Books in Oberon Modern Plays series

An eye for an eye. It's very simple. You choose your homeland like a hyena picking and choosing where he steals his next meal from. Scavenger. Yes you grovel to the feet of Mengistu and when his people spit at you and kick you from the bowl you scuttle across the border. Scavenger.As a violent civil war rages back home, teenager Alem and his father are in a B&B in Berkshire. It's his best holiday ever. The next morning his father is gone and has left a note explaining that he and his mother want to protect Alem from the war. This strange grey country of England is now his home. On his own, and in the hands of the social services and the Refugee Council, he lives from letter to letter, waiting to hear something from his father. Then Alem meets car-obsessed Mustapha, the lovely 'out of your league' Ruth and dangerous Sweeney – three unexpected allies who spur him on as Alem fights to be seen as more than just the Refugee Boy.Based on the novel by Benjamin Zephaniah, Refugee Boy is an urgent story of a courageous African boy sent to England to escape the violent civil war, a story about arriving, belonging and finding 'home'.

King Hildebrand is off to war - again. He commands his three daughters not to enter a locked room in the palace. Naturally they do, and in it find the Book of Fate, which announces that two of them will marry handsome Kings, while the third, Flora, must wed a fat pig from the North.Drawing on Romanian and Norwegian folk tales with their origins in the myth of Cupid and Psyche, Alasdair Middleton weaves a fantastic musical story from traditional materials and takes us from palace to pigsty via the darkest corners of the universe in search of Flora's destiny.Funny and tender, miraculous and ridiculous, The Enchanted Pig moves heaven and earth for the sake of love and proves that even the best of men can be pigs. Some of the time.The Enchanted Pig opened at the Young Vic Theatre, London, in December 2006, with music by Jonathan Dove.

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?A searing, sharp, state of the nation comedy from one of the UK’s most exciting playwrights, Torben Betts­­­­­.

"Joe Orton's last play, What the Butler Saw, will live to be accepted as a comedy classic of English literature" (Sunday Telegraph) The chase is on in this breakneck comedy of licensed insanity, from the moment when Dr Prentice, a psychoanalyst interviewing a prospective secretary, instructs her to undress. The plot of What the Butler Saw contains enough twists and turns, mishaps and changes of fortune, coincidences and lunatic logic to furnish three or four conventional comedies. But however the six characters in search of a plot lose the thread of the action - their wits or their clothes - their verbal self-possession never deserts them. Hailed as a modern comedy every bit as good as Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, Orton's play is regularly produced, read and studied. What the Butler Saw was Orton's final play."He is the Oscar Wilde of Welfare State gentility" (Observer)

A new stage adaptation of one of Pratchett's best-selling novelsCommander Vimes is sent to wild, wintry and Transylvania-like Uberwald to establish trade links with the King of the Dwarfs but he ends up trying to stop and inter-species war. On his side though, is a talking dog, a reformed vampyre and a self-made man. You can tell he's self-made because the stitches still show.Vimes may have arrived as Ankh-Morpork's ambassador but he soon finds it's not all golden chocolate balls. Now he's an escaped prisoner - out in the icy woods, wearing only the gloomy trousers of Uncle Vanya and being chased by a pack of fascist werewolves who don't play by the rules."One of the funniest authors alive" The Independent

Beverly is having a party and you are one of her guests. There are games, drinks, shared conversation, energetic dance and heartbreaking moments as she bravely gives a raw and honest account of surviving an abusive relationship.Each member of the all-female cast, a close-knit group of non-performers and dance artists, fearlessly takes on the persona of Beverly to convey turbulent, real experiences. The unusual setting creates a safe space for them to reveal the challenges they have faced and celebrate their endurance with the audience. Faith’s work with a support group at charity Safer Places underpins this show, which seeks to raise social consciousness around domestic abuse by supporting women to openly talk about it.