Douglas Maxwell – författare

Winner of a Fringe First Award 2024Shortlisted for the Popcorn Writing Award 2024Look, there are two ways to go. Do you freeze in place, looking backwards all the time… or do you move on?Summer 2021. Lockdown is over. Just.Three months ago Milo lost his wife to Covid. She was only forty five. So young.Tonight he has invited his two oldest pals, Davie and Liane, to come round and drink some wine, listen to some tunes and reminisce about the olden days.And there’s something else… He wants them to meet the new love of his life. Her name is Greta. They met online. And she’s twenty years old.From the celebrated writer of Decky Does a Bronco and I Can Go Anywhere, Douglas Maxwell’s So Young sees an innocuous evening slide towards ruin as old friends face the challenges of middle age… the pull of the past… and the promise of the future.This edition was published to coincide with the TravFest24 run at Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre in August 2024.

This brilliant new collection of ten plays for young people will prove indispensable to schools, colleges and youth theatre groups. Specially commissioned by the National Theatre for the Connections Festival 2011 involving 200 schools and youth theatre groups across the UK and Ireland, each play is accompanied by production notes and exercises. The Pied Piper re-imagined, the aftermath of genocide in Rwanda, witches in seventeenth century Norfolk, a giant baby on the rampage, an extraordinary day in an ordinary school are just some of subjects covered in the thrilling and varied new plays created by talented writers for young actors to perform in National Theatre Connections 2011. The plays in this anthology offer a huge variety of stories and styles to ignite the imagination of young casts and creative teams. Themes are both teenage and universal - ambition, dashed hopes, fear and confidence, loyalty and betrayal. These new plays embrace a huge range for their inspiration: they plunder classics and imagine the future.

“This is an excellent work. It is deeply researched, and the analysis of case law will prove very valuable to practitioners and academics seeking a synthesis of the law on an issue”. The Rt. Hon. Lord Justice Green, Judge of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales and Chair of the Law Commission“A valuable contribution to the jurisprudence on Article 1 Protocol No.1 and of much interest to both property and human rights lawyers”Professor Sarah Nield, University of Southampton“The pervasiveness of A1P1 through contemporary property law makes this a serious and comprehensive study. This book masterfully interweaves theory and doctrinal law. It is both timely and necessary for academics and practitioners working in this area.” David Sawtell, 39 Essex Chambers and Cambridge UniversityThis book provides a highly detailed, practical analysis of Article 1 of Protocol No.1 (A1P1) and its implications in the United Kingdom. A1P1 prescribes a qualified right to the peaceful enjoyment of 'possessions'. This right corresponds to a negative limit on legislators and public authorities to rationalise interferences with possessions and, where necessary, to strike a fair balance, often requiring just compensation.Through lively and rigorous commentary on the latest advances made by the European Court of Human Rights and domestic courts, The Human Right to Property enriches current understanding of the peaceful enjoyment of property since the enactment of the Human Rights Act 1998. Exploring the theoretical and political foundations of A1P1, the book guides the reader through the relevant case law from the earliest developments in Strasbourg to the present day. The Human Right to Property concludes that the most significant impacts of A1P1 are that it: forces States to justify interferences; limits radical redistributions of property; and casts a wider shadow over legislative choice and public body decision-making.

High summer in Glasgow’s Southside and a heatwave bears down on the residents of Govanhill, driving them off the streets. Tensions are running high and fantasy and reality are becoming blurred. Fighting to reclaim their neighbourhood, the lives of a sleep-deprived new parent and his civic-minded wife begin to unravel. Meanwhile an ambitious Hutchie boy, a pair of young missionaries, a performance artist and her alter ego and an unscrupulous property manager, are forced to confront their monsters. Fever Dream: Southside is a surreal comic thriller and major new production by Glasgow-based writer Douglas Maxwell.

Based on La Nona by Roberto CossaYer Granny is a riotous new comedy about a diabolical 100-year-old granny who’s literally eating her family out of house and home. She’s already eaten their fish and chip shop into bankruptcy and now she’s working her way through their kitchen cupboards, pushing the Russo family to desperate measures just to survive beyond 1977.As proud head of the family, Cammy is determined that The Minerva Fish Bar will rise again and that family honour will be restored – and all in time for the Queen’s upcoming Jubilee visit. But before Cammy’s dream can come true and before Her Maj can pop in for a chat, a single sausage and a royal seal of approval, the family members must ask themselves how far they will go to solve a problem like Yer Granny.

