Convalescing from heart surgery, Owen returns to his native Ireland with Rosemary and insists on showing her the view from a hilltop near Dublin. But the climb takes rather a lot out of him and Rosemary goes off to summon a car. While she is gone, a young man appears, sketching the view. Owen strikes up a conversation with him, talking as though he’d know him for years. The boy goes, and it is only when Rosemary returns that Owen realises why the boy seemed so familiar to him ...

A school is holidaying at an adventure camp. In the girls' tents the conversation centres on what they see as the harshness of the routine, and the appalling food. Sophie, acutely homesick, has cried ever since she arrived and Lottie, whose parents made a large donation to a charity fund which has enabled the others to attend the camp, is finding it hard to make friends. But rebellion is in the air...

[Top]

After Midnight ? Before Dawn is a play for six characters, either two men and four women or six women. The six characters are awaiting death, having been sentenced for witchcraft, the period being the late 1600s or early 1700s. Only the Calm Woman remains unmoved. On being questioned she replies that she will not hang ?the Devil will look after his own. The others conclude that she is indeed a witch, and beg her to tell them how they too may gain Satan’s protection. Only the Girl protests, and they set on her and kill her. But the Calm Woman then informs them that she has not after all offered them any guarantee of safety. In a wild fury they set on her also ?and her prophecy is fulfilled ?she will not hang.

In this compelling, thought-provoking play about the continuing effects of the Second World War, Dr Kirshner, head of a sanatorium in Germany, has to make a decision whether or not Bauermann can be released into society after spending a year in her care. As she begins to probe into his life, she discovers his pronounced obsessional paranoia in a result of the war in which his wife and son were killed in an air-raid and his daughter was sent to live in England. Following an emotional climax, in which he is unexpectedly reunited with his daughter, Bauermann viciously attacks Dr Kirchner and the question of his sanity becomes acute.

[Top]

[Top]

Costa Del Packet! is a farce in one act for five women. Vera, Lesley, Alice and Sally arrive at Del Sol, Majorca, on a package tour organised by Flitwell Tours. “Hump?is the firm’s official courier, a former Butlin’s girl. They find themselves stranded in a workman’s hut on the site of their hotel which is not even constructed yet. Determined not to let their husbands know they have been conned they decide not to return home and to make the best of it ?even the wolf whistles of the workers outside!

[Top]

The ambitious, untalented Amazon Theatre Group are to perform a little-known, passionate, seventeenth-century Spanish drama in a festival. Before curtain up, tensions mount: Eve and Liz arrive flushed from motorway escapades, Judy nervously spring-cleans the dressing-room; Irene, the producer, accuses her star actress, Vanessa, of having an affair with her husband and a cast member is missing. At the final moment, Lesley, the missing member, staggers in, paralytically drunk and dressed in motor-cycle gear and amidst frantic efforts to sober Lesley up, Judy delivers the final blow by innocently quoting from the “Scottish Play? But the ladies eventually triumph: the adjudicator is impressed with the cast’s seething passion and smouldering hate and pronounces Lesley’s full motor-cycle regalia a stroke of genius!

[Top]

Ernie’s Incredible Illucinations is a play for fifteen male and seven female parts with extras. Young Ernie has been worrying his mum and dad by his “illucinations? ?to use their own words. They take him to the doctor, and as Ernie tells of his illucinations ? soldiers invading his home, his auntie taking on a fairground boxer, Dad rescuing a famous mountaineer in trouble ?these are enacted before us. However, at Mum and Dad’s declaration that they are more that illusions, and actually occurred, the doctor is, to put it mildly, sceptical. Indignantly, Dad tells Ernie to show the doctor by imagining something there and then. Ernie does so ?with astonishing results.

[Top]

Seven women gather in a haunted house to await the arrival of a ghost expert. Last to appear is the nervous Wendy, who has just left her partner Malcolm after a misunderstanding. Spooky things begin to happen and, making spurious excuses, all but Wendy leave the house. Alone, Wendy finds new strength and resolve and, when a mysterious figure appears in the doorway, she confronts it ...

