Books published by Samuel French Ltd

Winner! 2009 Samuel French Canadian Playwrights ContestEsmerelda Quipp is 80, still of sound mind, but her body is beginning to "come unglued", as she puts it. Having spent her working life as an actress, age pushing her gradually out of the business, she now faces the fact that her meagre government pension is insufficient to support her, even with her minimal needs. When she is arrested for attempting to bury her dead cat in her landlord's yard, she finds that there is some sen

Nominee! 2013 Outer Critics Circle Award, Outstanding New Broadway MusicalNominee! 2013 Outer Critics Circle Award, Outstanding New ScoreNominee! 2013 Drama Desk Award, Outstanding MusicalNominee! 2013 Drama Desk Award, Outstanding MusicNominee! 2013 Drama Desk Award, Outstanding LyricsNominee! 2013 Drama Desk Award, Outstanding Book of a MusicalNominee! 3 Tony Awards, including Best Original Score, 2013For 1

How does a computer scientist hook up with a molecular biologist? He blinds her with science, of course. When Elliot builds a computer program to help Molly with her research project, the variables in their evolving relationship shift as rapidly as the terms of their experiment. This deft and imaginative new ROM-comedy shows that even the most sophisticated algorithm may freeze in the face of life''s infinite possibilities.

Winner! 2011 BBC Top Prize of the Americas Inspired by the Dog Catcher Riots. In part one, a put'upon family is run from their home by a settlement of people. In part two, a settlement of people get a surprise guest while simply trying to run a put'upon family from their home.

Winner! 2011 Barrymore Awards, Best Production of a Musical and Best Leading Actor in a Musical Official Selection! The Kennedy Center's New Visions/New Voices FestivalA young professor loses just about everything in the world - everything, that is, except for the flea who lives in his vest. Starting over again, the professor and the flea become the best of friends, start a circus act, and set off to tour the world. Together they must overcome shipwrecks, cannibals, a

Las Vegas 1954: Tommy Cooper faces the prospect of his first big failure. As personal and professional problems collide, he faces stark choices about the future.

At the end of Noel Coward's "Design for Living", two men and a woman embark on a menage a trois founded on mutual attraction and a conscious flouting of societal norms. This comedy attempts to answer the question of "what happened next?".

This adaptation of Dickens' famous epic novel of the French revolution tells the story of English lawyer Sydney Carton and French aristocrat Charles Darnay, both caught up in the bloodshed of the French Revolution.

Despite his hobby of fighting battles with toy soldiers, Edward is a mild person and he is about to experience an evening he will never forget. He works at the Continental Telephone Exchange where his pompous brother-in-law is his supervisor. Edward often 'chats up' women operators in various exchanges. These affairs by proxy suddenly explode in his face when four glamorous females travel to London to compete in the Miss Europhone Contest and arrive at this home anxious to meet the flirtatious Mr London in the flesh.6 women, 3 men

When a group of children decide to put on a play, they begin by playing with toys. But shouldn't a play be about something? It must be about football, says one. It should be about space, says another. So begins the production of Indiana Smith and the Cup Final of Doom, and The Return of the Tedi.

Gerald Coates wife, Babs, arrives home drunk from a day racing with a disreputable man. She is always getting drunk. They argue and in the struggle she is stabbed to death. Gerald panics and hides the body.3 women, 6 men

Three women in the hospital for cancer treatments must cope with the uncertainties of their health and with the inevitable secrets and half truths from relatives and the nursing staff. Marlene, the strongest and most outspoken of them, keeps the atmosphere in the ward cheery. Her activities add considerable interest to their hospital stays.-5 women, 2 women or men

A collection of four twist-in-the-tail plays for two women: "Day Trippers", "The Guilt Card", "Theatrical Digs" and "Short Changed". All set by the seaside, and delicately observing life, they are full of animated characters.

10 characters. Extras. Various simple settings. Fee code H This prelude to Shakespeare's most famous tragedy imagines Hamlet as a restless teenager frustrated by the limits of his role and furious at his father's warmongering ways.

This play focuses on the male night-shift at Kale Moor grocery depot. But their new colleague is a woman, who sees through the antics of the men to the insecurities and weaknesses beneath. But when a mystery role-playing game is presented to the team, there are surprises for them all.

