Neil Bartlett – författare

It is 3 a.m. in The City, and in a dark corner of The Bar, two lovers collide in the beginnings of a passionate and violent affair. Boy: nineteen, beautiful, ready for anyone to take him home, and 'O': the Older Man, cynical, unpredictable, and at the mercy of his personal demons. Their romance is orchestrated and observed by the owner of The Bar, Madame, who looks after her boys and ensures that their haven remains inviolate.At once a joyful celebration of homosexual love and culture, and a devastating evocation of the homophobic climate which stemmed from the 80s AIDS crisis, Ready to Catch Him Should He Fall offers a decisively contemporary recasting of the traditional love story. First published in 1990 and immediately acclaimed as the work of a bold new voice in English fiction, Neil Bartlett's powerful debut continues to shine with an ageless wisdom and wit.

On Platform One of Paddington Station in London, there is a statue of an unknown soldier; he’s reading a letter. On the hundredth anniversary of the declaration of war everyone in the country was invited to take a moment and write that letter. A selection of those letters are published here, in a new kind of war memorial – one made only of words.In a year of public commemoration ‘Letter to an Unknown Soldier’ invited everyone to step back from the public ceremonies and take a few private moments to think. Providing a space for people to reconsider the familiar imagery we associate with the war memorials – cenotaphs, poppies, and silence – it asked the following questions: if you could say what you want to say about that war, with all we’ve learned since 1914, with all your own experience of life and death to hand, what would you say? If you were able to send a personal message to this soldier, a man who served and was killed during World War One, what would you write?The response was extraordinary. The invitation was to everyone and, indeed, all sorts of people responded: schoolchildren, pensioners, students, artists, nurses, serving members of the forces and even the Prime Minister. Letters arrived from all over the United Kingdom and beyond, and many well-known writers and personalities contributed.Opening on 28th June 2014, the centenary of the Sarajevo assassinations, and closing at 11 pm on the night of 4 August 2014, the centenary of the moment when Prime Minister Asquith announced to the House of Commons that Britain had joined the First World War, this book offers a snapshot of what people in this country and across the world were thinking and feeling about the centenary of World War One.

Eric Bentley's Round 2 is a gay version of La Ronde set in New York in the 70s at a time when homosexuals were becoming increasingly visible and confident - in this series of encounters, sex overturns, even if for a short time the social and economic orde "Gay Plays 4 reflects the rich diversity of both gay writing and gay experience" Michael Burton, Gay Times

Reggie Rainbow has found the perfect profession for someone who likes to keep himself to himself: it’s his job to make sure that some things stay out of sight and out of mind.Reggie Rainbow is an angry young man who treads the backstage corridors of down-at-heel theatres for a living. Childhood polio has left him with a limp, but his strong arms and nimble fingers are put to perfect use behind the scenes, helping the illusionist Mr Brookes to ‘disappear’ a series of glamorous assistants twice nightly.But in 1953, bookings for magic acts are scarce, even in London. So when Mr Brookes is unexpectedly offered a slot at the Brighton Grand, Reggie finds himself back out on the road and living in a strange new town. The sea air begins to work its own peculiar kind of magic, and, as the bunting goes up in the streets outside the theatre for the Grand’s forthcoming Coronation spectacular, Reggie begins to wonder just how much of his own life is an act – and what might have happened to somebody who disappeared from that life long ago.Set in the tarnished world of 1950s Variety, The Disappearance Boy is a masterful and dark tale of love lost and found; of blood, sweat – and all the other secrets that are kept hidden away behind those red velvet curtains.

“What’s the odds so long as you’re happy?” — Ernest Boulton, 1869Alone on the darkened stage of an old music hall, a man reflects on an extraordinary life as he awaits a very ordinary death.Inspired by the scandalous true story of Ernest Boulton – the infamous Victorian cross-dresser – this original production from one of Britain’s most individual theatre-makers is a highly personal meditation on the fine art of living dangerously.

