Renowned actor and author Michael Pennington introduces his new book on Shakespeare, Sweet William, based on his solo show of the same name. Read on, and you'll find an exclusive extract from the book, that may whet your appetite for more... This morning the snow is six inches deep and as I live at the … Continue reading Michael Pennington on his new book, SWEET WILLIAM: Twenty Thousand Hours with Shakespeare
Nick Hern Books
Helen Edmundson on her stage version of SWALLOWS AND AMAZONS
Helen Edmundson is a multi-award-winning playwright with a string of stellar hits to her name, including adapting Jamila Gavin’s novel Coram Boy for the National Theatre, and winning the John Whiting Award (Best New Play) for The Clearing. Her latest venture – bringing Arthur Ransome's classic novel Swallows and Amazons to life for the stage … Continue reading Helen Edmundson on her stage version of SWALLOWS AND AMAZONS
Charles Dickens’ THE HAUNTING: I Wants to Make Your Flesh Creep!
Hugh Janes’ spine-tingling play The Haunting is adapted from several original ghost stories by Charles Dickens, and toured extensively throughout the UK in 2010/11. Here, the author explains how the play was inspired by Dickens’ long-held fascination with the supernatural... Whether we believe in them or not, ghosts appear to be everywhere: in churches, cemeteries … Continue reading Charles Dickens’ THE HAUNTING: I Wants to Make Your Flesh Creep!
Spotlight: TOM WELLS on THE KITCHEN SINK
Talented Yorkshire playwright Tom Wells tells us a little about his hilarious new play The Kitchen Sink – ‘comic, poignant and utterly gripping... outstanding’ Evening Standard – that premiered this week at the new Bush Theatre. A play set entirely in the kitchen of an eccentric Yorkshire family, it's about big dreams and small changes, … Continue reading Spotlight: TOM WELLS on THE KITCHEN SINK
Jez Butterworth’s JERUSALEM at St Paul’s
Art often imitates life, but it’s rare that a West End play gets taken up by a group of anti-capitalist protesters as the perfect encapsulation of their spirit of defiance. But this is just what has happened to Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem, a play that is back in the West End with Mark Rylance once again … Continue reading Jez Butterworth’s JERUSALEM at St Paul’s
LAGAN: Writing Northern Ireland – by Stacey Gregg
Stacey Gregg is a Belfast-born playwright whose new play – Lagan – marks her UK debut, premiering tonight at Ovalhouse, South London. A kaleidoscope of stories from post-Troubles Belfast, Lagan is an intimate and absorbing portrait of a city with a past like no other. Stacey reveals her desire to 'write' her hometown... Lagan sprang … Continue reading LAGAN: Writing Northern Ireland – by Stacey Gregg
Adapting classic children’s literature for the stage – by playwright Mike Kenny
Adapting classic children's novels for the stage is no easy feat. But British playwright Mike Kenny has proven that when it works, it can go down like a treat. With a string of roaring successes over the last two years, including current Waterloo Station Theatre smash hit The Railway Children (recently nominated for the Evening … Continue reading Adapting classic children’s literature for the stage – by playwright Mike Kenny
Spotlight: playwright CONOR McPHERSON
Playwright Conor McPherson – 'a writer who can make inarticulacy sound poetic' (Evening Standard) – returns to the theatre this month with the premiere of his new play The Veil at the National Theatre. We've published the playtext along with a striking new edition of his earliest works, McPherson Plays: One, which includes a new … Continue reading Spotlight: playwright CONOR McPHERSON
WE ARE THREE SISTERS: with author Blake Morrison
Poet, playwright and novelist Blake Morrison grew up in striking distance from Haworth, the village once home to the Brontë family, and describes his latest play for Northern Broadsides, We are Three Sisters, as 'a kind of homecoming'. Here he explains the enjoyment of dramatising the Brontë's lives, lifting the gloom and misery so often … Continue reading WE ARE THREE SISTERS: with author Blake Morrison
Spotlight: Headlong’s DECADE
As Decade, Headlong’s imaginative investigation of 9/11 and its legacy, opens in London, NHB Commissioning Editor Matt Applewhite considers a play publisher’s role in documenting the theatre of our times – and why it’s worth pulling out all the stops to do so. When, in 2009, Caryl Churchill wrote Seven Jewish Children, her short, sharp … Continue reading Spotlight: Headlong’s DECADE
The Prompt Book 