Books published by Samuel French Ltd

When E meets the man of her dreams, a professional cyclist, love hits her in the pubic bone like a train. For a brief period she is high on life – he’s the answer to her crippling loneliness, her self-harm issues, her non-existent career. But when the cyclist cheats on her and ends the relationship E plummets into a black hole of heartbreak. She turns to her only friend – mustard.

Alice Sebold's novel The Lovely Bones is a unique coming-of-age tale that captured the hearts of readers throughout the world. Award-winning playwright Bryony Lavery has adapted it for this unforgettable play about life after loss.

Zinnie Harris reimagines this ancient drama, using a contemporary sensibility to rework the stories, placing the women in the centre. Orestes' leading role is replaced by his sister Electra, who as a young child witnesses her father's murder and is compelled to take justice into her own hands until she too must flee the Furies.

Zinnie Harris reimagines this ancient drama, using a contemporary sensibility to rework the stories, placing the women in the centre. Orestes' leading role is replaced by his sister Electra, who as a young child witnesses her father's murder and is compelled to take justice into her own hands until she too must flee the Furies.

Catherine has spent years caring for her brilliant but unstable father, Robert. When he dies she has more than grief to deal with: there’s her estranged sister, Claire, and Hal, a former student of her father’s who hopes to find valuable work in the 103 notebooks that Robert left behind. And a further problem: how much of her father’s madness – or genius – will Catherine inherit?Gwyneth Paltrow starred in this Pultizer Prize-winning play which opened at the Donmar Warehouse in 2001.

Three old friends and a neighbour. A summer of afternoons in the back yard. Tea and catastrophe. Escaped Alone premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in 2016, in a production directed by James Macdonald.

This is a comedy of confusion. One member arrives at a women's guild meeting to run a jumble sale, others to demonstrate unusual cookery, home-made wine-making and string lampshades respectively. To add to the chaos, an eccentric outsider comes to talk about flower arranging without flowers. They then try competing for five minutes each to decide who should perform at the next meeting. Extraordinary things happen. Then the surprise ending reveals why the misunderstand was, in fact, planned all along. 6 women

SHAFTED moves forwards and backwards over time, starting after the miners strike in 1984. Act One demonstrates the depression and hopelessness which engulfed a West Yorkshire mining village post the strike and the plethora of menial jobs which HARRY found in order to try to make a living. By the late 1990's DOT had suggested they move to Bridlington to start a new life running a Boarding House. Act Two starts in 2016 with DOT suffering from cancer, immobile in a wheelchair, the act moves backwards thought to success of the boarding house and their new life together, to the time they left UPTON to run the boarding house in the 1990's.

Time and Tide is an LGBTQ themed comedy drama about a Norfolk community struggling with change.

A small cast, short version of an intimate psychological thriller taken from Philomel Cottage. Enid rejects her fiancé for newcomer Gerald and moves to a remote country cottage with him – where a dark and terrible climax takes place.

The love between a mother and daughter turns to jealousy and bitterness in this intense and personal drama. Ann Prentice falls in love with Richard Caulfield and hopes for a new life and happiness. Only her daughter, Sarah, takes an instant, jealous dislike to him. Resentment slowly corrodes their relationship as each seeks comfort in the formidable and knowing Dame Laura Whitstable who remarks, “The trouble with sacrifice is that once it’s made it’s not over and done with.”“Christie is beady-eyed and brutally honest on the psychology of the motherdaughter relationship.”THE GUARDIAN“The play is a revelation and its emotional intensity is at variance with most of her crime plays. This is Christie writing with her heart rather than her head. She is not concerned with clues and suspects and alibis but with human dilemmas and life choices.”THE GUARDIAN

In The Wasp’s Nest, Hercule Poirot’s come between a bitter triangle of lovers to prevent a sinister murder before it takes place. In Yellow Iris, a distressed phone call from a mystery woman brings Hercule Poirot to the hotel Jardin des Cygnes, where a man commemorates the four-year anniversary of his wife’s sudden death – a death under very suspicious circumstances that Poirot himself witnessed. Gathered is everyone present on that fateful night and now Poirot must and a killer in the midst, before they strike again.

This ingeniously constructed play is set in three separate flats over a bank holiday weekend. Shifting backwards and forwards in time it depicts a triangle of relationships: Michael, a homosexual, who is in love with his flatmate Andrew, who in turn is having an affair with Lesley, whose husband Tom seeks respite from their disintegrating marriage in the arms of Alison.

This triple bill of one act murder mysteries combines: The Wasp’s Nest which sees Hercule Poirot come between a bitter triangle of lovers to prevent a sinister murder before it takes place; The Rats, a dark and chilling tale in which a pair of adulterous lovers and themselves lured to a flat, trapped like rats and framed for murder; and finally, The Patient, a tense thriller in which a woman has been hospitalised after seemingly falling from her balcony. 

This classic Christie short story sees Hercule Poirot come between a bitter triangle of lovers to prevent a sinister murder before it takes place. This is part of the triple one act murder mysteries The Rule of Thumb.   

A collection of three radio plays, including a Poirot story, for live performance comprised of Personal Call, Yellow Iris, and Butter in a Lordly Dish.Personal Call sees James Brent haunted by his dead wife when he receives a mysterious telephone call, seemingly from beyond the grave.Yellow Iris marked Hercule Poirot’s debut appearance on radio in which the famous detective is called to the hotel Jardin des Cygnes to solve an old case in which a cold-blooded killer escaped justice and slipped through his fingers.Butter in a Lordly Dish sees eminent prosecution barrister Sir Luke Enderby get his comeuppance in one of Christie’s most gruesome and horrifying murders.