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Bruce Norris

An acerbically brilliant satire that explores the fault line between race and property.
Best Play, Evening Standard Awards 2010

Best New Play, Critics Circle Awards 2010

Best New Play, Olivier Awards 2011

Pulitzer Prize for Drama, 2011
In 1959, Russ and Bev are selling their desirable two-bed for a knock-down price, enabling the first black family to move into the neighbourhood and alarming the cosy white urbanites of Clybourne Park, Chicago.
In 2009 the same property is being bought by Lindsey and Steve, a young white couple, whose plan to raze the house and start again is met with a similar response. As the arguments rage and tensions rise, ghosts and racial resentments are once more uncovered...
'The funniest play of the year' - Evening Standard
'Will make you cringe horribly even as you're cracking up with laughter' - Time Out
'Genius' - The Times
'Amazing mixture of edgy humour and deeper feeling' - Telegraph
'Stunningly well written' - Whatsonstage.com
'Outrageously funny and squirm-inducing' - Independent

Nick Hern Books

NHB Modern Plays

Clybourne Park (NHB Modern Plays)

Ayub Khan Din

A deeply emotional comedy drama from the author of East is East, exploring the relationships we have with our roots, and with those that we love but don't always understand.
Bonfire Night. Salford, 2002. A disparate group of warring siblings gather 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 loyalties are tested as family bonds unite and divide, unravel and unwind.
All the Way Home premiered at the Lowry in Salford in 2011.
'Khan-Din is writing from first-hand experience... he has plainly retained an ear for salty Salfordian speech... and there are some terrific one-liners' - Telegraph

All the Way Home

A poignant, elegiac short play from the author of East is East.
As his mother fades away, a son returns to the house where he grew up. It is empty, but full of reminders of how she once was. She, meanwhile, has her own foggy memories and feelings about why they try to communicate, but just can't.
'wonderful, Beckettian evocation of a mind struggling to comprehend the loss of its own faculties and the running down of the self' - Evening Standard
'Ab Khan Din's deeply moving new play lasts only 50 minutes, but it conjures up a world of loss, love and grief. At times the writing is as spare as Samuel Beckett's, but there is also a warmth, and a vivid eye for detail, that make the piece overwhelming in its emotional impact' - Daily Telegraph

Notes on Falling Leaves

Dawn King

A smart and provocative thriller about spies, double agents, and the opaqueness of the human soul.
A young woman is found dead. Her sister sets out to find out what happened - and stumbles into a world of secrets and subterfuge that makes her question who Justine really was. How well can you ever know someone who lies for a living?
An Out of Joint, the Bush Theatre and Exeter Northcott Theatre co-production, Ciphers premiered at the Exeter Northcott Theatre in October 2013, directed by Blanche McIntyre, before embarking on a UK tour.

Ciphers (NHB Modern Plays)

Howard Brenton

A timely play based on the true story of an imprisoned Nobel Laureate.
On 3 April 2011, as he was boarding a flight to Taipei, the Chinese Artist Ai Weiwei was arrested at Beijing Airport. Advised merely that his travel "could damage state security", he was escorted to a van by officials after which he disappeared for 81 days. On his release, the government claimed that his imprisonment related to tax evasion.
Howard Brenton's new play is based on Ai Weiwei's account in Barnaby Martin's book Hanging Man, in which he told the story of that imprisonment - by turns surreal, hilarious, and terrifying. A portrait of the artist in extreme conditions, it is also an affirmation of the centrality of art and freedom of speech in civilised society. The play premiered at Hampstead Theatre in April 2013, in a production directed by James Macdonald.
'Moving, scary, gripping, inventive and at times laugh-out-loud funny' Telegraph
'Excellent... like a mix of Kafka and Bennett' Guardian
'Tremendously powerful' Financial Times

#aiww: The Arrest of Ai Weiwei

debbie tucker green

An urgent play about the senseless killing of a black schoolboy, from one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary British playwriting. Premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in 2008.
Death never used to be for the young.

You get up.

You go bout your business.

You expect to come back.
random was adapted for television in 2011, winning a BAFTA for Best Single Drama.
'debbie tucker green's writing is so raw and immediate that it can feel as if she's hacking into your heart with a rusty tin opener.' Time Out

random

Caryl Churchill

A short play by one of the UK's leading dramatists. Premiered at the Royal Court in October 2012.
'No one could blame me. I've been hurt. You're a monster.'
A child is shut in her room, a dog is dead in the road, someone is kissing her brother in law. A family locked in hatred is sending a son to war. And meanwhile in another country...
'The best short play since Harold Pinter's Mountain Language' Mark Lawson, Front Row
'As always Churchill seems inventive, coolly socialist, bleak yet dazzling, a bit of a shaman' Evening Standard
'An intriguing work, with an underlying atmosphere of unease and menace reminiscent of Pinter... it nags away in the memory long after you have left the theatre' Telegraph

