Torben Betts – författare

The recession is biting hard and so Emily and Oliver have decided to downsize and shift their middle-class London lifestyle to a small town in the north of England. They want to live and to work and to raise their two young children in a friendly community, among what Emily terms ‘real people’, away from the cold anonymityof the city.So these left-leaning, well-educated people have invited over two of their new neighbours in an attempt to break the ice. Tonight Alan and Dawn are to be offered olives, anchovies and are to be introduced to Karl Marx and abstract art.As classes and outlooks collide, the scene is set for a meeting which will have consequences as hilarious as they are tragic.

Includes the plays The Optimist, The Swing of Things and The Company ManIn this third volume of his collected plays Torben Betts portrays a world of floundering, sub-alpha males and suicidally miserable women, of bullying parents, torturous childhoods and failing relationships, characters all baffled by the most basic question: how do we live good lives and be happy in the modern world?Set on Guy Fawke's Night The Optimist (2002) concerns a Government Defence Minister who must face up to the consequences of the choices he has made, both professionally and personally. The Swing of Things (2005) hilariously examines a world where status anxiety and affluenza seem to have corrupted the soul of a whole generation. In The Company Man (2006) a dying woman's last night is marred by the conflict between her accomplished yet emotionally damaged husband and their deeply troubled son.

Set in the future, this savagely funny poetic drama deals with a city couple who relocate to a remote rural wilderness to escape the rat race and the rising anarchy of city life. But will a desolate house by the sea provide them with The Answer?Lie of the Land premiered at the Pleasance at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August 2008.

"One day you will say something from the heart, a truth forced raw and screeching from the howling depths of your soul."Powerful poetic language, dark humour and provocative ideas build a fast moving story around a fiercely intelligent young girl and her relentless refusal of the establishment. When suddenly a people’s revolution breaks out and a mercenary soldier intrudes the family home, the conflict between the regime and the unconquered girl is revealed.The Unconquered toured the UK in 2007 with Stella Quines Theatre Company.

From a playwright rated by Alan Ayckbourn and Howard Barker to be the most exciting new voice in British theatre comes a shattering re-imagining of life as we live it now, set in the context of a bloody revolution.Witness to a brutal political assassination, we are introduced to a society fractured by a lack of belief in anything meaningful, in which everyone has something to protest against. This skewed world spins giddily between the surreal, the mundane and a ghastly graphic reality. Powerful poetic language, raw emotion, dark humour and big uncomfortable ideas build a fast moving story of 'quite shattering impact' (The Guardian).The Error of Their Ways received its world premiere at the HERE Center, NYC in August 2007.

Includes the plays Incarcerator, Five Visions of the Faithful, Silence and Violence, The Last Days of Desire, The Biggleswades.With an Introduction by David Pownall, and an essay by Peter CrazeA volume of language-rich, theatrically-ambitious tragedies. Betts’ hugely popular verse drama Incarcerator (White Bear and BAC) was a Time Out Critics' Choice, while his Five Visions of the Faithful (White Bear), is a series of uncompromising narratives exploring freedom, faith, death and desire. In Silence and Violence the wife of a war hero seduces a much-reviled sculptor as Betts examines the artist’s quest for self-expression in a Philistine state. Betts’ first radio play, The Last Days of Desire, was commissioned by the BBC.

At the turn of the sixteenth century the two most powerful people on the planet, Queen Isabella of Castile and King Ferdinand of Aragon are making plans to expand their empire. They are plundering the riches of the New World, removing all Jews and Moors from their territories and waging war on the infidels in the East. At home they seek to assert the dominance of Spain by marrying their daughters to various princes of Europe. One such daughter is Juana, a young woman full of religion and passion. Why, however, is she mad?Though set during the Golden Age of Spain, The Lunatic Queen is both a contemporary satire and classical revenge tragedy, as it tells the story of Juana's two servants who seek vengeance on a system which has victimised them.

May 2015: The most important General Election for a generation. All is not well for Tom Savage, an ex-Labour minister parachuted into a safe North East constituency, trying to win hearts and minds as well as an Election. Wrestling with a heady cocktail of mid-life crisis, growing dependency on alcohol and the consequences of his Government’s policies in Iraq, Tom finds himself in a Tyneside hotel bar at midnight with a newly teetotal barman and a ‘criminally attractive’ woman. What could possibly go wrong? Plenty…

May 2015: The most important General Election for a generation. All is not well for Tom Savage, an ex-Labour minister parachuted into a safe North East constituency, trying to win hearts and minds as well as an Election. Wrestling with a heady cocktail of mid-life crisis, growing dependency on alcohol and the consequences of his Government’s policies in Iraq, Tom finds himself in a Tyneside hotel bar at midnight with a newly teetotal barman and a ‘criminally attractive’ woman. What could possibly go wrong? Plenty…

The recession is biting hard and so Emily and Oliver have decided to downsize and shift their middle-class London lifestyle to a small town in the north of England. They want to live and to work and to raise their two young children in a friendly community, among what Emily terms ‘real people’, away from the cold anonymityof the city.So these left-leaning, well-educated people have invited over two of their new neighbours in an attempt to break the ice. Tonight Alan and Dawn are to be offered olives, anchovies and are to be introduced to Karl Marx and abstract art.As classes and outlooks collide, the scene is set for a meeting which will have consequences as hilarious as they are tragic.

