In How Plays Work, distinguished playwright David Edgar examines the mechanisms and techniques which dramatists throughout the ages have employed to structure their plays and to express their meaning. Written for playwrights and playgoers alike, Edgar's analysis starts with the building blocks of whole plays – plot, character-creation, genre and structure – and moves on to scenes and devices. He shows how plays share a common architecture without which the uniqueness of their authors' visi...

The gripping story of the sensational, real-life case in which Sir Arthur Conan Doyle found himself playing detective - based on Julian Barnes's Booker Prize-nominated novel.In 1903, Birmingham solicitor George Edalji was found guilty of a terrible crime and sentenced to seven years' imprisonment. Desperate to prove his innocence, he recruited Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, to help solve his mysterious case and win him a pardon.As absorbing as any Sherl...

Two plays by David Edgar, written thirty-five years apart, both exploring the theme of youth and revolution.Maydays tells the story of the twenty-somethings who came of age in 1968 and were drawn into revolutionary politics; of defection from East to West as well as from Left to Right. It is told through a number of interlocking stories, across three continents and twenty-five years of tumultuous history.First performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Barbi...

For the first time, the missing history of email and the technology war for the most significant development in connecting humanity since the invention of the telephone. Learn the shocking truth about email's rise and ultimate corruption by the Clinton administration at the White House. Determine if email's future, as we know it, maybe at an end.Experience an unparalleled journey into technology and science, battling legendary companies, pushing past them to be the first to bridge ...

This volume contains the best of David Edgar's work from the 1970s.The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs is an adaptation of the famous South African writer's diaries and deals with solitary confinement and loneliness - "a remarkable, persuasive picture." (Observer)Mary Barnes is based in a commune in the sixties and focuses on schizophrenia "promulgating the theory that schizophrenia can be effectively treated through behaviourist methods alone"

David Edgar's landmark play Maydays is about the twenty-somethings who came of age in 1968 and were drawn into revolutionary politics.It is a story of defection from East to West as well as from Left to Right. A story told through a number of interlocking narratives, across three continents and twenty-five years of tumultuous history.First performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Barbican, London, in 1983, Maydays was revived in this new version, ...

A superb adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's famous story of the unassuming Dr Jekyll and his dark alter-ego Mr Hyde.During one of his audacious experiments trying to separate good from evil in human nature, the kind and gifted Dr Jekyll inadvertently unleashes an alternative personality of pure evil … the mysterious Mr Hyde.As this sinister figure starts causing terror and havoc in foggy London, Jekyll must race to find a cure for his monstrous alter-ego before it takes...

It's 1968. David is twenty. It is the height of the worldwide student revolt. The Vietnam war rages. Enoch Powell delivers his 'Rivers of Blood' speech. Martin Luther King is assassinated. These events will define David's politics and give focus to his writing.It's fifty years on. The seventy-year-old is confronted by the twenty-year old. Do they share the same beliefs? If not, is it the world that's changed, or him?David Edgar's Trying It On is an autobiographical...

A panoramic historical drama about the man whose devotion to Hitler blinded him to the worst crime of the twentieth century, drawing closely on Gita Sereny's definitive and magisterial biography of Albert Speer.Plucked from obscurity to be Hitler's architect and Minister of War, Albert Speer became the second most powerful man in Nazi Germany and the closest Hitler had to a friend. Having narrowly escaped hanging at Nuremberg, Speer emerged from twenty years at Spandau gaol, as he ...

A valuable fresco is discovered in a church in war-torn Eastern Europe. As international and local art historians argue over who should claim ownership, the fate of the painting becomes a metaphor for the future of the emergent nations of Eastern Europe.David Edgar's play Pentecost was first performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company at The Other Place, Stratford-upon-Avon, in October 1994. The production transferred to the Young Vic, London, with performances from 31 May ...

'Marley was dead: to begin with…'One ghostly Christmas night, coldhearted businessman Ebenezer Scrooge gets the fright of his life, discovers the truth about himself, and learns to love his neighbour.This adaptation by David Edgar of the Charles Dickens classic – one of the best-loved stories ever written – rediscovers the social conscience of the timeless tale.It was premiered by the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon for Christmas 2017, dire...

An explosive, topical drama from one of the UK's top political playwrights.It's 16th April 2010, the day after the UK's first ever televised prime ministerial debate. Stranded in Malaga Airport by a volcanic ash-cloud, a Labour special adviser, a Lib Dem staffer and a Tory candidate consider their options. Can their parties survive without them? How will they get back home? And who'll end up in government?Fast forward to 4th August 2014. As the nation settles down to commem...