NHB Collected Works – serie

Since her play Steel opened in her native Sheffield in 2018, Chris Bush has rapidly become one of the UK's most successful and widely staged playwrights, with her plays on stage at the National Theatre, in the West End, and across Europe. Celebrated for her spirited dissections of power, female agency and northern identity, her work is infused with wit, empathy, and a powerful sense of place and belonging.Included here are five of her plays, all first performed between 2018 and 2021, together with a revealing introduction in which she reflects on the tumultuous period from which they emerged.Steel (Sheffield Theatres, 2018) is a political epic constructed from minimal resources, a two-hander spanning three decades of women in politics. 'Sharp, witty and uncannily topical' The StageFaustus: That Damned Woman (Headlong, 2020) is a radical reimagining of the classic tale, asking what women must sacrifice to achieve greatness. 'Original, ambitious and fantastically revisionist' GuardianNine Lessons and Carols (Almeida Theatre, 2020) is a play, with songs by Maimuna Memon, about connection and isolation, forged during the Covid pandemic, exploring what we hold on to in troubled times. 'A reminder of the power of theatre and our need for it' TelegraphHungry (Paines Plough, 2021) is a pithy two-hander about food, love, class and grief in a world where there's little left to savour. 'Reconfirms Chris Bush as one of our greatest, most relevant contemporary playwrights' Broadway WorldNot the End of the World (Schaubühne, Berlin, 2021) is a daringly theatrical investigation of the climate crisis through the perspectives of class, patriarchy and colonialism. 'Staggering… Bush's remarkable text melds a ruthless structural concept with exquisite lyricism' Guardian'One of our most prolific and arresting writers' Evening Standard'A writer of great wit and empathy' The Times

This volume of Conor McPherson's collected plays, covering a decade of writing, celebrates a fascination with the uncanny which has led him to be described as 'quite possibly the finest playwright of his generation' (New York Times).In Shining City, a man seeks help from a counsellor, claiming to have seen the ghost of his dead wife. The play, premiered at the Royal Court, London, is 'up there with The Weir, moving, compassionate, ingenious and absolutely gripping' (Daily Telegraph).The Seafarer, premiered at the National Theatre before going on to become a Tony Award-winning Broadway hit, tells the story of an extended Christmas Eve card game, but one played for the highest stakes possible. 'McPherson proves yet again he is both a born yarn-spinner and an acute analyst of the melancholy Irish manhood' (Guardian)Set in 'the big house' in 1820s rural Ireland, The Veil is McPherson's first period play. Seventeen-year-old Hannah is to be married off in order to settle the debts of the crumbling estate. But when Reverend Berkeley arrives, determined to orchestrate a séance, chaos is unleased. 'A cracking fireside tale of haunting and decay' (The Times)The Birds, hauntingly adapted from the short story by Daphne du Maurier, is 'deliciously chilling, claustrophobic, questioning, frightening; and with a twist' (Irish Independent). It is published here for the first time, as is The Dance of Death, a new version of Strindberg's classic, which premiered at the Trafalgar Studios in London. 'A spectacularly bleak yet curiously bracing drama that often makes you laugh out loud' (Daily Telegraph).Completing the volume is a Foreword by the author.

The second collection of plays from the multi-award-winning Irish playwright, Enda Walsh.This volume of remarkable plays charts the development of one of the most strikingly original playwrights in contemporary theatre. It collects together four full-length plays – three of which were produced by Galway’s Druid Theatre Company, three of which were performed at the Edinburgh Fringe, and two of which transferred to London’s National Theatre – along with two fascinating short plays and a Foreword by the author.The Walworth Farce (2006) is a madcap yet tender play about what can happen when we become stuck in the stories we tell about our lives.The New Electric Ballroom (2008) is a dark, glitter-dusted fable of the emotionally stultifying effects of small-town life.In a savage and riveting take on the classic Greek myth of Odysseus’s wife, Penelope (2010) sees four ridiculous men facing their inevitable deaths, and playing for an unwinnable love.Ballyturk (2014) saw Walsh reuniting with actor Cillian Murphy after Disco Pigs and Misterman for a jaw-droppingly physical play in which the lives of two men unravel over the course of ninety minutes.Also included in this volume are two short plays, My Friend Duplicity (2010), which went on to inspire Ballyturk, and Room 303 (2011).‘One of the most fiercely individual voices in the theatre today’ New York Times‘Enda Walsh makes his own distinctive stage music in the fury of his writing talent and the irresistible surge of his blatant theatricality’ Independent