Chick arrives back in Scotland for a reunion with his old mates Gary and Jackson only to find Gary’s daughter has been the victim of a life-changing car accident. The antiseptic smell of the wards, the relentless beep of the life support and the sterile hospital bed contrast sharply in Chick’s eye with the young wild-haired girl lying there unconscious; inspiring this downtrodden man to embark on a quest to save her life.

It’s Dougie’s birthday. He just turned 50 and his family are throwing him a party. But it’s he who has a surprise for them. A bombshell proposal.He wants his ex-wife Arlene to back his new endeavour. He wants to serve a good cause, a global cause. He wants to make right a terrible wrong, even if it puts their daughter’s future at risk.An explosive new play about power, privilege, blood ties and our inescapable past.

Anyone can learn maps and battles. Geezer, I feel it! I live it! I’m giving everything to this beautiful, wild, absolutely pure British thing. Like, do you know what it took to get here, man?Stevie is a disillusioned academic who once wrote an unfashionable book on youth movements in Britain, now struggling to cope after a painful break-up.His misery is interrupted by Jimmy who lands unexpectedly on his doorstep beaming with excitement. Jimmy is 100% Mod: oversized military parka, fitted Italian suit, dessy boots, pork pie hat. The full package.Jimmy is seeking asylum in the UK. With just a few days before the substantive interview that’s going to decide his fate, the stakes are high. So he came up with a brilliant plan. A plan that’s going to work against all odds. It has to work. He can’t go back. And Stevie has an important part to play.

Decky Does a Bronco is the tragi-comic story of a gang of nine-year-old boys who spend the summer of 1983 'Broncoing swings' in Girvan, on the west coast of Scotland. Broncoing (kicking the swing over the bar) is the social bench mark and a dangerous mixture of vandalism and sport. Decky is the smallest of the group and the only one who cannot Bronco. His friend David remembers the event of that summer, which at first seem hilarious but ultimately remain painful, as the boys are faced with an unthinkable tragedy and are thrown into a restless adulthood.

Our Bad Magnet is an unashamedly dark and deliciously funny play from one of Scotland's brightest young writing talents, in which the boundaries between fantasy and reality merge with unpredictable results.Centering on an uneasy reunion, Our Bad Magnet follows the progress of four boys from 9 to 29 as they try to unlock the secrets of childhood and memory. Throw in 1980s indie music, a ventriloquist's dummy, some magical fairy stories and the word 'nimston', and you have an hilarious black comedy which isn't afraid to make you think while you're laughing out loud.

Helmet (a.k.a Roddy) lives his life completely immersed in computer games. The little time he has away from his consoles is spent in The Zone, an extremely low tech games shop, which has just this very day gone bankrupt. Sal, the down-trodden owner of The Zone, is left wondering where it all went wrong. At one time he was the pride of his family and had a bright future ahead of him. Now his wife hates him, his dad's going to kill him and to make things worse he's stuck killing time in his failed shop with Helmet, a pale ghost of a boy and exactly the type of operson Sal blames for his downfall. The shop is Sal's prison, but it's Helmet's church. As they get to know each other, hiding from reality for a while, it becomes clear that Helmet has a secret that could make things a lot worse for both of them. Helmet is structured in levels like a computer game, with each character having three lives and energy bars projected on stage. A production involving art graphics projections and effects goes on tour from March until June 2002, including performances at The Traverse, Edinburgh and the Soho Theatre, London.

Ladies and gentleman! Let us present the romantic tenor, the couthy comedian, the speciality act and the equilibrist - a real Concert Party! In its halycon days variety theatre was part of the social life blood of the country. But in the shadow of the enemy - the technological wonder of the talkies - only the bravest or saddest of performers are left reading the boards, in cine-variety. The death throes of one of Scotland's most popular entertainments are chronicled in this world premiere of a new play by Scots playwright Douglas Maxwell, the traditions brought briefly back to pulasting life by Grid Iron Theatre Company. Variety is a co-production between Grid Iron Theatre Company and the Edinburgh International Festival. It opens at the King's Theatre, Edinburgh in August 2002.

