Mike Bartlett – författare

A real man is strong. A real man is driven. A real man provides. A father finds himself being phased out of his son's life. Denied access to his only child, he goes to extraordinary lengths to hold on to him. My Child throws us into a violent world where good intentions count for very little, and offers an incisive, honest look at what it means to be a good parent. Premiered at the Royal Court Theatre Jerwood Theatre Downstairs, this is a remarkably powerful and affecting work from a writer hailed by The Stage as 'one of the most exciting new talents to emerge in recent times'.

If I don’t want to tell anyone, it’s up to me, right?Lucy knows James has avoided the battle. Mark knows Amanda has fought for her life. But speaking the truth could bring everything crashing down.What happens if we live a life of not talking?Olivier award-winning writer Mike Bartlett's gripping and lyrical first play unlocks a culture of silence and gives voice to the human casualties when things are easier done than said. This edition was published to coincide with a new production at the Arcola Theatre and features an introduction by the author.

It's Cabaret, we've got our heads down and we're dancing and drinking as fast as we can. The enemy is on its way, but this time it doesn't have guns and gas it has storms and earthquakes, fire and brimstone.... You were the glimmer. At the end of the tunnel. And you went out.Earthquakes in London is a fast and furious metropolitan crash of people, scenes and decades, as three sisters attempt to navigate their dislocated lives and loves, while their dysfunctional father, a brilliant scientist, predicts global catastrophe. The play deals, through amplified theatricality, with a range of contemporary issues from population growth to climate change.An all-pervasive fear of the future and a guilty pleasure in the excesses of the present drive Mike Bartlett's epic rollercoaster of a play from 1968 to 2525 and back again.Earthquakes in London first published in 2010 and has subsequently become a much-produced and widely studied drama text. It is published here as a Student Edition alongside commentary and notes by Bridget Escolme.The ancillary material is geared at students and includes:- an introduction outlining the play's plot, character, themes context and performance history- the full text of the play- a chronology of the playwright's life and work- extensive textual notes- questions for further study- an interview with the playwright

The fact is that some of us like women and some like men and that’s fine that’s good in fact that’s good, a good thing, but it seems to me that you’ve become confused.John is happy in himself, and with his boyfriend, until one day he meets the woman of his dreams.In a world full of endless possibilities why must we still limit ourselves with labels? Mike Bartlett’s razor sharp play about love and identity redefines the battle of the sexes as we know it.Cock premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, on 13 November 2009. This new and revised edition was published to coincide with the West End production in 2022, starring Jonathan Bailey, Taron Egerton and Jade Anouka.

Six Ensemble Plays for Young Actors is an anthology of work written for actors aged 11-25. Ideal for youth theatre groups, schools and amateur dramatic companies, it contains a diverse selection of plays suited to large casts and ensemble performance. Varying in style and subject matter, the plays offer performers, directors and designers a range of exciting challenges: from recreating the mythological world of The Odyssey to a dramatisation of two hundred years of slavery that will take the audience on a journey from eighteenth century Africa to 1990s London in Sweetpeter. Contemporary urban living is confronted in plays ranging from the starkly realistic to the playful, lyrical and surrealistic. From the innocent and imaginative world of a school playground to issues of racism, peer pressure, crime and communication in a mobile phone obsessed culture, this is a wide-ranging anthology that will enrich the repertoire of youth theatre groups and the curriculum in schools. The volume is introduced by Paul Roseby, artistic director of the National Youth Theatre.

Sixteen-year-old Kelly has never known her Dad. Turns out he's from Iraq, which her mum never mentioned, and he's brought an ancient Mesopotamian vase as some kind of present. But Kelly doesn't want a vase. She wants her dad to stay and get to know her. It's not the reunion either of them expected and for Kelly, it's the beginning of an epic and dangerous journey. Mike Bartlett has been described as 'One of the most exciting new talents to emerge in recent times'. (The Stage). His first play My Child was called 'Brutal, thrilling, unmissable' (Evening Standard) and 'the theatrical equivalent of a firecracker'. (Metro).

Contractions, a new play by Mike Bartlett, will be published to coincide with the production at the Royal Court Theatre, London, from 29 May - 14 June 2008. 'Come in. Sit down. How are you?' Emma's been seeing Darren. She thinks she's in love. Her boss thinks she's in breach of contract. The situation needs to be resolved. An ink-black comedy about work and play, which invites the audience to a meeting at the centre of the Royal Court building.

