TCG Books

From acclaimed writer/director Mark Murphy, this unflinching, discomforting but ultimately consoling story is a slick and sinister thriller from the darkest recesses of one’s past. A history of strange dreams, broken hearts and a long buried secret that if uncovered, will change her life forever. Mark Murphy is a writer, director, filmmaker, movement specialist and founder of Vtol Dance Company.

Famously censored by the Master of Revels and then revised—probably by Shakespeare himself—this is the story of Henry VIII’s chancellor, executed for failing to arrange Henry’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon. A collaborative effort, the manuscript includes three pages in what may be Shakespeare’s own handwriting.

Three people, four walls: the basic recipe for family life. Down the road in Oil Street there are no walls, just wheels, and a fierce sense of belonging that has nothing to do with place. Two ways of life: yards apart and yet worlds apart. A friendship between the sons forces both families to look beyond the walls that divide them.

“The teenager, the bride to be, the exhausted young mother, the lonely widow . . . they are funny and often touching in these four monologues deftly written by Joanna Murray-Smith. Little gems, as observant as anything in Alan Bennet’s Talking Heads—and considerably less static.”—Guardian

Work, love, and life are just one long, hard slog for the fish-filleting foursome Pearl, Jan, Shelley, and Linda. But their fortunes are set to change when Linda finds tickets to Ladies’ Day at Royal Ascot. Out go the hairnets and overalls as the four ditch work, do themselves up, and head off for a drink, a flirt, and a flutter.

What begins as a metro-versus-retro comedy of misunderstanding soon becomes a chilling drama about multicultural Britain. Racial tensions soar and good intentions have fatal consequences. An epic and provocative State of the Nation play, published alongside the premiere at the National Theatre.

Set in the eighteenth century, Coram Boy is a tale of two cities and a tale of two boys: Toby, saved from an African slave ship, and Aaron, the illegitimate heir to a great estate. It’s also a tale of fathers and sons: slave-trader, Otis, and his son Meshak; and landowner Sir William Ashbrook and the son he disinherits.

Filled with a passion for life that cannot be confined by her marriage or “perfect home,” Hedda Gabler strives to find a way to fulfill her desires by manipulating those around her. Former artistic director of the National Theatre and top-flight director of both stage and screen, Richard Eyre helms his own new version of Ibsen’s classic at London’s Almeida Theatre in Spring 2005.

Dave is a troublemaker. His mother's always trying to commit suicide, his father's never at home and he really doesn't see the point of school. Laura has ambitious parents who want her to get on, but she's being so badly bullied she's thinking of suicide as well. An unlikely liaison develops between Laura and Dave, as both their trouble exacerbate.

Don still carries a torch for Diana, but Howard stole her away. Fifteen years later, Don shows up on their doorstep, his mother’s ashes in a plastic bag. Meanwhile, Howard and Diana’s 14-year-old daughter Hermia is the spitting image of her mother. Here we are in Elyot-land, where the wish to re-live the past can threaten normal moral constraints.

The Shakespeare Folios series - offering the absolute authenticity of the First Folio in a totally accessible form.

'A quite wonderful idea... So blindingly obvious, I can't understand why nobody had thought of it before. I will certainly use the texts myself' Peter Hall

This edition accurately reproduces the text of the Shakespeare First Folio (1623), but in modern type. At a stroke the dust of ages is blown away and what Shakespeare actually intended is revealed to modern readers.

Now Shakespeareans everywhere - students, actors, directors - can see for themselves what the Folio really says.

As a further aid to understanding, on each opposing page the same text appears in a fully modernised version - a useful safety net whenever the Folio becomes problematic.

Each volume also contains:
- an introduction to the particular play
- textual notes
- an appendix giving variant versions from the Quarto where appropriate
- a facsimile page from the First Folio

Two-part adaptation of Geoffrey Chaucer’s tales by Tony award winner adaptor Mike Poulton. All the famous characters are here as well as many less well-known but equally full of life. Each of the stories has its own style—heroic verse for the Knight’s Tale, vernacular rhymes for the Miller’s Tale etc.—echoing the many narrative voices employed by Chaucer himself.

A Middle-Eastern leader comes out of hiding and is hounded from state to state by the forces of the Roman Empire, who threaten sanctions and ultimately war on anyone who harbors him.

Stuart Carolan’s debut play tells the story of a fractured family in present-day Ireland, entrenched in violent and uncompromising republicanism, which finally shatters when a senior figure in the IRA visits the farm to hunt out a suspected informer. Blackly comic and chillingly real, Defender of the Faith explores the conflict between family loyalty and political beliefs.