This collection of plays written and introduced by actor-turned-writer Ayub Khan Din charts the development of a writer able to turn the tumultuous experience of life in modern Britain into satisfying, humane and often richly comic drama.Whether drawing on his own childhood, growing up in an Anglo-Pakistani family in Salford, or on E.R. Braithwaite's account of racial tensions in the East End in To Sir, With Love, he depicts the struggles of individuals to come to terms with their conflicting cultural legacies – and he does so with unerring warmth and compassion.East is East (1996) is an irresistible comedy set in multiracial Salford in 1970, where the Khan children are buffeted this way and that by their Pakistani father’s insistence on tradition, their English mother’s laissez-faire and their own wish to be citizens of the modern world. The film adaptation that followed, with a screenplay by the author, became one of the most successful British films ever made. The version included here is the revised text first performed at the Trafalgar Studios in 2014.The short, elegiac play, Notes on Falling Leaves (2004), is an emotionally tender depiction of a young man as he loses his mother to dementia, 'overwhelming in its emotional impact' (Telegraph).In All the Way Home (2011), a quarrelsome group of siblings gathers at the family home under the shadow of impending loss. Amidst the cut and thrust of spiky Salford banter, long-harboured resentments rise to the surface and family bonds unravel and unwind.To Sir, With Love (2013), based on E.R. Braithwaite's autobiographical novel, is the uplifting story of a talented, idealistic young teacher discovering the reality of life as a black man in Britain after the Second World War as he struggles to find a way to connect with his students at a tough but progressive East End school.

A collection of five plays by Alexi Kaye Campbell.The premiere of The Pride at the Royal Court Theatre in 2008 marked the emergence of Alexi Kaye Campbell as a distinctive new talent. With its bold and ingenious structure and its daring take on sexual politics in the 1950s and today, the play combined thrilling dramaturgy with profound insight into the affairs of the human heart. It went on to win an Olivier Award, the Critics’ Circle Award for Most Promising Playwright, and the John Whiting Award for Best New Play, and was revived in the West End in 2013.Published here alongside that remarkable debut are Alexi’s four subsequent plays, which together demonstrate his rare ability to harness theatricality in pursuit of emotional truth.Apologia (Bush Theatre, London, 2009; revived in the West End in 2017), a perceptive look at what has happened to 1960s idealists and their children. ‘Sharp, funny, wise and humane, Alexi Kaye Campbell is a writer to cherish’ TelegraphThe Faith Machine (Royal Court, 2011), an exploration of the relationship between faith and capitalism that asks fundamental questions about the true meaning of love. ‘An urgent play of expansive ambition and largeness of spirit’ GuardianBracken Moor (Tricycle Theatre and Shared Experience, 2013), a haunting tale of grief and denial, set against the economic crisis of the 1930s. ‘A superior kind of ghost story… intellectually as well as emotionally haunting’ The StageSunset at the Villa Thalia (National Theatre, 2016), a passionate and deeply personal play about the impact of foreign influence, planned and unintentional, on a nation and its people. ‘This play is a winner, a thought-provoking slow-burn story that works on many levels’ The TimesAlso included is an introduction by the author.

