Books in Modern Plays series

My name is Christopher John Francis Boone. I know all the countries of the world and the capital cities. And every prime number up to 7507.Christopher, fifteen years old, stands beside Mrs Shears's dead dog. It has been speared with a garden fork, it is seven minutes after midnight, and Christopher is under suspicion. He records each fact in the book he is writing to solve the mystery of who murdered Wellington. He has an extraordinary brain and is exceptional at maths, but he is ill-equipped to interpret everyday life. He has never ventured alone beyond the end of his road, he detests being touched and he distrusts strangers. But Christopher's detective work, forbidden by his father, takes him on a frightening journey that turns his world upside-down.Simon Stephens's adaptation of Mark Haddon's bestselling, award-winning novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time offers a richly theatrical exploration of this touching and bleakly humorous tale.This edition contains some strong language and may not be suitable for all school curricula. Other editions are available.

I'm not doing a German accentYou aren't doing an African accentWe aren't doing accentsA group of actors gather to tell the little-known story of the first genocide of the twentieth century. As the full force of a horrific past crashes into the good intentions of the present, what seemed a far-away place and time is suddenly all too close to home. Just whose story are they telling?Award-winning playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury collides the political with the personal in a play that is irreverently funny and seriously brave.We Are Proud To Present . . . received its European premiere at the Bush Theatre, London, on 28 February 2014.

★★★★★ "An extraordinary theatrical triumph" The Times, LondonA radical new version of Federico Garcia Lorca’s masterpiece, set in contemporary London. Billie Piper won the Olivier award for best actress for her portrayal of a young woman driven to the unthinkable by her desperate desire to have a child. Piper repeated the role in the New York production, which played at the Park Avenue Armory in March and April 2018.Simon Stone is an award-winning Australian film and theater director, writer and actor.

Discworld goes to war!Somewhere in the Circle Sea between Ankh-Morpork and Al-Khali, the Lost Kingdom of Leshp has emerged after hundreds of years beneath the waves. And so with no ships, no army and no money, Ankh-Morpork goes to war against the Klatchian army claiming the rock as their own.Undaunted by the prospect of being tortured to death by vastly superior numbers of enemy troops, a small band of intrepid men and a very thick troll set out under the command of Sir Samuel Vimes of the City Watch.If they can survive long enough, maybe they can arrest an entire army for breach of the peace...

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'.

"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

Ever since Peter Pan flew in through Wendy Darling's nursery window and took her off to Never Land, Barrie's classic adventure story has thrilled and delighted generations of theatre-goers. J M Barrie wrote Peter Pan first as a work of prose and then adapted it for the stage. John Caird and Trevor Nunn first adapted Barrie's book and play in the 1980s for the Royal Shakespeare Company and then in 1997 for the Royal National Theatre. "A feast of nursery nostalgia, wizard effects, Edwardian lingo and tinselled adventure" Observer

Walk in the shoes of Alem and you will learn what it's like to be a boy without a country. Alem's father is Ethiopian and his mother Eritrean, and as long as these two countries are at war, Alem's family is not welcome in either place. So Alem's father does what at first seems unthinkable - he leaves Alem in England, alone, in the hope that he will find safety as a refugee. Though the Refugee Council in London takes Alem's case, through the legal processing, finding a foster family, and entering school, it is Alem's courageous and caring character that wins him the friends, the respect, and ultimately, the legal permission to stay in England and start his own, new life.

Play version of this novel that was a hit with adults and teenagers alikeIn his secret diary, British teenager Adrian Mole excruciatingly details every morsel of his turbulent adolescence. Mixed in with daily reports about the zit sprouting on his chin are heartrending passages about his parents' chaotic marriage. Adrian sees all, and he has something to say about everything. Delightfully self-centered, Adrian is the sort of teenager who could rule a much better world--if only his crazy relatives and classmates would get out of his way. Sue Townsend's play is based on her internationally best-selling book, was created for the Phoenix Arts Leicester, where it received its first production in Septmeber 1984. This volume contains the complete text of the play with introductory notes on the staging by the author; the complete words of the lyrics and music for the melody line of each of the tunes.

Six years ago Pope Benedict XVI stunned the world by resigning, the first Pope in 700 years to do so. What drove this arch-conservative to break with sacred tradition and cede the way for Cardinal Bergoglio – a one time tango club bouncer, football-loving reformer with the common touch – to become Pope Francis, one of most powerful men on earth?In this fascinating, gripping and often funny story of two very different men, Pope Benedict and Cardinal Bergoglio grapple with their complex pasts and uncertain futures. From coming of age under dictatorships in Germany and Argentina, to the scandal of sexual abuse by the clergy, The Pope shines a light into one of the world’s most secretive institutions. At its heart lies a timeless question: in moments of crisis, should we follow the rules or our conscience?

Disgraced and destitute following a fraud scandal and imprisonment, John Gabriel Borkman paces alone in an upstairs room. Downstairs, his family is trapped in the claustrophobic atmosphere of a household bound for explosion.A scorching indictment of 19th century capitalism, Ibsen's penultimate play paints a devastating picture of selfish ambition. The play has its premiere in this new version by David Eldridge on 15 February 2007 at the Donmar Warehouse, London.