Three pitch-black comedies from an exciting new writer: A Listening Heaven, Mummies and Daddies and ClockwatchingA Listening Heaven, which focuses on one family’s painful inability to grieve for a dead son, was first produced in 1999 to critical acclaim at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, where Betts was the resident dramatist.Mummies and Daddies, developed at the RNT Studio, brutally yet hilariously lays bare the soullessness of consumerism.In Clockwatching, produced at both the SJT and the Orange Tree Theatre in 2001, a despotic man descends into helplessness when his servile wife falls seriously ill.With an introduction by Connal Orton.

Will the Prime Minister give Rupert the political prize he’s been hoping for? How much more can Olivia take of her mother Mary and her withering put-downs? Will Charlie get off her phone for long enough to listen to anyone, let alone her boyfriend?Home truths emerge and a reputation could tumble as Rupert St John-Green MP and three generations of women gather in the family garden to watch a total solar eclipse.A searingly funny contemporary look at one family and at Britain today.

Will the Prime Minister give Rupert the political prize he’s been hoping for? How much more can Olivia take of her mother Mary and her withering put-downs? Will Charlie get off her phone for long enough to listen to anyone, let alone her boyfriend?Home truths emerge and a reputation could tumble as Rupert St John-Green MP and three generations of women gather in the family garden to watch a total solar eclipse.A searingly funny contemporary look at one family and at Britain today.

Monogamy means sharing your life with one person, but what if you shared your kitchen with 5.6 million?Caroline Mortimer, the nation’s favourite TV cook, has it all – a sparkling career, a big house in Highgate, a (golf) loving husband, smart kids and the best kitchen money can buy.But beneath the immaculate furnishings, studio lighting and away from the glare of the ever-present cameras – Caroline must face the looming collision of living a private life in the public eye. What happens when the cameras turn off and the truth comes out?Caroline's Kitchen serves up deft dialogue in absurd situations: "Betts paints a wonderfully lurid picture of the middle classes, juxtaposed with the fragility of those who serve them" (The Stage). First performed as Monogamy at Malvern Theatre starring Janie Dee, it then embarked on a national tour. It is a  searing, sharp, state of the nation comedy from one of the UK’s most exciting playwrights, Torben Betts.

Monogamy means sharing your life with one person, but what if you shared your kitchen with 5.6 million?Caroline Mortimer, the nation's favourite TV cook, has it all – a sparkling career, a big house in Highgate, a (golf) loving husband, smart kids and the best kitchen money can buy.But beneath the immaculate furnishings, studio lighting and away from the glare of the ever-present cameras – Caroline must face the looming collision of living a private life in the public eye. What happens when the cameras turn off and the truth comes out?Caroline's Kitchen serves up deft dialogue in absurd situations: "Betts paints a wonderfully lurid picture of the middle classes, juxtaposed with the fragility of those who serve them" (The Stage). First performed as Monogamy at Malvern Theatre starring Janie Dee, it then embarked on a national tour. It is a  searing, sharp, state of the nation comedy from one of the UK's most exciting playwrights, Torben Betts.

It Never Happened (or State Terror in Eight Easy Stages) eavesdrops on eight different periods from the past: two soldiers reflect on the prospect of imminent death caused by their government's greed; a political fixer makes an awkward sex scandal go away; a young journalist discovers that integrity doesn't pay the mortgage; and a domestic assault turns into a witchcraft trial. Torben Betts' new play is a furious but darkly funny indictment of state-sponsored murder and how governments efface their misdeeds from history with the help of a complacent press and public.

A Listening Heaven, which focuses on one family's painful inability to grieve for a dead son, was first produced in 1999 to critical acclaim at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, where Betts was the resident dramatist. Mummies and Daddies, developed at the RNT Studio, brutally yet hilariously lays bare the soullessness of consumerism. In Clockwatching, produced at both the SJT and the Orange Tree Theatre in 2001, a despotic man descends into helplessness when his servile wife falls seriously ill. With an introduction by Connal Orton.

Includes the plays Incarcerator, Five Visions of the Faithful, Silence and Violence, The Last Days of Desire, The Biggleswades. With an Introduction by David Pownall, and an essay by Peter Craze A volume of language-rich, theatrically-ambitious tragedies. Betts' hugely popular verse drama Incarcerator (White Bear and BAC) was a Time Out Critics' Choice, while his Five Visions of the Faithful (White Bear), is a series of uncompromising narratives exploring freedom, faith, death and desire. In Silence and Violence the wife of a war hero seduces a much-reviled sculptor as Betts examines the artist's quest for self-expression in a Philistine state. Betts' first radio play, The Last Days of Desire, was commissioned by the BBC.

A play about an intelligent young girl and her relentless refusal of the establishment. When suddenly a people's revolution breaks out and a mercenary soldier intrudes the family home, the conflict between the regime and the unconquered girl is revealed.

A re-imagining of life as we live it, set in the context of a bloody revolution. Witness to a brutal political assassination, this work introduces us to a society fractured by a lack of belief in anything meaningful, in which everyone has something to protest against.

Includes: "The Optimist", "The Swing of Things", and "The Company Man".

A comic drama from award-winning playwright Torben Betts. Set in the future, this savagely funny poetic drama deals with a city couple who relocate to a remote rural wilderness to escape the rat race and the rising anarchy of city life. But will a desolate house by the sea provide them with the answer?

One night in January 2010 and an earthquake in Haiti leaves around a hundred thousand people dead and almost two million homeless. Meanwhile, somewhere in a leafy North London suburb, a group of six individuals convene over avocado and prawns, followed by a monkfish stew. They struggle with worries over their mortgages, their mobile phone tariffs, their Facebook friends, their careers, their love lives, their diets, their alcohol intake, their holiday plans and whether or not any of them will be able to make any lasting impression on history.