Books published by Nick Hern Books

The tragic story of how Rudyard Kipling sent his son to his death in the First World War. The year is 1913 and war with Germany is imminent. Rudyard Kipling's determination to send his severely short-sighted son to war triggers a bitter family conflict which leaves Britain's renowned patriot devastated by the warring of his own greatest passions: his love for children - above all his own - and his devotion to King and Country. My Boy Jack premiered at Hampstead Theatre, London, in October 1997. It was adapted for television in 2007, with a cast of Kim Cattrall, Carey Mulligan, Daniel Radcliffe, and the author himself as Kipling. 'dramatises Kipling's story beautifully. The family confrontations bristle with life' Financial Times

A dramatisation of the classic children's story.

Work, love and life are just one long hard slog for the fish filleting foursome Pearl, Jan, Shelley and Linda. But their fortunes are set to change when Linda finds tickets to Ladies' Day at Royal Ascot the year it relocated to York.

50 monologues by some of the greatest writers working today, each with a summary of the vital information you need to place the piece in context and perform it to the best of your ability.

50 monologues from some of the greatest writers working today, each prefaced with a summary of the vital information you need to place the piece in context and perform it to the best of your ability.

Drawing on a lifetime's experience of playing Shakespearean roles, the author offers advice to actors, directors and drama students on a variety of scenes, characters, speeches and individual lines from Shakespeare's plays. He takes us through the process of Preparation, Rehearsal and Performance.

A razor-sharp, acid-tongued new play by Mike Bartlett, one of the UK's most exciting and inventive young writers. Two jobs. Three candidates. This would be a really bad time to have a stain on your shirt... Bull opened at Crucible Studio Theatre, Sheffield, in February 2013 in a Sheffield Theatres Production, directed by Clare Lizzimore. 'Sinewy, stinging, witty... it's as if Bartlett has taken the nastiest needling from a Mamet or a Pinter play and put them into a space of pure verbal aggression' The Times 'A writer with a startling breadth of ambition coupled with an ear for dialogue unmatched by many of his contemporaries... Bull taps into something incredibly relevant and potent' Exeunt Magazine

Emma and Clare were childhood friends. Now, they replay the events and incidents of their youth: the tree house they sheltered in, the two elderly sisters they ran errands for, the film they went back to time and time again. But, Clare becomes obsessed with a new arrival on the street - an attractive young woman with a baby, but apparently no man.

A stage adaptation of Michael Morpurgo's story of a boy washed ashore on a Pacific Island.

A stage adaptation of "The Jungle Book".

Down the road in Oil Street, Liverpool, there are no walls, and a fierce sense of belonging that has nothing to do with place. There are two families, two ways of life: yards apart, yet worlds between. But when Bobby starts skipping school to hang out with Danny, their friendship forces both families to look beyond the walls that divide them.

The award-winning play that follows one man's desperate attempts to buck the system, and asks what really makes us who we are in the 21st century. When a young executive reaches breaking point and decides to disappear, he pays a visit to a master of the craft in the form of a seafront fortune teller in Southend. Haunted by visitations from a pathologist who swears he is already lying flat out on her slab, he begins a nightmarish journey to the edge of existence that sees him stripped of everything that made him who he was. How To Disappear Completely and Never Be Found was first performed at the Crucible Studio, Sheffield, in March 2007. It won the John Whiting Award for New Theatre Writing. 'an unsettling, dangerous play that makes you want to run away from yourself' Guardian 'the sort of thrilling new work that completely restores your faith in theatre' Sheffield Star

It's the summer of 1912. Back in Dublin after nine years abroad, Richard, a successful writer, and Bertha, his wife, have to confront two other people who love them, and ask themselves questions about guilt and responsibility. Will infidelity hold them together?

Paris in the 1880s. Louise Strandberg has fallen ill visiting her bohemian artist friends. An almost-famous French painter calls round and, somehow inevitably, she falls heavily under his spell. A year later, having run herself deep into debt on his account despite his coolness towards her, she - somehow also inevitably - kills herself.

It's 11 o'clock in the morning in a council flat in south London. In two hours' time, as is normal, three Irishmen will have consumed six cans of Harp, fifteen crackers with spreadable cheese, ten pink biscuit wafers and one oven-cooked chicken in a strange blue sauce. Also in two hours' time, as is normal, five people will have been killed.

A follow-up play to "Ladies Day", here, Pearl, Jan, Shelley and Linda - are celebrating with the trip of a lifetime to the Land of Oz. While Shelley dreams of luxury and glamour, the rest of the gang decide to go and camp out under the stars at Ayers Rock. But Shelley soon discovers there's more on offer than posh hotels, casinos and surfers.

The wedding feast is over and his father's dancing the bhangra, but the groom himself is busy on the net, and when it's time for bed, he's so woefully inhibited by the proximity of his parents, let alone his brother's childish pranks, that his beautiful virgin bride remains just that. Six weeks later, the whole family start to panic.

Includes two plays by Jack Thorne published alongside their premieres: "Stacy" at the Arcola Theatre, London and "Fanny and Faggot" at the Finborough Theatre, London.

A story of lust, madness and destruction set within the backstreets of Paris. Based on Emile Zola's classic novel.

A practical handbook for student actors on how to cope with text, character and situation, by the author of "Finding Your Voice."

Reinvention of Chekhov's "Three Sisters" set amongst the Jewish community in war-torn Liverpool.