Five of the best plays from the first decade of the twenty-first century produced by the Royal Court Theatre, London. Royal Court Plays 2000-2010 is an essential anthology for anyone interested in the best work from the most important new writing theatre produced during the last decade. Under the Blue Sky by David Eldridge is a touching and comic play about love, war and teaching. Produced in 2000 it was revived on the West End in 2008 and has become a turn-of-the-century classic. Roy Williams' play Fallout was written in response to the killing of Damilola Taylor and the McPherson report into racism in the Metropolitan Police and is an essential play exploring how black teenagers are drawn into violence and mutual mistrust. Motortown is about the 'war on terror' and the war in Iraq. Described as 'an instant modern classic, the first major anti-anti-war play of this era' (What's on Stage) Simon Stephens' play examines the effects of the war on individuals. Mike Bartlett emerged as one of the most exciting young writers of recent times when his play My Child premiered in 2007.A play about fatherhood, broken families and what it means to be a good parent, it was heaped with praise: 'Brutal, thrilling...unmissable' (Evening Standard). The final play, Enron, is an epic satire about the notorious rise and fall of Enron and its founding partners, written by Lucy Prebble. A huge hit and acclaimed by critics and audiences alike, the play transferred to the West End in 2010 and opened on Broadway that same year.

It's Cabaret, we've got our heads down and we're dancing and drinking as fast as we can. The enemy is on its way, but this time it doesn't have guns and gas it has storms and earthquakes, fire and brimstone...You were the glimmer. At the end of the tunnel. And you went out. An all-pervasive fear of the future and a guilty pleasure in the excesses of the present drive Mike Bartlett's epic rollercoaster of a play from 1968 to 2525 and back again. Earthquakes in London includes burlesque strip shows, bad dreams, social breakdown, population explosion, worldwide paranoia. It is a fast and furious metropolitan crash of people, scenes and decades, as three sisters attempt to navigate their dislocated lives and loves, while their dysfunctional father, a brilliant scientist, predicts global catastrophe. Mike Bartlett's contemporary and directed dialogue combines a strong sense of humanity with epic ambition, as well as finely-aimed shafts of political comment embedded effortlessly into every scene. Earthquakes in London represents modern playwriting at its most exciting and ambitious.

This first collection of Mike Bartlett's plays showcases the adroit expertise and flair of a writer known for laser-sharp political comment, tight dialectics and needlingly real characters.My Child is a gut-wrenching exploration of the lengths a father will go to to have access to his child. The play creates a violent world where good intentions count for very little, and offers an incisive, honest look at what it means to be a good parent.Contractions is an ink-black comedy about work and play: Emma's been seeing Darren. She thinks she's in love. Her boss thinks she's in breach of contract. The situation needs to be resolved. Artefacts depicts a father-daughter reunion which, after 16 years, crosses between the world of a British teenager and an Iraqi expert in antiquity, and is complicated by the ambivalent gift of a precious Mespotamian vase. Cock is a punchy play which takes a playful, candid look at one man's sexuality and the difficulties that arise when you realise you have a choice.

Work out what you want and go for it with all your conviction and don't care if you seem outrageous or stupid... All that's needed, in the end, is belief. An identical, terrifying dream haunts Londoners in the midst of economic gloom and ineffective protest. Whilst the prime minister considers a preventive war, a young man returns home with a vision for the future.Coincidences, omens and visions collide with political reality in this epic new play from the writer of Earthquakes in London. Set in a dark and magical landscape, it depicts a London both familiar and strange, a London staring into the void. In a year which has seen governments fall as the people take to the streets, 13 explores the meaning of personal responsibility, the hold that the past has over the future and the nature of belief itself.

1967. Kenneth and Sandra know the world is changing. And they want some of it.Love, Love, Love takes on the baby boomer generation as it retires, and finds it full of trouble. Smoking, drinking, affectionate and paranoid, one couple journeys forty-years from initial burst to full bloom. The play follows their idealistic teenage years in the 1960s to their stint as a married family unit before finally divorced and, although disintegrated, free from acrimony. Their children, on the other hand, bitterly rail against their parents' irresponsibility and their relaxed, laissez-faire attitude.This play by Olivier award-winning writer Mike Bartlett questions whether the baby boomer generation is to blame for the debt-ridden and adrift generation of their children, now adults but far from stable and settled.This edition features an introduction by James Grieve, who directed Love, Love, Love at the Royal Court, London.