Very few playwrights can be identified from a single line of dialogue – debbie tucker green is one of them. This collection of her first six plays, together with a short introduction by the author, shows a dramatic artist in full control of her craft.born bad (Hampstead Theatre, 2003; winner of the Olivier Award for Best Newcomer) dives headlong into the heart of a conflicted family, unleashing wit, ferocity and verbal dexterity on the way. 'One of the most assured and extraordinary new voices we’ve heard in a long while. Electrifying' Independent on Sundaydirty butterfly (Soho Theatre, 2003) is a mesmerising study of voyeurism, power and guilt. 'There is a sly, controlled power in this writing… And now I cannot get it out of my head' Guardiangenerations (National Theatre Platform performance, 2005; Young Vic, 2007) follows three generations of a Black South African family comparing cooking skills – but food isn’t the only topic and the family numbers are declining. 'Devastating… will last you a lifetime' Guardianstoning mary (Royal Court Theatre, 2005) confronts the reality of global conflicts, transposing them to the West. 'The words fly around the theatre piercing the dark like gleaming shards of shrapnel' The Stagetrade (Royal Shakespeare Company, 2005) shines a light on the world of female sex tourism. 'Poetry laced with shards of broken glass' Guardianrandom (Royal Court Theatre, 2008) is set over one day, following one family and the effects of one random act of violence. 'The writing seems to penetrate the very heart of grief' Telegraph'debbie tucker green uses language as deftly as a composer might use notes.' Financial Times

A selection of the best work of Stephen Jeffreys, whose career stretches from an award-winning play at the National Student Drama Festival in 1977 through to an adaptation of The Alchemist for the RSC in 2016.Included here are his first big success, Valued Friends, a comedy of manners about the property market which won both the Evening Standard and Critics’ Circle Awards; a riotous farce set in the time of Elizabeth I, The Clink, in which a stand-up comedian becomes involved in the political skulduggery surrounding the ailing queen; an autobiographical drama set in 1966, A Going Concern, about a washed-up family business; and Jeffreys’ smash-hit, The Libertine, a Restoration romp about the licentious Earl of Rochester, much revived and also filmed with Johnny Depp.Rounding off the volume are two previously unpublished plays: Interruptions, inspired by Jeffreys’ interest in the collective aspect of politics and his fascination with the Japanese aesthetic principle of Jo-ha-kyu; and a very likable, short autobiographical monologue, Finsbury Park.Together, all six plays represent the impressively wide range of topics and styles that Jeffreys embraced. Above all, each one of them is intensely and enjoyably theatrical to its very core.‘I had the great pleasure of working with Stephen Jeffreys on his play, The Libertine. Would that all playwrights had his openness, his talent, his hard-headedness, his experience, his enthusiasm, his complexity, and perhaps best of all his talent and interest in eliciting the best in others’ John Malkovich‘Stephen’s plays always bear the kitemark of unique, handcrafted quality’ Ian Rickson

Robert Holman wrote plays of startling beauty, combining close observation of the way people behave with a thrilling and often fiercely uncompromising mastery of dramatic form. He is the playwright most admired by other playwrights. To Simon Stephens, he was, until Holman's death in 2021, 'My favourite living writer'.Here, in this selection from Holman's first decade of playwriting, a monkey is taken for a French spy by an eighteenth-century fishing community; the inhabitants of a Greek island reside under the shadow of the atom bomb; and a group of lonely people converge on the North Yorkshire moors.With an introduction written for this volume by Holman himself, Robert Holman Plays: One contains The Natural Cause (Cockpit Theatre, London, 1974), Mud (Royal Court Theatre, London, 1974), Other Worlds (Royal Court, 1983), Today (Royal Shakespeare Company, 1984) and The Overgrown Path (Royal Court, 1985).'Holman's instinct for truth, and an unaffected ability to spot what's poignant in it, is what one remembers: that, and a paradoxical impression of spare richness, astringent abundance' The Times