Ding Dong the Wicked

Terence Rattigan

Rattigan's well-loved play about an unpopular schoolmaster who snatches a last shred of dignity from the collapse of his career and his marriage. Twice filmed (with Michael Redgrave and Albert Finney) and frequently revived.
Andrew Crocker-Harris' wife Millie has become embittered and fatigued by her husband's lack of passion and ambition. On the verge of retirement, and divorce, Andrew is forced to come to terms with the platitude his life has become. Then John Taplow, a previously unnoticed pupil, gives Andrew an unexpected parting gift: a second-hand copy of Robert Browning's translation of Agamemnon - a gift which offers not only a opportunity for redemption, but the chance to gain back some dignity.
This edition also contains Harlequinade, a farce about a touring theatre troupe, written to accompany The Browning Version in a double-bill under the joint title, Playbill. The plays are presented with an authoritative introduction, biographical sketch and chronology by Dan Rebellato.
'The cruel inequalities of love always absorbed Rattigan, not least here - this is a play that has not dated.' The Times

The Browning Version

Jack Thorne

An exhilarating coming-of-age drama for a solo performer.
Fringe First Award, Edinburgh 2010
Scorching heat. A fight. A car chase. A siege. When her boyfriend is attacked on the street, feisty eighteen-year-old Katie is thrust on a white-knuckle ride through one extraordinary evening. Amidst the baying for blood and the longing for love, Katie is forced to decide her future.
'Electrifying combination of streetwise earthiness and heartbreaking vulnerability... terrific' Scotsman

Bunny

Helen Edmundson

Mary Shelley: daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft; lover of Shelley; author of Frankenstein'
Helen Edmundson's compelling play explores a crucial episode in the early life of Mary Shelley - her meeting and scandalous elopement aged sixteen with Percy Bysshe Shelley, and its consequences for her sisters, her stepmother and above all, her troubled father, the political philosopher William Godwin.
'Gripping... without ever reducing Mary Shelley to an issue drama, Edmundson suggests the destructive nature of a life lived without compromise' The Times

Mary Shelley

Ab Khan-Din

The play that gave birth to the smash-hit film - a wonderful comedy about growing up in multiracial Salford.
The six Khan children, entangled in arranged marriages and bell-bottoms, are trying to find their way growing up in 1970s Salford. They are all caught between their Pakistani father's insistence on Asian traditions, their English mother's laissez-faire attitude, and their own wish to become citizens of the modern world.
'First plays don't come much better than this... full of intelligence, irresistable laughter and serious promise.' Sunday Times

East is East

A brilliant and unsettling play from one of the UK's leading dramatists. Premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in 2000.
At the opening of the play, a young girl is questioning her aunt about having seen her uncle hitting people with an iron bar; by the end, several years later, the whole world is at war - including birds and animals. Far Away is a howl of anguish at the increasing – and increasingly accepted – levels of inhumanity in a world seemingly perpetually involved in conflict.
'You know you are in the hands of a master' The Sunday Times
'Churchill was expected to produce something explosive, but... she has exceeded the critics' highest expectations' The Observer

Far Away

Lucy Kirkwood

Lucy Kirkwood's sharp comedy looks at power games and privacy in the media and beyond.
Carrie's getting them out for the lads, Charlotte's just grateful to have a job, Sam's being asked to sell more than his body, and Aidan's trying to keep Doghouse magazine from going under. Set in the cut-throat media world, Lucy Kirkwood's timely new comedy exposes power games and privacy in the age of Photoshop.
[NSFW = Not Safe For Work, online material which the viewer may not want to be seen accessing in a public or formal setting such as at work.]

NSFW

Ella Hickson

Four boys face the tricky transition to adulthood in Ella Hickson's riot of a play. Premiered at High Tide Festival 2012, then Nuffield Theatre, Southampton, and Soho Theatre, London.
The Class of 2011 are about to graduate and Benny, Mack, Timp and Cam are due out of their flat. Stepping into a world that doesn't want them, these boys start to wonder whether there's any point in getting any older. How will they find the fight to make it as adults?
Before all that they're going to have one hell of a party. It's hot and there'll be girls. Predict a riot.
'Marvellous... a play that both powerfully captures the mood of a generation and addresses permanent truths with exhilarating flair' Independent
'Will leave you with laughter lines' Time Out
'Heartfelt directness of writing that taps into a generation torn between action and inertia' Guardian

Boys

A painfully comic excavation of a family history that asks if there is an authorised version of the past - or just the one we can live with. Premiered at the Traverse Theatre in October 2012.
Kate Bane returns home to her parents for a winter weekend to introduce her new boyfriend. As the snow falls, Kate finds herself searching with increasing desperation for the truth about her family's past. Are her memories fact, or are they continually shifting acts of imagination?
Unable to pin down the truth, can she write a version of the family mythology that will ensure her own happiness?
'Fascinating... an Escher-like playfulness in its examination of the nature of creation' The Stage
'An amusing piece, well-crafted' The List