'Mancub' is the beautiful and absurd story of a boy who seems to be turning into animals. Paul faces the usual struggles of growing up. Struggles for understanding with his father, struggles to work out what girls are about. But he also faces a more pressing problem. Reality seems to be shifting as the people around him begin to display the traits of certain animals. Stranger still are the changes he, and other people, see in himself. Does Paul really turn into animals, or does he only think he does? 'Mancub' is a collaboration between Vanishing Point and acclaimed Scottish writer Douglas Maxwell, whose hits include 'Decky Does a Bronco' and 'Helmet', both also published by Oberon. 'Mancub' opens in a magical new show for adults and children at the Traverse Theatre Edinburgh in May, followed by a UK tour.

"Heartbreakingly powerfula wonder of grace and beauty' - London Herald

Tonight everything must go. Melody's got secrets - dirty, dark, and sick-to-the-bottom-of-your-stomach secrets that she's hidden away from for years. The tattoos up her arms tell part of the story, but the truth is a lot more complicated. John, the boyfriend, thinks he knows Melody, but he doesn't know the half of it. To him, it's just a question of presentation. Olive, Melody's irascible mother-in-law, thinks she knows all about it. She isn't afraid to put her oar in but she's got her version of events to hide. Ashley turns up at Melody's door on a mission to reveal everything. Only she doesn't know the full picture. The pressure that's been building up for years is about to boil over. "Melody" is a bitingly funny drama of a modern family's secrets and lies, reunion and revenge, and opens at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh in March 2006.

An adventure about what it means to be young and to believe in beyond the ordinary.

Something has been put in the water. Things are about to get a whole lot crazy. And you decide how it ends...Smalltown is the new dynamic comedy written by leading Scots writers Douglas Maxwell, D.C. Jackson and Johnny McKnight. It tells the unexpected tales of what happens when a polluted water supply causes extraordinary events to happen to ordinary people - from Zombies in the frozen food aisle, to oversexed teenagers releasing the animal within, to a dangerous game of Russian Roulette on Girvan beach. The show has three possible endings. You, the audience, vote on which ending you want, making for a truly memorable evening of entertainment. Smalltown - expect the unexpected!A thrilling and downright hilarious rollercoaster of a show from the company that brought you the five-star Promises Promises and the Little Johnny trilogy.

Holding on to your virginity, getting a ring for your pains and something to believe in, that’s what Dawn, Rob and Fawziya want. Ozzy, their loser PE teacher needs to believe in something too. It will all be fine when the Miracle Man gets here. Won’t it?

An exciting new one woman play from the award-winning Scottish playwright.

Teachers' Notes by Anthony BanksSensation Nation is a vocal group founded and led by the unstoppable DD. Her grand plan is for the group to storm next year’s Britain’s Got Talent. But first they need a gig, and more importantly a heartbreaking backstory that will win them votes later on down the line. So she’s booked them in to sing at a funeral. And not just any funeral either. Sensation Nation is to sing at the funeral of Ali Monroe, an older girl from their school who was killed in a car crash.Too Fast is an ensemble comedy for young performers with a strong emotional heart and a huge theatrical reveal in the final scene. It was originally produced as part of National Theatre Connections 2011.

This collection of energetic, fun and emotionally honest, tragi-comic plays explore the turbulent journey from childhood through adolescence towards eventual adulthood.DECKY DOES A BRONCO‘One of the finest plays to emerge from a Scottish working-class story in the last ten years...the sheer force and depth of Maxwell’s study of an end of childhood and an abrupt loss of innocence brings tears to the eyes.' The Scotsman'A good deed in a naughty world… Ten years on, Decky Does A Bronco has lost none of its ability to excite the senses and stop the heart.' Sunday HeraldHELMET‘Douglas Maxwell’s impeccably observed little script transcends the everyday to tap into what moves the young and the troubled. The Glasgow Herald‘This extraordinary chronicler of youth.’ Scottish Daily MailMANCUB ‘A near perfect encapsulation of the world of a troubled teen.' The Glasgow Herald'A corker of a show that I’d urge everyone to see as soon as they can.' The Mail On Sunday'Amazingly engaging...a must see’ The ListTHE MOTHER SHIPWinner of the Brian Way Award 2009 for Best Play for a Younger Audience.TOO FASTPerformed by 25 Youth Theatres in 2011 as part of the National Theatre’s NT Connections Project.