Bernard Kops – författare

Aubrey Field, thirty-five, balding, and not exactly slim, daydreams of a rich future. “I want my life to bear fruit,” he cries, but home is with his mother above a sweetshop in Whitechapel. They are among the few survivors of what was once a large local community and they live, surrounded by strangers, in the house where Aubrey was born. Suffocating but resigned, Aubrey cannot leave Whitechapel, and he cannot leave his mother. “It was useless, he was trapped. She would never let him go.” Then fate, in the guise of Zena, the beautiful blonde daughter of a kosher butcher, intervenes. From the moment Aubrey meets this femme fatale, life becomes enormously more complicated. In pursuit of Zena, Aubrey determines to break free. He passes himself off as a young barrister with a fast sports car and forges his mother’s signature to a check. One incredible experience follows another, and for a while it seems as though Aubrey’s fantasies are about to become reality. Against the background of a Jewish East London that is fading and changing, Bernard Kops’s new novel is a novel to remember. It is at once funny and macabre, and it cuts deep into the quixotic posturing of a man who is both pathetic and endearing. Aubrey Field finally escapes from his mother and his despair, but not in the way that he or anyone else could possibly have imagined.

"In celebrating the spirit of optimism that shines through the thoughts and dreams of one extraordinary thirteen-year-old during the darkest of times, Bernard Kops has created a dramatic masterpiece" (Time Out) "This play has been a catalyst in stimulating young people not only to question the past but also to confront the very real issues of racism today." (Jenny Culank, Artistic Director of Classworks Theatre, Cambridge) In 1942 Anne Frank, a young Jewish girl, was forced into hiding with seven others in a secret annexe in Amsterdam. Dreams of Anne Frank vividly brings her story to life in a poignant and highly charged drama. Using actors, movement and song Bernard Kops re-imagines and explores Anne Frank's hidden world, a world in which she lived, fell in love and dreamed of freedom. Dreams of Anne Frank won the 1993 Time Out award for best children's production and has been performed around the world. Commentary and notes by Bernard Kops

"In celebrating the spirit of optimism that shines through the thoughts and dreams of one extraordinary thirteen-year-old during the darkest of times, Bernard Kops has created a dramatic masterpiece" (Time Out)"This play has been a catalyst in stimulating young people not only to question the past but also to confront the very real issues of racism today." (Jenny Culank, Artistic Director of Classworks Theatre, Cambridge)In 1942 Anne Frank, a young Jewish girl, was forced into hiding with seven others in a secret annexe in Amsterdam. Dreams of Anne Frank vividly brings her story to life in a poignant and highly charged drama. Using actors, movement and song Bernard Kops re-imagines and explores Anne Frank''s hidden world, a world in which she lived, fell in love and dreamed of freedom.Dreams of Anne Frank won the 1993 Time Out award for best children''s production and has been performed around the world.Commentary and notes by Bernard Kops

"In celebrating the spirit of optimism that shines through the thoughts and dreams of one extraordinary thirteen-year-old during the darkest of times, Bernard Kops has created a dramatic masterpiece" (Time Out)"This play has been a catalyst in stimulating young people not only to question the past but also to confront the very real issues of racism today." (Jenny Culank, Artistic Director of Classworks Theatre, Cambridge)In 1942 Anne Frank, a young Jewish girl, was forced into hiding with seven others in a secret annexe in Amsterdam. Dreams of Anne Frank vividly brings her story to life in a poignant and highly charged drama. Using actors, movement and song Bernard Kops re-imagines and explores Anne Frank''s hidden world, a world in which she lived, fell in love and dreamed of freedom.Dreams of Anne Frank won the 1993 Time Out award for best children''s production and has been performed around the world.Commentary and notes by Bernard Kops