On the night of 24 March 1895. Mrs Robinson (Sheila Hancock) a society palm reader agreed to see Oscar Wilde in her London Flat. Wilde's lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, 'Bosie' was urging him to sue the Marquis of Queensberry (Bosie's father) for criminal libel. But Wilde's friends, wary of Quensberry's power, were warning him to leave town. In Extremis reveals the strange turmoil of that night, as a man at the height of his fame turns to a complete stranger for advice about a potentially life-changing decision.

I took my tears and turned them into paintings' In the electric calm of a blue-painted room, a dying woman reassembles the images of an extraordinary life. The woman is Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. The life is one of struggle - with love, with the body, with her country, and most of all, with her art.La Casa Azul is a collaboration between Quebeçois playwright Sophie Faucher, who also played Frida Kahlo in this production, and internationally acclaimed director Robert Lepage.

"A writer who can change the way people feel" - The Observer

Using only Charles Dickens' extraordinary words, this adaptation brings the story's settings and characters to theatrical life. From its opening image of little Pip, alone on the windswept marshes, it takes you on a journey right to the heart of Dickens' great exploration of childhood terrors and hopes - and of adult dreams and regrets.

Winter 2036, two old men search for a way to say goodbye after a lifetime spent together. In the perfect summer of 1971, their younger selves search for the courage to fall in love. Poised halfway between these two stories, one imagined, one remembered, their real-life counterparts bear witness to both the beginning and ending of an incredible journey.

Although his mainstream career has recently included majorwork for the RSC and the National, the five new pieces collected here show just how close playwright and director Neil Bartlett has stayed to the radical queer cultural roots that first brought him to prominence in the early 1980s. Commissioned to be performed in spaces as various as South London’s notorious Vauxhall Tavern, Brighton’s Theatre Royal and the pulpit of Westminster Abbey, these hit-and-run dramatic monologues bring all of his trademark wit and passion to bear on the issues that run throughout his work – the power of love, and the necessity for anger. Together, they make up a trenchantly personal take on what it feels like to have spent nearly thirty years standing up and speaking one’s mind.The collection also includes his 2011 adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s The Remarkable Rocket, which uses the diamond-sharp text of one of Wilde’s children’s stories as the springboard for a haunting meditation on the enduring power of Wilde to inspire, dazzle and move. A follow on from his earlier collection Solo Voices, this new collection is vivid, fierce and tender, with five provocative and highly actable new works from one of British theatre’s most idiosyncratic voices.www.neil-bartlett.com

‘... I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s thinking; hang on a minute; “I seem to have the knack of pleasing ladies.” In trousers? With short hair? In public? Was that allowed? Indeed it was.’A cool and contemporary look at one of the most intriguing aspects of musical theatre – just what is it that makes a woman in trousers so appealing? Accompanied by a piano, mezzo-soprano Jessica Walker dons a few well-chosen items of male attire, giving a supremely well-sung performance that conjures up an entire world, from the swaggering cross-dressers of the Victorian Music Hall to the ambiguous boy-heroes of Mozart and Strauss, to the back-room bulldykes of the Harlem Renaissance. Commissioned and produced by Opera North Projects with the Southbank Centre touring partner Welcome to Yorkshire. The Girl I Left Behind Me is a provocative, flirtatious, personal one woman-guide which deliciously recalls a forgotten chapter of female performance.The Girl I Left Behind Me will be performed at The Barbican Centre in November 2011 as part of the Bite Season.

Believe me, no civilised man ever regrets a pleasure...As London slides from one century into the next, a young man is cursed with the uncanny ability to remain both young and beautiful while descending into a life of heartless debauchery. With its glittering dialogue, provocative imagery and radical questioning of sexual and moral freedoms all brought sharply into focus by this brand-new adaptation, Oscar Wilde’s infamous parable has lost none of its power to provoke and disturb.Using Wilde’s original words, a company of sixteen actors and all of adaptor Neil Bartlett’s trademark theatricality, this new stage version of Wilde’s black-hearted parable was commissioned by and first produced at the Abbey Theatre, Ireland’s national theatre in the autumn season of 2012.