[Top]

Hidden Meanings is a comedy for four men and five women set in the Carsons?sitting-room. Rodney’s obsession with Sherlock Holmes comes to fruition when he and his friend, George, are asked to provide the dramatic interlude at the Sherlock Holmes Society’s Annual Congress, playing the parts of Holmes and Watson respectively. Events take a truly dramatic turn when George discovers the blood-stained body of Rodney’s financial director, Charles Meaning (dressed as Moriarty) in Rodney’s cupboard. Proudly acknowledging that he has murdered Charles, Rodney is piqued when no less than three others also make the claim. As they argue Inspector Jobling arrives to make an arrest but they are all thwarted by Charles who swaggers, bleeding, from the cupboard with a suicide note in his hand which he passes to Jobling before dying ?and all to the accompaniment of The Pirates of Penzance!

Victor’s wife has left him after an argument about the aesthetic quality of an ornament donated by her mother.  After vainly trying to housekeep for himself Victor has applied to a Bureau for a professional.  Applicant One turns out to be a dipsomaniac; Applicant Two a mini-skirted and high-booted sex maniac; Applicant Three a gaunt and black-garbed homicidal maniac. When Victor’s wife returns for some belongings he mistakes her for Applicant Four, a kleptomaniac.  Finally she decides to stay home. Victor is left, as he tells the Bureau, with a money maniac.

[Top]

Rouse, a Council official, is visiting the theatre run by Mike Pemberton-Hawkesley, and his mission is simple: to save the Council money.  His brainwave is to turn the theatre into a storage facility for files; Mike, understandably, is outraged. Mavis Dinwiddy ?stage name Raquel Bardot ?intervenes and the hilarious absurdity of the situation, compounded by Rouse’s very idiosyncratic verbal style, is maintained right up to the end of this surprising and enigmatic play.  Simple to stage ?no set is required ? this is an ideal festival piece.

[Top]

Murder Play is a play for two men and two women. When Peter and Robyn wake up the morning after a dinner party at the home of their friends and employers David and Jane Valentine, they are still shocked at being sacked by David the night before. More shocks are to come, however, for David now appears to be dead, and Jane calmly announces that she killed him. At first Peter and Robyn refuse to believe her, but as she explains the “how, when and why?of the murder, they are forced to accept that she has committed the “perfect?crime and that to avoid implicating themselves, they will have to help her dispose of the body. Stunned and bitter, they leave, but then it transpires that the “murder?is really an elaborate practical joke. Or is it?

[Top]

Percival arrives in a Rolls Royce at Darren’s distinctly working-class house to view a Citroen which Darren is selling. During polite conversation the difference in the two men’s lifestyles is highlighted but it is not until Darren’s wife Jane arrives that the skeletons come tumbling out of everyone’s cupboards. H Connolly’s provocative play thrives on the wry humour of personality warfare.  A colourful, amusing and at times startling piece.

[Top]

Whilst waiting to hire out cabin cruisers on the River Shannon, two apparent strangers play an elaborate game, which involves re-enacting a marriage on the rocks, with the other people in the reception area as supporting cast. But this is a Chinese Box of a play, and all is not what it seems ...

This perceptive play for young adults, set “ten years after the bomb? portrays with frightening clarity the destruction of the human character, as compassion and social standards become lost in the struggle for power and survival. Set in the ruins of a large, abandoned building a group of fifteen teenage survivors struggle to make sense of their world’s desolation. Ironically, despite the bitter nature of their inheritance, they soon begin to repeat their parents?mistakes, with the play ending on a thought-provoking clash of personalities.

[Top]

On a restaurant terrace in Rome, Mrs Slade and Mrs Ansley are reminiscing about a Roman holiday they had together many years before. Mrs Slade, envious of Mrs Ansley’s daughter’s engagement to a young and rich Marchese, cannot resist a spiteful jibe at Mrs Ashley, thereby shattering a cherished memory. But in the end it is Mrs Slade herself whose illusions are shattered. Period 1930.

This is a vicious little parable about the United States of America where Mommy and Daddy live in gilt-edged insecurity. Mommy rules the roost with an unholy vitality that has reduced Daddy to a terrible, contented incompetence. Mommy’s mother lives with them, terrorised into whining servility. Once upon a time, Mommy and Daddy had a child, but as it began to express its individuality, they cut off all its parts and it died. Into the house strays a beautiful young man ?an American Dream ?except that he can feel nothing because he is the twin of the mutilated child. Albee drags laughter from us, and we laugh as eighteenth-century voyeurs laughed at caged bedlamites.

