Henry Bell – författare

'I am not here, then, as the accused; I am here as the accuser of capitalism dripping with blood from head to foot' – John Maclean, Speech from the Dock, 1918.Feared by the government, adored by workers, celebrated by Lenin and Trotsky; the head of British Military Intelligence called John Maclean 'the most dangerous man in Britain'.This new biography explores the events that shaped the life of a momentous man – from the Great War and the Great Unrest, to the Rent Strike and the Russian Revolution. It examines his work as an organiser and educator, his imprisonment and hunger strike, and how he became the early hero of radical Scottish Independence.

'I am not here, then, as the accused; I am here as the accuser of capitalism dripping with blood from head to foot' – John Maclean, Speech from the Dock, 1918.Feared by the government, adored by workers, celebrated by Lenin and Trotsky; the head of British Military Intelligence called John Maclean 'the most dangerous man in Britain'.This new biography explores the events that shaped the life of a momentous man – from the Great War and the Great Unrest, to the Rent Strike and the Russian Revolution. It examines his work as an organiser and educator, his imprisonment and hunger strike, and how he became the early hero of radical Scottish Independence.

'I loved this book ... this is a history we can all connect with and be inspired by' - Josie Long, comedian'The epic story of this universal symbol, told with passion and erudition' - Liz Lochhead, poetThe red flag: there is no symbol, perhaps other than the crucifix and the crescent moon, that so many people have lived and died for. A standard of hope and resistance to millions, and of terror and tyranny to many. But why is the red flag red? How did it come to represent the workers against the propertied class? And how did it travel the world?In Henry Bell’s lively account, we journey around the globe and back through history, tracing the lineage of the red flag as both a material object and a symbol. The book explores the triumphs and disasters of the flag’s history, its designers and makers, heroes and villains, and the utopias and wastelands that have kept the red flag flying.From its martial beginnings in Rome and France, to the raising of a blood stained flag at the Merthyr Rising and the arrival of the red flag at the Paris Commune; from the jungles of north-eastern India to the factories of Cuba; Red Threads explores how this symbol of working class power first came to be held aloft in the hands of revolutionaries; who raises it today; and its meaning for the future.

In an oak-panelled room in a rural Oxford gastropub, ten young undergraduates with cut-glass vowels and deep pockets are meeting, intent on restoring their right to rule - and on getting totally "chatueaued". Members of The Riot Club, an elite student dining society, the fraternity starts to fray when they discover they're a guinea-fowl short and the prostitute they've hired is suddenly banished. An apparent spoof on Oxford's notorious Bullingdon Club, whose past members include Boris Johnson, George Osborne and David Cameron, Posh is a satirical play about power, politics and privilege, and how these elements interact within British institutions. The play is published here as a Methuen Drama Student Edition with commentary and notes by Henry Bell. Posh premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in 2010 and two years later opened in the West End. It was nominated for Best New Play at both the Evening Standard Awards and for the Theatregoers' Choice Awards. It was subsequently made into a film called The Riot Club (2014), starring Sam Claflin, Max Irons and Douglas Booth.

This is the first full-length exploration of the work of Laura Wade, providing critical and performance perspectives on one of the UK’s most frequently staged female playwrights.Laura Wade is one of the most exciting, challenging and commercially successful playwrights in the UK. Her work has been widely translated and performed across the globe, but despite the prolific appearance of her plays on professional stages, in university studios and school classrooms, she is a writer who is yet to have a book dedicated to her award-winning oeuvre.Throughout the volume, key creative practitioners add rehearsal room insight, alongside the perspective of Laura Wade herself and a foreword by Tamara Harvey, Co-Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Regular collaborators Harvey, Katherine Parkinson, Lyndsey Turner and Samuel West provide perspectives on Wade’s work, including the Olivier Award-winning Home, I’m Darling, the frequently staged Alice and her inventive adaptation of The Watsons. Actor Natalie Dormer also provides new insights which connect together Posh and the subsequent film adaptation, The Riot Club.Teachers, lecturers and theatre-makers are given resources to explore Wade’s plays in detail, including Posh, with key thoughts from the original production’s director as well as Cressida Carré, director of the first all-female staging in 2017. Those working with the increasingly popular early plays, Breathing Corpses, Colder than Here and Other Hands, have access to fresh scholarship deconstructing the narrative ingenuity and dark themes contained within. Each chapter draws attention to a range of international and performance contexts from which the plays can be explored.