But that's what this is, isn't it? The ultimate bitch fight.When John takes a break from his boyfriend, his accidentally meets the girl of his dreams. Filled with guilt and indecision, he decides there is only one way to straighten this out . . . Mike Bartlett’s metrosexual play about love and longing provides us with questions of who we are and who we want to be. John’s refusal to fix his identity disturbs and disrupts the lives of those around him in this contemporary tale of sex without nudity and struggle without violence. Mike Bartlett's punchy story takes a playful, candid look at one man's sexuality and the difficulties that arise when you realise you have a choice.Cock premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, on 13 November 2009.It is published here in the Modern Classics series, featuring an introduction by Mark O'Thomas.

'Dear Miss Tweetwell, the ladder is where I live. For at the top lies reputation and wealth and at the bottom: ignominy and squalor.'When noble heroine Miss Phoebe Virtue receives worrisome news on Instagram that her twin brother Jack may be endangering his reputation in London Town, she decides she must visit herself, and investigate...Set in contemporary, post-pandemic London, full of illicit sex, political hypocrisy and the machinations of a fame-hungry elite, Scandaltown is a comedy for the new Restoration of the theatres.Mike Bartlett's play was first produced by the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre, in association with Fictional Company, at the Lyric in April 2022, directed by Artistic Director Rachel O'Riordan.'[Mike Bartlett] is one of the prime movers in a new golden generation of British playwrights' Independent

Five ambitious and exciting plays by the multi-award-winning playwright, hailed as ‘one of the prime movers in a new golden generation of British playwrights’ (Independent), and introduced by the author.Earthquakes in London (National Theatre & Headlong, 2010) is an epic drama about climate change, population explosion, social breakdown and worldwide paranoia, travelling from 1968 to 2525 and back again. ‘The theatrical equivalent of a thrilling roller-coaster ride’ (Daily Telegraph)Love, Love, Love (Paines Plough & Drum Theatre Plymouth, UK tour, 2010; Royal Court & Paines Plough, 2012) examines the baby boomer generation, from coming-of-age in the 1960s to retirement-age more than forty years later, in a play that ‘does the clash of generational world views with a devastating precision’ (Guardian).The Enemy is a short play in which a journalist seizes an opportunity to interview the man who shot Osama bin Laden. It was staged by Headlong as part of Decade (St Katherine’s Dock, London, 2011), exploring 9/11 and its legacy.13 (National Theatre, 2011) is a panoramic drama in which a young man returns to London, a city riven by social protest and upheaval, with a radical vision for the future. Premiered on the National’s largest stage, it confirmed Bartlett’s ability to tackle epic themes with supreme assurance: ‘His ambition is distinctive and immense’ (Evening Standard).Medea (Headlong, UK tour, 2012) is a startlingly modern version of Euripides’ tragedy, exploring a woman’s private fury at her husband’s infidelity, while imprisoned in her marital home. ‘A savage play for today, superbly well done’ (Mail on Sunday)

'It's not a game for gentlemen we're playing,Political and civilized. This isHistoric'2024. As America goes to the polls, democracy itself is on the brink. Who takes the White House – and at what cost?Mike Bartlett's viciously funny and foreboding The 47th is a dazzling glimpse into the underbelly of the greatest political show on earth: the US presidential race.It was first produced at The Old Vic, London, in March 2022 by The Old Vic, Sonia Friedman Productions and Annapurna Theatre, directed by Rupert Goold, and featuring Bertie Carvel as Donald J. Trump, Tamara Tunie as Kamala Harris, and Lydia Wilson as Ivanka Trump.

'My point is we're at the frontier here. No one knows. And I find that really fucking exciting.'Polly and Nick have it all. Happily married, two children, successful careers. And yet there's something missing… something rare and unforeseen… waiting to add a much-needed sparkle…Unicorn by Mike Bartlett is an explicit, funny and provocative play, which was first performed at the Garrick Theatre in London's West End in 2025. It was directed by James Macdonald and starred Nicola Walker, Stephen Mangan and Erin Doherty.

'Dreams.You don't compromise on those.'Lip and Ruth have left the city behind for a new life on a farm; trying to live differently, live better. But when Ruth's stepdaughter and her incendiary best friend arrive, this quiet rural project is thrown into chaos, as conflicting visions of the future come crashing into the present.Poignant and powerful, Mike Bartlett's play Juniper Blood explores the true cost of pursuing our ideals in an imperfect world. It premiered at the Donmar Warehouse, London, in 2025, directed by James Macdonald.