'The short play – very traditional to Irish theatre – is a little jewel of a structure, a lightning flash on a different world, the illumination made all the more acute by brevity' Deirdre KinahanDeirdre Kinahan is an award-winning playwright and member of Aosdána, Ireland's elected organisation of outstanding artists. This volume brings together five of her short plays, taken from the full span of her writing career, each of them shining a light into a forgotten corner of our humanity, giving voice to irrepressible characters that the world has done its best to overlook.In Bé Carna (Tall Tales, 1999), five women reflect on their lives as prostitutes on the streets of Dublin, a dark tale inspired by true-life stories, reverberating with humanity, warmth and comic humour.In Hue & Cry (Tall Tales/Bewley's Café Theatre, 2007), two Dublin cousins, Damian and Kevin, are reunited for a family funeral in a highly charged encounter full of disillusion, denial and dark laughter.In Bogboy (Tall Tales/Solstice Arts Centre, 2010), originally written as a radio play for RTÉ, two lost souls – a young heroin addict and a reclusive middle-aged farmer – discover a budding friendship in the bogs of Meath, until a terrible secret comes to light.Wild Notes (Solas Nua, Washington D.C., 2018) explores the impact of colonialism through a meeting between Frederick Douglass, the escaped slave and abolitionist who visited Ireland in the 1840s, and a young Irishwoman hoping to emigrate to the country he's running from.An Old Song, Half Forgotten (Abbey Theatre, 2023) opens a window into the life and soul of an older actor who is living in care with Alzheimer's disease, rebuilding a man just as he begins to crack and fade. Winner of the inaugural Pratchett Prize for challenging the stigma of Alzheimer's Disease.

Ten short plays by Caryl Churchill, written for stage, radio and TV, selected and introduced by the author.This collection of short plays by one of our leading playwrights opens up a little-known aspect of her writing, and demonstrates her remarkable versatility and breadth of concern.Abortive (Radio 3, 1971)The After-Dinner Joke (BBC TV, 1978)The Hospital at the Time of the RevolutionHot Fudge (Royal Court Theatre, 1989)The Judge's Wife (BBC TV, 1972)Lovesick (Radio 3, 1967)Not Not Not Not Not Enough Oxygen (Radio 3, 1971)Schreber's Nervous Illness (Radio 3, 1972)SeagullsThree More Sleepless Nights (Soho Poly Theatre, 1980)The volume also includes an introduction by the author.

Spanning almost ten years and embracing a remarkable range of style and subject matter, this third volume of Churchill's Collected Plays, introduced by the author, contains:Icecream - an unsettling look at British attitudes to America, and vice versaMad Forest - Churchill's response to the Romanian RevolutionThe Skriker - a 'spellbinding' piece combining English folk tales with modern urban lifeThyestes - a 'bleakly eloquent new translation of Seneca's Roman tragedy' (Sunday Times).Plus two collaborative pieces combining word and dance:Lives of the Great Poisoners - a libretto to music by Orlando Gough and choreography by Ian SpinkA Mouthful of Birds - written with David LanCaryl Churchill has been hailed as 'a dramatist who must surely be amongst the best half-dozen now writing' The Times

The fourth volume of the collected plays of one of the best playwrights alive.Written over a period of ten years and evincing an extraordinary range of topics and techniques, this fourth volume of Caryl Churchill's collected plays confirms her standing as a playwright who is 'amongst the best half-dozen now writing' (The Times).This volume includes:Hotel (Schauspielhaus, Hannover, 1997), an innovative theatre piece combining music, voices and dance, with a text by Caryl Churchill and music by Orlando Gough.This is a Chair (Royal Court Theatre, 1997), a short play about the surreal nature of modern life.Blue Heart (Out of Joint & Royal Court Theatre, 1997), two linked one-act plays, both startlingly innovative, exploring the underpinnings of family relationships.Far Away (Royal Court, 2000), a brilliantly unsettling play about conflict and its unsettling effect on our lives and humanity.A Number (Royal Court, 2002), a fascinating meditation on human cloning, personal identity and the conflicting claims of nature and nurture.Drunk Enough to Say I Love You? (Royal Court, 2006),examining US foreign policy and international power politics through the lens of an intense personal relationship.A Dream Play (National Theatre, London, 2005), a spare and resonant version of August Strindberg's 1901 masterpiece.