security"e;, he was escorted to a van by officials after which he disappeared for 81 days. On his release, the government claimed that his imprisonment related to tax evasion. Howard Brenton's new play is based on Ai Weiwei's account in Barnaby Martin's book Hanging Man, in which he told the story of that imprisonment - by turns surreal, hilarious, and terrifying. A portrait of the artist in extreme conditions, it is also an affirmation of the centrality of art and freedom of speech in civilised society. The play premiered at Hampstead Theatre in April 2013, in a production directed by James Macdonald. 'Moving, scary, gripping, inventive and at times laugh-out-loud funny' Telegraph 'Excellent... like a mix of Kafka and Bennett' Guardian 'Tremendously powerful' Financial Times

Lucy Kirkwood's sharp comedy looks at power games and privacy in the media and beyond. Carrie's getting them out for the lads, Charlotte's just grateful to have a job, Sam's being asked to sell more than his body, and Aidan's trying to keep Doghouse magazine from going under. Set in the cut-throat media world, Lucy Kirkwood's timely new comedy exposes power games and privacy in the age of Photoshop. [NSFW = Not Safe For Work, online material which the viewer may not want to be seen accessing in a public or formal setting such as at work.]

A bewitching play by Jez Butterworth, author of the global smash-hit Jerusalem. Premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in 2012. On a moonless night in August when the sea trout are ready to run, a man brings his new girlfriend to the remote family cabin where he has come for the fly-fishing since he was a boy. But she's not the only woman he has brought here - or indeed the last... 'A delicately unfolding puzzle... all of it is wrapped in marvelous language... extraordinary.' The Times 'One of the best productions of the year... a magnetically eerie, luminously beautiful psychodrama.' Time Out 'Strange, eerie, tense... Butterworth possesses a singular talent.' Guardian

A gripping historical drama that dramatises a crucial moment of English history. Premiered at Hampstead Theatre in October 2012. December 1648. The Army has occupied London. Parliament votes not to put the imprisoned king on trial, so the Army moves against Westminster in the first and only military coup in English history. What follows over the next fifty-five days, as Cromwell seeks to compromise with a king who will do no such thing, is nothing less than the forging of a new nation, an entirely new world. Howard Brenton's play depicts the dangerous and dramatic days when, in a country exhausted by Civil War, a few great men attempt to think the unthinkable: to create a country without a king. 'A forgotten era of revolutionary British history is fascinatingly unlocked... electrifying.' Whatonstage.com '[A] confident and idea-packed piece... It could have been a dour history lesson. Instead it engages with the present, raising some pungent questions about the kind of democracy we have in Britain today.' Evening Standard

A short play by one of the UK's leading dramatists. Premiered at the Royal Court in October 2012. 'No one could blame me. I've been hurt. You're a monster.' A child is shut in her room, a dog is dead in the road, someone is kissing her brother in law. A family locked in hatred is sending a son to war. And meanwhile in another country... 'The best short play since Harold Pinter's Mountain Language' Mark Lawson, Front Row 'As always Churchill seems inventive, coolly socialist, bleak yet dazzling, a bit of a shaman' Evening Standard 'An intriguing work, with an underlying atmosphere of unease and menace reminiscent of Pinter... it nags away in the memory long after you have left the theatre' Telegraph

A stunningly ambitious work from one of the UK's most influential playwrights. Someone sneezes. Someone can't get a signal. Someone shares a secret. Someone won't answer the door. Someone put an elephant on the stairs. Someone's not ready to talk. Someone is her brother's mother. Someone hates irrational numbers. Someone told the police. Someone got a message from the traffic light. Someone's never felt like this before. In this fast-moving kaleidoscope, more than a hundred characters try to make sense of what they know. Premiered at the Royal Court in September 2012. 'This exhilarating theatrical kaleidoscope... What is extraordinary about Churchill is her capacity as a dramatist to go on reinventing the wheel' The Guardian 'The wit, invention and structural integrity of Churchill's work are remarkable... She never does the same thing twice' The Telegraph 'A wonderful web of complex emotions, memories, secrets and facts' A Younger Theatre

Four boys face the tricky transition to adulthood in Ella Hickson's riot of a play. Premiered at High Tide Festival 2012, then Nuffield Theatre, Southampton, and Soho Theatre, London. The Class of 2011 are about to graduate and Benny, Mack, Timp and Cam are due out of their flat. Stepping into a world that doesn't want them, these boys start to wonder whether there's any point in getting any older. How will they find the fight to make it as adults? Before all that they're going to have one hell of a party. It's hot and there'll be girls. Predict a riot. 'Marvellous... a play that both powerfully captures the mood of a generation and addresses permanent truths with exhilarating flair' Independent 'Will leave you with laughter lines' Time Out 'Heartfelt directness of writing that taps into a generation torn between action and inertia' Guardian

A brilliant and unsettling play from one of the UK's leading dramatists. Premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in 2000. At the opening of the play, a young girl is questioning her aunt about having seen her uncle hitting people with an iron bar; by the end, several years later, the whole world is at war - including birds and animals. Far Away is a howl of anguish at the increasing - and increasingly accepted - levels of inhumanity in a world seemingly perpetually involved in conflict. 'You know you are in the hands of a master' The Sunday Times 'Churchill was expected to produce something explosive, but... she has exceeded the critics' highest expectations' The Observer

Rattigan's well-loved play about an unpopular schoolmaster who snatches a last shred of dignity from the collapse of his career and his marriage. Twice filmed (with Michael Redgrave and Albert Finney) and frequently revived. Andrew Crocker-Harris' wife Millie has become embittered and fatigued by her husband's lack of passion and ambition. On the verge of retirement, and divorce, Andrew is forced to come to terms with the platitude his life has become. Then John Taplow, a previously unnoticed pupil, gives Andrew an unexpected parting gift: a second-hand copy of Robert Browning's translation of Agamemnon - a gift which offers not only a opportunity for redemption, but the chance to gain back some dignity. This edition also contains Harlequinade, a farce about a touring theatre troupe, written to accompany The Browning Version in a double-bill under the joint title, Playbill. The plays are presented with an authoritative introduction, biographical sketch and chronology by Dan Rebellato.'The cruel inequalities of love always absorbed Rattigan, not least here - this is a play that has not dated.' The Times

A simple and delightfully inventive re-telling of the stories from the Arabian Nights. This revised edition was published alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company's production in 2009. It is wedding night in the palace of King Shahrayar. By morning, the new Queen Shahrazad is to be put to death like all the young brides before her. But she has one gift that could save her - the gift of storytelling. With her mischievous imagination, the young Queen spins her dazzling array of tales and characters. On her side are Ali Baba, Es-Sindibad the Sailor and Princess Parizade - adventurers in strange and magical worlds populated by giant beasts, talking birds, devilish ghouls and crafty thieves. But will her silver-tongued stories be enough to enchant her husband and save her life? 'Superb... weaves a potent spell of enchantment as it moves from cruelty to happiness and from the blissfully ribald to the deeply affecting' Telegraph 'A masterful piece of storytelling... a truly magical piece of theatre that delights the senses' Whatsonstage.com 'The family show to see this le' Guardian

Mary Shelley: daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft; lover of Shelley; author of Frankenstein' Helen Edmundson's compelling play explores a crucial episode in the early life of Mary Shelley - her meeting and scandalous elopement aged sixteen with Percy Bysshe Shelley, and its consequences for her sisters, her stepmother and above all, her troubled father, the political philosopher William Godwin. 'Gripping... without ever reducing Mary Shelley to an issue drama, Edmundson suggests the destructive nature of a life lived without compromise' The Times