An anthology of plays and original radio dramas from the prolific playwrightBorn and brought up in the East End of London, Bernard Kops came to fame in the late 1950s as part of British drama's 'New Wave'. A lyrical chronicler of Jewish family life, he is often compared to Arnold Wesker and Harold Pinter, though his work is more sentimental and surreal.In a 50-year career, he wrote 10 novels, numerous poetry collections, two autobiographies and over 40 stage, TV and radio plays. Included here are some of his most popular pieces, beginning with two East End tales of love, loss, friendship and community, Whitechapel Dreams and Harry and the Angels, both featuring Kops himself as the narrator.An adaptation of his famous stage play, Ezra, about the treacherous, anti-Semitic poet Ezra Pound, is followed by a selection of original radio dramas including Falling in Love Again, the five-part serial Soho Nights and a two-parter featuring the trials and tribulations of a Yiddish theatrical troupe, The Jericho Players and The Jericho Players: Rogues and Vagabonds.Next up are more plays specially written for radio: The Lost Loves of Phoebe Myers (commissioned to mark Kops' 80th birthday), Kafe Kropotkin, Trotsky Was My Father, Over the Rainbow, Bournemouth Nights, and The Anarchist Bed and Breakfast. Also featured are Congress in Manchester, centring around an ageing publisher's attempts to seduce a young poetess; and Simon at Midnight, his 1982 radio drama about an East End factory owner facing bankruptcy which was later adapted for the theatre.Concluding this collection are a quartet of vintage plays from the '50s, '60s and '70s that have not been broadcast since they first aired: The Street Game; I Grow Old, I Grow Old; The Lemmings and The Dark Ages.Showcasing the range and prodigious output of an extraordinary talent, these 19 dramas star a wealth of leading actors, among them Miriam Margolyes, Ian Holm, Anne-Marie Duff, Maureen Lipman, Timothy West, Amanda Root, Stephanie Cole, Mark Bonnar, Louise Brealey, Alfred Molina, Warren Mitchell, Lesley Joseph, Leo McKern, Derek Fowlds,Tracy-Ann Oberman, Jane Asher, Andrew Sachs and Denis QuilleyWith thanks to Keith Wickham and the Radio CircleContent Warning: The themes present in some of these dramas could be distressing for some listeners Production creditsWritten by Bernard KopsText copyright (c) 1959 (The Street Game), 1963 (The Lemmings), 1964 (The Dark Ages), 1979 (Bournemouth Nights; I Grow Old, I Grow Old), 1980 (Over the Rainbow), 1981 (Ezra), 1982 (Simon at Midnight), 1984 (Trotsky Was My Father), 1988 (Kafe Kropotkin), 1990 (Congress in Manchester), 1993 (Soho Nights), 1996 (The Jericho Players), 1998 (The Jericho Players: Rogues and Vagabonds), 2000 (Falling in Love Again, The Anarchist Bed and Breakfast), 2006 (The Lost Love of Phoebe Miles), 2008 (Whitechapel Dreams), 2010 (Harry and the Angels)All rights reservedContent ListWhitechapel DreamsHarry and the AngelsEzraFalling in Love AgainSoho NightsThe Jericho PlayersThe Jericho Players: Rogues and VagabondsThe Lost Love of Phoebe MilesKafe KropotkinTrotsky Was My FatherOver the RainbowBournemouth NightsThe Anarchist Bed and BreakfastCongress in ManchesterSimon at MidnightThe Street GameI Grow Old, I Grow OldThe LemmingsThe Dark Ages(c) 2025 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2025 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

The Dream of Peter Mann was first produced at the Edinburgh Lyceum in 1960 and is a bold exploration of what it is to live in a world threatened by nuclear annihilation.In Enter Solly Gold, an irreverent and much lighter work, Kops' protagonist fleeces a family of vulgar snobs, reducing them to penury but also introducing them to an enjoyment of life.Who Shall I Be Tomorrow? was a hit at the Greenwich Theatre in 1982 with Joanna Lumley as the frighteningly deluded woman trying to flee her own reality by building herself a world of daydreams.

"Includes the plays Playing Sinatra, The Hamlet of Stepney Green, and Ezra Playing Sinatra explores with humour our inexhaustible capacity for trying to escape the traps in life. The Hamlet of Stepney Green, a sad comedy, is full of lively songs. Sam Levy is about to die, and is fearful for the survival of his community of the East End. He is also fearful for his son's future. Ezra is about the anti-Semitism and treachery of the great poet Ezra Pound, and his subsequent incarceration and remorse."

" Dreams of Anne Frank was 1993 winner of Time Out award for Best Play. Bernard Kops is one of the best-known Jewish playwrights of his time. Dreams of Anne Frank won him the Time Out award for Best Play in 1993. It is an original approach to one of the most touching stories in our history. On Margate Sands is a humorous and poignant portrait of a group of dispossessed mental patients, who manage to survive against all the odds. Call in the Night examines the excessive guilt of a world-famous violinist, the only survivor of a family which was wiped out by the Nazis."