Susan, an eccentric sixty-year-old, decides to celebrate her birthday by repeating a journey to Australia she made with a group of friends when she was 20.

It's the height of the summer, and Daisy's fifteenth birthday. Trouble is brewing - in North London, someone's been shot. There's a curfew in place, school is suspended and the city is changing, but Daisy has an important delivery to make across town.

Four women arrive at Del Sol on a package tour. They find themselves stranded in a workman's hut on the site of their hotel, which is not even constructed yet. Determined not to let their husbands know that they have been conned, they decide not to return home and determinedly try to make the best of everything. It is, however, far from easy!5 women

This delightful, wry comedy centres on Nell, an attractive and intelligent woman who has been deserted by her husband and feels at the crossroads of her life. Her hopeless love affair with George Rush, a married local teacher and minor poet, seems bound to end in anger and frustration. George insists on conducting their romance in total secrecy until the arrival in Nell's life of Jim Grant which causes the dying affair to erupt suddenly into flames.3 women, 2 men

Henry Miles suspects that his wife Sarah is having an affair, and asks his friend Maurice to contact a private investigator on his behalf. However, Maurice was once Sarah's lover and wants to know if she was unfaithful to him too. This adaptation unravels Maurice's story in a series of flashbacks.

When Aubrey Tanqueray marries for the second time, he knows that his new wife, Paula, is a 'woman with a past'. But he has no idea how that past will catch up with him in the end. More probing than Oscar Wilde, more accessible than Ibsen, Pinero's The Second Mrs Tanqueray (1893) is one of the masterpieces of the Victorian theatre: sexy, dramatic, funny and very moving.-6 women, 5 men

Based on fact, the story tells of a strike by the girls in a match factory in 1888, when unions were still groping for recognition and mass withdrawal of labour was an almost unheard-of strategy in industrial relations. The match-cutters finally rebel against working conditions in which young girls had their jaws rotted away by phosphorus, and discipline was maintained by a system of crippling fines and sanctions. A grim episode, perhaps, but not many minutes of the play are allowed to pass before the natural ebullience of the traditional Cockney sparrow helps to create sparkling entertainment which warms the heart, yet retains the essential drama of the central theme.13 women, 5 men

On her 70th birthday ex-actress Margot Buchanan is visited by Sadie Croft, an actress having an affair with her ex-husband Leo, who wants advice on playing Juliet. Leo arrives on the scene and promptly dies of a heart attack. His ghost then appears, anxious to sort matters out between his women.

It's a cold winter's evening and bitter, irascible divorce Henry is enjoying a Scotch and some classical music in glorious solitude. He is soon disturbed, however, by the unwelcome appearance of his son Matthew, bringing with him his new girlfriend. This is just the beginning, for who should arrive next but Henry's ex-wife, Matthew's mother, Sue.

Amy and Lawrence, whose marriage is on the brink of collapse, invite Cissy to live with them. Gabriel, a friend of Lawrence's arrives, on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Amy's attempts to provoke an emotive reaction from those around her are ineffective. The breakdown in communication is half-resolved and the play ends with Cissy personifying Lawrence's idea of hope as "... a rather plain but really very nice woman of indeterminate age sidling into a room dressed in a pink tutu ..."3 women, 3 men

In A Life this intriguing character is at the end of his life and setting his emotional accounts in order. Two casts represent the young and the old Desmond Drumm, his simple and loving wife, and the one true love of his life, who rejected him for a lovable ne'er do well. Now near death and isolated from the world by his "high principles," Drumm comes to realize he has never given his life or the people in it, a chance.5 women, 3 men

Michael and Ray were villains, working together on a series of lucrative crimes. Michael is living a comfortable life in Spain with his wife Francine while Ray, married to Brenda, is struggling to make ends meet back in Britain. After two years Michael has invited Ray and Brenda to Spain for a visit and Ray is delighted, but Brenda is suspicious.

Leonard, a disk jockey, is increasingly disillusioned with the falsity of his job of provding fantasies for his devoted teenage listeners. So frustrated is he that he tries to force Nicola, a contestant in a stupid competition, to realise the idiocy of the whole set-up - but what is the result when fantasies are destroyed?3 women, 4 men