A funny yet melancholic look at the frustrations, secrets and guilt of middle-class respectability in 1950s England.England in the 1950s. Celia, bored to distraction, fills her time with tennis and gin; Charles, a pathologist, is buried in his work among the living and the dead; and their gifted son, Holly, is having his first lessons in both music and in life.Simon Gray's play The Late Middle Classes was first performed at the Palace Theatre, Watford, in March 199...

A funny and sardonic play about two brothers trapped in a love triangle with the woman they both love.Two brothers share the house they grew up in and then share the woman they both love. But as time passes and their family grows, the ties that bind them are tested to the limit. Spanning thirty years and offering a new slant on the eternal triangle, the plot is driven by involuntary cruelties, damaging accidents of fate and the terrible ravages of time.Simon Gray's play

'The brave little lives that Gray so compassionately illuminates could be lived by any of us, and that's why they arouse emotions that are anything but small.'New York Times on Quartermaine's Terms

'Sharp, funny and clever . . . What a pleasure to re-encounter a play that combines unabashed intelligence and zinging wit with a rare generosity of spirit.'Daily Telegraph on The Common Pursuit'Gray's stature as one of the handful of great tragi-comic English dramatists of the second half of the twentieth century would appear now to be undisputed.' Howard Jacobson, Critical QuarterlyHidden Laughter'A sad divine com...

'A superbly written play, a funny play, an agonising play. It is, moreover, a play of truth and insight. A play to savour.'Punch on Otherwise Engaged'Life in the theatre hasn't brought me anything more rewarding than directing Simon Gray's plays.'Harold PinterPlaintiffs and DefendantsExceptionally good... the play gave such a rending picture of married mess that it was hard to know where to look.' Clive James, Obse...

From the Muay Thai ring to the traditional Japanese dojo his journey of self-discovery is packed full of humour, inspiration and lessons to live a better and more fulfilling life.Approaching his mid-thirties, he stepped away from the corporate rat race. Having sold his house, car and other worldly possessions he travelled to Tokyo, Japan where he enrolled on one of the toughest martial arts courses in the world.For 11 months he trained with the Tokyo Riot Police on the brui...

Butley'What is so wondrous about a play so basically defeatist and hurtful is its ability to be funny. The stark, unsentimental approach to the homosexual relationship, the cynical send-up of academic life, the skeptical view of the teacher-pupil associations are all stunningly illuminated by continuous explosions of sardonic, needling, feline, vituperative and civilised lines.' Evening Standard

When he turned sixty-five, playwright Simon Gray began to keep a diary in which he reflected on a life filled with cigarettes (continuing), alcohol (stopped), several triumphs and many more disasters, shame, adultery, friendship and love. Bringing together the four parts of The Smoking Diaries (The Smoking Diaries, The Year of the Jouncer, The Last Cigarette, and Coda) this beautiful volume is filled with comedy and serious reflection, sharp observation and painf...

MIKE HUNTLEY's famous brother CRAIG is captured reporting for UK's Channel 9 on a fundamentalist led insurgency in Central America. Previous hostages have been beheaded. Mike's father is disgusted when Mike fails to participate in The Craig Rescue Program, a live broadcast by Channel 9 led by an ambitious Reality TV presenter and tacitly supported by the British Government, hoping to win public hearts and minds before putting troops on the ground.The crisis deepens. The insurgents g...

'A masterly portrayal of an innocent.'Harold Pinter, from 'Directing Simon Gray's Plays', Simon Gray Plays 1'Superficially, it is a light comedy about a group of educated, often eccentric English characters in an academic backwater in the early sixties. But though the jokes are excellent, the piece cuts deep. There are Strindberg-like glimpses of wretchedly unhappy marriages and, as in Ibsen, a sense of chickens coming home to roost. But the primary impression here ...

As a baby, Simon Gray discovered that he could move his pram while still nestling inside it.'It was a complete mystery to the adult intelligences, how had he done it, if it was he who had done it, but if not he, who then and why? So the next afternoon they (Mummy and Nanny) planted the pram in the usual spot, and stood over it, watching - the baby lay there smiling or snivelling up at them, until it struck them that they should try observing the baby when unobserved by the baby, an...

When he turned sixty-five, the playwright Simon Gray began to keep a diary: not a careful honing of the day's events with a view to posterity but an account of his thoughts as he had them, honestly, turbulently, digressively expressed. The Smoking Diaries was the result, in which one of Britain's most beloved and original writers reflected on a life filled with cigarettes (continuing), alcohol (stopped), several triumphs and many more disasters, shame, adultery, friendship and love. Few di...