The Authorised Kate Bane

A gripping historical drama that dramatises a crucial moment of English history. Premiered at Hampstead Theatre in October 2012.
December 1648. The Army has occupied London. Parliament votes not to put the imprisoned king on trial, so the Army moves against Westminster in the first and only military coup in English history. What follows over the next fifty-five days, as Cromwell seeks to compromise with a king who will do no such thing, is nothing less than the forging of a new nation, an entirely new world.
Howard Brenton's play depicts the dangerous and dramatic days when, in a country exhausted by Civil War, a few great men attempt to think the unthinkable: to create a country without a king.
'A forgotten era of revolutionary British history is fascinatingly unlocked... electrifying.' Whatonstage.com
'[A] confident and idea-packed piece... It could have been a dour history lesson. Instead it engages with the present, raising some pungent questions about the kind of democracy we have in Britain today.' Evening Standard

55 Days

Dominic Cooke

A simple and delightfully inventive re-telling of the stories from the Arabian Nights. This revised edition was published alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company's production in 2009.
It is wedding night in the palace of King Shahrayar. By morning, the new Queen Shahrazad is to be put to death like all the young brides before her. But she has one gift that could save her - the gift of storytelling.
With her mischievous imagination, the young Queen spins her dazzling array of tales and characters. On her side are Ali Baba, Es-Sindibad the Sailor and Princess Parizade - adventurers in strange and magical worlds populated by giant beasts, talking birds, devilish ghouls and crafty thieves. But will her silver-tongued stories be enough to enchant her husband and save her life?
'Superb... weaves a potent spell of enchantment as it moves from cruelty to happiness and from the blissfully ribald to the deeply affecting' Telegraph
'A masterful piece of storytelling... a truly magical piece of theatre that delights the senses' Whatsonstage.com
'The family show to see this le' Guardian

Arabian Nights (RSC Version)

A celebration of a great English heroine, Anne Boleyn dramatises the life and legacy of Henry VIII's notorious second wife, who helped change the course of the nation's history. Premiered at Shakespeare's Globe in 2010.
Best New Play, Whatsonstage.com Awards
Traditionally seen as either the pawn of an ambitious family manoeuvred into the King's bed or as a predator manipulating her way to power, Anne – and her ghost – are seen in a very different light in Howard Brenton's epic play.
Rummaging through the dead Queen Elizabeth's possessions upon coming to the throne in 1603, King James I finds alarming evidence that Anne was a religious conspirator, in love with Henry VIII but also with the most dangerous ideas of her day. She comes alive for him, a brilliant but reckless young woman confident in her sexuality, whose marriage and death transformed England for ever.
'This is no dry and dusty history lesson... a witty and engrossing impression of the times that gave birth to our first Elizabethan age, and the subsequent reformation' British Theatre Guide
'The play bursts through the constraints of costume drama'The Independent
'What an absolute delight... a beautifully-written piece of theatre that instantly draws you in into the life and times of both Anne Boleyn and King James I' Whatsonstage.com

Anne Boleyn

Stephen Beresford

A funny, touching and at times savage portrait of a family full of longing that's losing its grip - The Last of the Haussmans is a play examining the fate of the revolutionary generation. It premiered at the National Theatre in 2012, starring Julie Walters and Rory Kinnear.
Anarchic, feisty but growing old, high-society drop-out Judy Haussman remains in spirit with the ashrams of the 1960s, while holding court in her dilapidated art deco house on the Devon coast.
After an operation, she's joined by her wayward offspring, her sharp-eyed granddaughter, a local doctor and a troubled teenager who makes use of the family's crumbling swimming pool. Over a few sweltering months they alternately cling to and flee a chaotic world of all-day drinking, infatuations, long-held resentments, free love and failure.
'A knockout - entertaining, sad and outrageous. [Stephen Beresford] is going to be a major name' Observer
'Beresford's drama is frequently a hoot... you can't not enjoy' Metro
'Beresford's debut is thoughtful and fresh, delighting in the savagery of a dysfunctional family... deliciously comical... drips with smart lines' Evening Standard

The Last of the Haussmans

Jez Butterworth

A bewitching play by Jez Butterworth, author of the global smash-hit Jerusalem. Premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in 2012.
On a moonless night in August when the sea trout are ready to run, a man brings his new girlfriend to the remote family cabin where he has come for the fly-fishing since he was a boy. But she's not the only woman he has brought here – or indeed the last...
'A delicately unfolding puzzle... all of it is wrapped in marvelous language... extraordinary.' The Times
'One of the best productions of the year... a magnetically eerie, luminously beautiful psychodrama.' Time Out
'Strange, eerie, tense... Butterworth possesses a singular talent.' Guardian

NHB Modern Plays - The book series

NHB Modern Plays - The book series

NHB Modern Plays books in order

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