At 47, Mr. F?s working life on London?s Skin Lane is one governed by calm, precision and routine. So when he starts to have frightening, recurring nightmares, he does his best to ignore them. The images that appear in his dream are disturbing ? Mr. F can't for the life of him think where they have come from. After all, he's a perfectly ordinary middle-aged man. As London?s crooked backstreets begin to swelter in the long, hot summer of 1967, Mr. F?s nightmare becomes an obsession. A chance encounter adds a face to the body that nightly haunts him, and the torments of his sweat-drenched nights lead him ? and the reader ? deeper into a terrifying labyrinth of rage, desire and shame. Part fairy-tale, part compelling evocation of a now-lost London, Neil Bartlett's critically-acclaimed third novel is his fiercest piece of writing yet: cruel, erotic, and tender.

Mainstream brings thirty authors in from the margins to occupy centre-page. Queer storytellers. Working class wordsmiths. Chroniclers of colour. Writers whose life experiences give unique perspectives on universal challenges, whose voices must be heard. And read.‘In these locked down and unfocused times the short story is a much needed respite from the current Covid-19 bleakness. With Mainstream, Inkandescent has gathered together a wonderful collection of fascinating and eclectic stories. Sad, funny, horrifying and demystifying, the unique voices within take us on an open minded journey around the world. Loved it.’ — KATHY BURKE‘A riveting collection of stories, deftly articulated. Every voice entirely captivating: page to page, tale to tale. These are stories told with real heart from writers emerging from the margins in style.’ — ASHLEY HICKSON-LOVENCE, author of The 392 and Your ShowEmerging writers are placed alongside established authors. Contributors are: Aisha Phoenix, Alex Hopkins, Bidisha, Chris Simpson, DJ Connell, Elizabeth Baines, Gaylene Gould, Giselle Leeb, Golnoosh Nour, Hedy Hume, Iqbal Hussain, Jonathan Kemp, Julia Bell, Juliet Jacques, Justin David, Kathy Hoyle, Keith Jarrett, Kerry Hudson, Kit de Waal, Lisa Goldman, Lui Sit, Nathan Evans, Neil Bartlett, Neil Lawrence, Neil McKenna, Ollie Charles, Padrika Tarrant, Paul McVeigh, Philip Ridley, Polis Loizou.

‘Address Book is peopled with lovers, battlers, adventurers and optimists. Neil Bartlett is a peerless chronicler of queer lives past and present.’—NIVEN GOVINDENWithin the pages of this address book you will find not only names and places, but lives—with their everyday griefs and joys, and their everyday braveries. Seven different times. Seven different situations. Seven different characters, each seeking to feel at home—somewhere or with someone. Let Bartlett lead you surefootedly between lives and locations, through decades of change to find hope in the strangest of places.‘Neil Bartlett is an all-seeing wizard’—EDMUND WHITE'Bartlett is a pioneer on and off the page and we are lucky to have him telling our stories.'—DAMIAN BARR

1953 — The backstreets of Brighton are buzzing with preparations for the celebrations of the Coronation of Elizabeth II and, at the Grand Theatre, illusionist Teddy Brookes is plotting something crowd-pleasing to crown the occasion—with some assistance from glamorous Soho showgirl Pamela Rose. What the audience can never see is that, hidden behind the smoke and mirrors of his act, there is a whole world of secrets and lies… And a disappearance boy.In his acclaimed fourth novel, Neil Bartlett once again performs his trademark trick of slipping into the hidden spaces of queer history and bringing them vividly to life. Originally published in 2013, this new edition includes an introduction by the author and an Afterword with world-famous illusionist, Derren Brown.