Great Expectations is one of Dickens’s best-loved novels and, say some critics, his greatest. Covering the story of one man’s life—with many autobiographical elements—it tackles big question of identity while mustering a cast of unforgettable characters, chief amongst them Miss Havisham and Joe Gargery.

“The artful way Liz Lochhead takes us there in her delightful new play is as funny, as touching, and yet as emotionally true as anything this supremely humane writer has yet produced.”—The Times (London)

A new romantic comedy from “Scotland’s greatest dramatist” (Scotland on Sunday), this was a massive hit at Glasgow’s Tron Theatre and toured the U.K. in 2004.

“Hypnotic and powerful…this is a work of delicate force.”—The London Times

Menacing and acutely observed, this subtle new play is the first London outing by internationally acclaimed British-born writer Jane Bodie.

Jonson’s little-known—and even less performed—tragedy telling the story of Sejanus, a contemporary of the Emperor Claudius. First performed in 1603 with Burbage and Shakespeare in the cast—the latter’s last recorded appearance as an actor.

Take Me Away is a dark but very funny comedy about the disintegration of a family of feckless chancers and no-hopers. It stands in an honorable Irish tradition stretching from Synge and O’Casey through Brendan Behan to present-day writers like Billy Roche and Conor McPherson. Premiered in Dublin by the respected Irish theatre company Rough Magic, who developed the play through their new writing program.

Dublin 1850. A “do-gooding” Quaker woman and her husband are visited by a freed American slave and the Yorkshire man who bought her freedom. An engrossingly believable portrait of a period when professions of simple virtue frequently masked more colorful complexities.

Russian playwright Vassily Sigarev shot to prominence in 2002 with his debut play, Plasticine, which won him the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright—the first time the award had gone to a non-English-speaking writer. Set in a block of low-income apartments near the city cemetery, Ladybird returns to the urban setting Sigarev knows so well and the people at the bottom of society for whom he has an obstinate affection.

“Magnificent . . . leaves no doubt that you are watching a classic. . . . In Mike Poulton’s fleet and vivid translation . . . the story of a tyrannical King Philip II of Spain and his abused, love-tormented son, Don Carlos, has all the deftly plotted twists and turns of a thriller. You lean forward in your seat, desperate to discover what happens next . . . an absolutely spellbinding production of a masterpiece”—Daily Telegraph

As artistic director of English Touring Theatre (“the company of the moment”—Daily Mail), Stephen Unwin has worked with hundreds of different actors in a multiplicity of venues. In this book, he takes readers step-by-step through choosing the play, casting, design, rehearsal, running the play, putting it on stage and on to opening night.

This play follows the fortunes of Mary Adams, aged 19, unmarried and seven months pregnant in a 1964 Mother and Baby Home in North England. Forcibly sent there by a mother intent on keeping up appearances, Mary has to cope with both the shame and with the dawning realization that she will have to give the baby up for adoption.

“A powerful show that brings the subject of war close to home.”—The Scotsman

“Lichtenstein’s heartbreaking play looks with compassion at one facing the worst that life can throw at them.”—Guardian

Wounded in the war in Iraq, a farmer’s boy turned soldier returns home with injuries that have extraordinary consequences for his fiancée and his family.

“It is his range of knowledge—along with a gift for writing clearly and memorably—that makes him such a fine guide.”—Times Literary Supplement

This widely experienced actor and director takes us scene-by-scene through Shakespeare’s much-performed comedy, elucidating how it actually works on stage, what choices are open to performers, and what impact those choices will have. A must for teachers, students, and actors approaching the play.

A handbook by two of the best-known names in the business. Essential reading for any aspiring actor. This short book offers practical advice and the 'dos and don'ts' to anyone considering a career in acting. Both authors are passionate about actor training, know the profession inside out and have more than 100 years' experience between them.

Erdman writes in the tradition of Gogol (think Government Inspector), and it certainly shows in this madcap but sinister farce. Its premiere in 1925 was the most successful production by the most famous of Soviet directors, Meyerhold. Now it is given a rare revival at the National Theatre in London in a version written and directed by Declan Donnellan, who has staged many productions in Russia in the last 10 years.

A karaoke competition at the Rainworth Miners’ Welfare Club brings together seasoned pro and talented beginner. As the all-singing, all-dancing Satin ‘n Steel, they set their sights on the big time. But a guilty secret threatens to jeopardize their designs on superstardom. A heartwarming, showbiz-based comedy from the author of Be My Baby.

