Nick Dear – författare

Under the cover of his South London pub, Peachum plies a successful trade in small-time scams. But his world is shattered when the charismatic villain, Macheath, not only plans to marry his daughter, Polly, but to move into dangerous levels of criminal activity. In Nick Dear's contemporary version of Gay's The Beggars' Opera, we are shown a modern London teeming with petty thieves, gangland hoods, corrupt politicians and bent coppers.

In the savage 1942 winter siege of Leningrad, as the Russians fight off the Nazi invaders, three teenagers - Lika, Marat and Leondik - are thrown together. Losing everything from their past, they forge a new love that binds them and a new hope which keeps them alive: the promise of a better future.Arbuzov's classic of the 1960s is revived here in Nick Dear's stunning adaptation for the Tricycle Theatre, London in 2002.

Some say power's an illusion. But Louis is the master of illusion. He has turned government into a spectacle, politics into a circus.Nick Dear's new play on the origins of the Sun King is a dark and dazzling tale of ambition, corruption and illusion. The play premiered at the Royal National Theatre in London, in June 2003.

Slowly I learnt the ways of humans: how to ruin, how to hate, how to debase, how to humiliate. And at the feet of my master I learnt the highest of human skills, the skill no other creature owns: I finally learnt how to lie.Childlike in his innocence but grotesque in form, Frankenstein's bewildered creature is cast out into a hostile universe by his horror-struck maker. Meeting with cruelty wherever he goes, the friendless Creature, increasingly desperate and vengeful, determines to track down his creator and strike a terrifying deal.Urgent concerns of scientific responsibility, parental neglect, cognitive development and the nature of good and evil are embedded within this thrilling and deeply disturbing classic gothic tale.Frankenstein, based on the novel by Mary Shelley, premiered at the National Theatre, London, in February 2011.

Slowly I learnt the ways of humans: how to ruin, how to hate, how to debase, how to humiliate. And at the feet of my master I learnt the highest of human skills, the skill no other creature owns: I finally learnt how to lie.Childlike in his innocence but grotesque in form, Frankenstein's bewildered creature is cast out into a hostile universe by his horror-struck maker. Meeting with cruelty wherever he goes, the friendless Creature, increasingly desperate and vengeful, determines to track down his creator and strike a terrifying deal.Urgent concerns of scientific responsibility, parental neglect, cognitive development and the nature of good and evil are embedded within this thrilling and deeply disturbing classic gothic tale.Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, adapted for the stage by Nick Dear, premiered at the National Theatre, London, in February 2011.

Deep in the Hampshire countryside Edward Thomas, disaffected husband, exhausted father and tormented writer, scrapes a living. In 1913 he meets American poet Robert Frost and everything changes. As their friendship blossoms Edward writes, emerging from his cocoon of self-doubt into one of the most influential poets of the twentieth century. But he makes the drastic decision to enlist, confounding his friends and family.The Dark Earth and the Light Sky, which premiered at the Almeida Theatre, London, in November 2012, delves into the life of this enigmatic and complex character in an era of change and destruction.

The Syrian desert. Third century AD. Zenobia, warrior Queen of Palmyra, moves her forces into battle with Aurelian, Emperor of Rome. Meanwhile, her son is engaged in bizarre chemical experiments with Porphyry, a philosophy student with his own secret.A story of love and adventure at the time of the decline of Imperial Rome as Zenobia makes a stand for independence against the Empire.Zenobia was produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company and premiered at the Young Vic, London, in August 1995.

This first collection of Nick Dear's work for the stage displays the breadth and achievement of one of the most talented and inventive dramatists writing in Britain today. The volume contains two of his re-workings of eighteenth-century history, The Art of Success and In the Ruins, his intelligent and original political parable Zenobia and his chilling adaptation of Henry James's The Turn of the Screw.

In the savage 1942 winter siege of Leningrad, as the Russians fight off the Nazi invaders, three teenagers - Lika, Marat and Leondik - are thrown together. Losing everything from their past, they forge a new love that binds them and a new hope which keeps them alive: the promise of a better future.Arbuzov's classic of the 1960s is revived here in Nick Dear's stunning adaptation for the Tricycle Theatre, London in 2002.

Some say power's an illusion. But Louis is the master of illusion. He has turned government into a spectacle, politics into a circus.Nick Dear's new play on the origins of the Sun King is a dark and dazzling tale of ambition, corruption and illusion. The play premiered at the Royal National Theatre in London, in June 2003.

Patron? Collaborator? Employer? Voyeur? Lover?Questioned about the nature of his relationship with the 3rd Earl of Southampton, William Shakespeare is on trial.The evidence: tender poems, financial dependency, attempted revolution.A compelling new drama set in Elizabethan England - a powder keg of sex, politics and power - Dedication by Nick Dear premiered at the Nuffield Theatre, Southampton, in September 2016.

Patron? Collaborator? Employer? Voyeur? Lover?Questioned about the nature of his relationship with the 3rd Earl of Southampton, William Shakespeare is on trial.The evidence: tender poems, financial dependency, attempted revolution.A compelling new drama set in Elizabethan England - a powder keg of sex, politics and power - Dedication by Nick Dear premiered at the Nuffield Theatre, Southampton, in September 2016.

The Hogarth Plays catch one of England's most celebrated artists at two crucial points in his career: once at the beginning, and once at the end.In The Art of Success the events of ten tumultuous years are compressed into a single night, as newlywed William Hogarth makes his way through eighteenth-century London's high society and its debauched underworld. The play was first performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company at The Other Place, Stratford-upon-Avon, in 1986.A world premiere, The Taste of the Town begins in Chiswick some thirty years later. Hogarth, now a famous artist, is still at odds with the world, and with his wife. Facing public ridicule for what he considers his finest painting, he goes looking for one last fight.Nick Dear's double-bill premiered at the Rose Theatre, Kingston, London in September 2018.