A touching, funny play about what happens when you hate your best friend.One of them went on the anti-war protest, shouted their lungs out, then got horrendously and staggeringly drunk. The other stayed at home, watched TV for a bit, and thought about the future.Mike Bartlett's play An Intervention premiered at the Watford Palace Theatre in April 2014, in a co-production with Paines Plough.

Mike Bartlett's 'future history play' explores the people beneath the crowns, the unwritten rules of our democracy, and the conscience of Britain's most famous family.Queen Elizabeth II is dead. After a lifetime of waiting, her son ascends the throne. A future of power. But how to rule?Drawing on the style and structure of a Shakespearean history play, King Charles III opened at London's Almeida Theatre, directed by its Artistic Director Rupert Goold, in April 2014, before transferring to the West End.The play went on to win Best New Play at both the Critics' Circle Theatre Awards and the Olivier Awards. It also won the South Bank Sky Arts Theatre Award.

A razor-sharp play about the fine line between office politics and playground bullying, Bull offers ringside seats as three employees fight to keep their jobs.Mike Bartlett's acid-tongued play Bull opened at the Young Vic, London, in 2015, directed by Clare Lizzimore. It was originally performed at the Crucible Studio Theatre, Sheffield, in 2013, where it won the UK Theatre Awards for Best New Play. It also won an Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre in 2015.

In a housing crisis, a young couple are offered a home of their own. But at what price?Mike Bartlett's provocative play Game invites us to spy on a family as they embark on a dangerous new way to live.Game premiered at the Almeida Theatre, London, in February 2015.

Mike Bartlett's complete scripts for the award-winning first series of his superlative television drama, winner of Best New Drama at the 2016 National Television Awards and Best TV Drama at the South Bank Sky Arts Awards.Doctor Gemma Foster is a woman seemingly in control: a trusted GP, the heart of her town, a woman people can trust. But her life is about to explode.Suspecting her husband of having an affair, Gemma throws herself into an investigation that will propel her, her family, and even her patients into chaos. Bit by bit, Doctor Foster uncovers secrets that shock her to the core. Now she has to choose how to react. One thing is certain - she is going to behave in ways she could never have imagined.Doctor Foster: The Scripts contains the complete scripts to all five episodes of the first series, plus exclusive bonus material.Doctor Foster premiered on BBC One in September 2015, starring Suranne Jones and Bertie Carvel. The series drew a weekly audience of over 8.2 million viewers, peaking at over 10 million for the finale, and was the BBC's highest-rating new drama of the year. It won two prizes at the National Television Awards 2016, including Best New Drama.

A darkly comic play that explores the unexpected, bewildering, and life-changing consequences of challenging the status quo at a global level.Last week, Andrew was that guy with his girl lunching in KFC, discussing apartments and making plans for the future. Today he's in Moscow, in an undisclosed hotel room, on the run and at risk of assassination.Last week, a nobody. This week, America's Most Wanted: a man who humiliated his country with one touch of a button.Mike Bartlett's Wild premiered at Hampstead Theatre, London, in June 2016, in a production directed by James Macdonald.

‘It’s England really, isn’t it? A climate without cloud and rain isn’t honest.’In the ruins of a garden in rural England, in a house which was once a home, one woman searches for seeds of hope.Mike Bartlett's play Albion was premiered in October 2017 at the Almeida Theatre, London, in a production directed by Rupert Goold. It was revived at the Almeida in February 2020.

‘Because Christmas. Well… That’s when they say people come home.’Andy loves nostalgic television, pints down the pub, and listening to the whole album from beginning to end. His daughter, Maya, wears good shoes, likes good arguments, and has a secret plan to bring down the government.The trouble is, three years ago Maya left home, and they haven't spoken since. But this Christmas, she might be coming back. Andy knows she's going to stay. Maya knows she's not.Mike Bartlett's play Snowflake is an epic story about generational conflict, fathers and daughters, and whether we're living in the best or worst of times. It premiered at the Old Fire Station, Oxford, in 2018, and was revived at Kiln Theatre, London, in 2019, directed by Clare Lizzimore.

‘There are no miracles in this world. Only those we make for ourselves.’It's 8 a.m. and a revolt is underway.The father is dying. The son is spying. The wife is cheating. The uncle is stealing. The mother is scheming. The dynasty is crumbling.One house. One fortune. One victor.Maxim Gorky's savagely funny play Vassa Zheleznova was first published in 1910. Mike Bartlett's adaptation, Vassa, premiered at the Almeida Theatre, London, in October 2019.