[Top]

Ever since he first saw her, Frederick Clegg has been obsessed with Miranda Grey. The repressed, introverted butterfly collector admirers the beautiful, privileged art student from afar until he wins the Lottery and buys a remote country house, planning to bring her there as his “guest? Having abducted and imprisoned her in the cellar he soon finds the reality is far from fantasy and their tense, claustrophobic relationship leads to a devastating climax.

[Top]

The Intruders is a play for two men and two women set in the lounge of a detached, suburban house. When Bill Smith is caught breaking in by Adrian Smythe he defends himself very verbally to Adrian’s amazement. When Helen Smythe appears Bill has created such an impression that they make a cosy foursome by bringing in from the garden Bill’s accomplice, the heavily pregnant Linda, who has been acting as a look-out. Adrian shows them that the affluence they see around them is a mere façade for the enormous debts with which he has to contend. Bill is equally impressed and urges Linda to be completely honest with the Smythes whereupon she dubiously removes a cushion from her jumper. Adrian and Helen are furious but when a car draws up outside is seems they have not been entirely honest since the car contains the true householders who have returned early from holiday.

[Top]

Professor, the maid and the pupil.

[Top]

The orchestra of Ridley Road, a state school, is to give a concert in Moscow at the European Festival of Youth, playing Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony before an audience of cultural bigwigs. But their instruments have been impounded by Customs due to the foolishness of Second Flute. Luckily Alex, the Russian boy who cleans the hall, is a devout Pinball Wizard fan who comes up with a plan that saves everyone.

[Top]

Susan and Brian are returning home late with Susan’s parents, Angie and Peter. Unable to catch a taxi, they descend onto the platform of an Underground station, deserted but for Liz, a teenage runaway. As they await a delayed train, their bickering and idle chat begins to reveal family secrets, and strange and unsettling things happen. Sounds of drums rumble from the tunnel, footsteps echo in the passageway, shadows alive with malice appear. To top it all, Liz has designs of her own ... Soon, a connection between the ghostly phenomena of the present and the poignant events of the past becomes obvious. A tense, dramatic play, ideal for festival work.

[Top]

New York. Summer, 1957 ?A young delinquent is on trial for the murder of his aggressive father. The judge has directed the jury to find the boy guilty if there is no reasonable doubt. Eleven of the jurors declare there is no reasonable doubt, but one of them, while far from convinced of the boy’s innocence, feels that some of the evidence against him has been ambiguous. By the end of that long hot afternoon the juror has ingeniously reversed opinion.

[Top]

Us and Them is a play for any number of characters of either sex. A Recorder comes on to an empty stage ?to record the passing of anyone and everyone.  Two parties enter, A and B, from East and West respectively. Each party is delighted with the countryside and plans to settle down. Then the parties see each other. Instant suspicion. But amicable division of land is attained, and a dividing line set down.  The line of string grows to be a wall and all goes well for a time.  But each party is now anxious to find out what the other is doing and representatives of both parties meet on top of the wall, each spying on the other. War ensues and the wall is broken down.  After peace neither party wishes to stay.  They leave and the Recorder is left to hope that some day someone somewhere will learn from the notes he has taken.

[Top]

Myra and Mavis, middle-aged and snobby, have returned home for their mother’s second marriage to, they believe, a humble waiter. Totally disapproving, they try to sweep the wedding under the carpet by insisting on a very quiet registry office ceremony and lunch at a discreet hotel. Mother will have none of this and makes her own arrangements, abetted by her down-to-earth charlady. The daughters are horrified at the turn of events, not least by finding out Ricardo’s true worth, and Mother has the last laugh!

[Top]

Ideal for youth theatres and school groups, this comedy centres on two unemployed teenagers, uncertain about themselves and the world around them. They are sent on a mission to find “heroes fit to save the day?and on their quest encounter a hotchpotch of humanity ?violent street gangs, cranky religious sects, unscrupulous pop groups, television characters and even a family of vagrants. And surprisingly it is in this final encounter that they appear to find their “hero? ?in the elusive Mrs Jones. Unable to persuade her to return with them, they go back to Jack empty-handed, only to find he too has disappeared. Yet all is not lost ?on their mission they have gained the knowledge that they are no longer No one and Nobody but Some one and Somebody. This is a fast-moving comedy, yet it is making a serious statement too.

[Top]