An amazing discovery, unperformed since its first performance 400 years ago. A play about a law to have men over 80 and women over 60 put down as no longer useful to society, written in collaboration by three of the most active Jacobean playwrights.

Part of the Royal Court’s ground-breaking international season, these plays are a unique double-bill of new Brazilian plays in English translation. Both plays are avowedly influenced by Harold Pinter, but have their own uncanny way of building atmosphere by what is not said. Barbosa’s writing hints at the murky morality that lies beneath the surface of normal life.

“Ayub 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 makes the piece overwhelming in its emotional impact.”—Daily Telegraph

Anthony Sher’s enthralling account of the struggle—and the triumph – of bringing Primo Levi’s Auschwitz memoir to the stage. Sher tells how he first came across Levi’s book, of how he conceived the notion of adapting it, of the long-drawn-out negotiations, research trips to Auschwitz and of the struggle to stage his adaptation and remain true to Levi’s precepts. A critical success in both London’s West End and on Broadway.

Adapted from the novel by Mary Webb, Gone to Earth is the story of a free-spirited country lass, who is loved both by the wicked squire and the altruistic minister. Edmundson has incorporated folk-dance, song and dialect into the rural Shropshire setting. It is a style well-suited to Shared Experience, the company that produced Edmundson’s acclaimed adaptations of Anna Karenina and The Mill on the Floss.

England, 1656. After the execution of the king, the country veers dangerously toward anarchy. Against this background, John Milton and Oliver Cromwell meet for a heated debate about how a country can regain its equilibrium after a bloody insurrection and if good government can be enforced from above on a divided nation. Though firmly set in its period, Through a Cloud reaches forward to the present day.

In Havana in 2000, a former musician steals a newly unveiled statue of John Lennon, remembering a time when The Beatles were not so celebrated in Cuba. In January 2004, El Concierto won the Pinheiro Prize for the best Cuban play of the past two years as well as a new prize, jointly awarded by the Royal Court Theatre and Nick Hern Books, for the best Cuban play by an author under 35. Published in a bilingual edition.

Premiered at the Bush Theatre, London’s powerhouse of new theatre writing, Airsick is a sexy and sassy first play from Emma Frost. Her two lead characters are very feisty, outspoken, no-nonsense women. The trouble is they are still prone to get emotionally airsick—even when they’re not flying.

Gareth Armstrong has performed his solo play Shylock over 600 times in more than 30 countries. Traveling the world from San Francisco to Sri Lanka, his myriad encounters have enriched both him and the show, adding ever more threads to his one-man story of the Jew and the Jewish people.

“There is an unsentimental compassion about Elyot’s writing that is deeply affecting and a sharp observation of contemporary life that is often richly comic.”—Daily Telegraph

Includes: Coming Clean, My Night With Reg, The Day I Stood Still and Mouth to Mouth.

Imagine that you must choose one single memory from your life and capture it with a magical camera—everything else will be erased. Imagine that choosing this memory is your only way of passing through to eternity. Imagine that you have just one hour to choose.

Emma Bovary and her reviled husband are at breakfast on the morning of Emma’s last day alive. As they bicker, scenes from Emma’s past are called to mind and played out with all the passion for which Flaubert’s novel is famous. Weldon is the author of over 50 books, including Auto da Fay, Big Women and The Life and Loves of a She-Devil.

The Maths Tutor is a wry and incisive new play exposing how our desire for normal family life and our fears about adults, young people and sex can sometimes outride the truth. Claire McIntyre is a winner of the Evening Standard and Samuel Beckett awards, and author of My Heart’s a Suitcase and Low Level Panic.

The play takes place over the course of a hot summer’s day in an imagined area of present-day Belfast. We see a day in the life of over twenty inhabitants of the district as their stories interweave and collide. In a tour de force of dramatic writing, a whole world is evoked in a couple of hours.

Following her award-winning Medea, Liz Lochhead has revisited the Greek classics and retold the stories of Oedipus and Antigone in a dazzling new Scots-inflected version of the Thebans. Lochhead is a poet, playwright, performer and broadcaster. Her plays include Perfect Days and new version of Molière’s Le Misanthrope and Tartuffe.

"Edgar’s main theme is how precisely the US got where it is today . . . in the big, bold Daughters of the Revolution, he uses a political thriller to show how the 1960’s radical baby-boomers turned into today’s conformists. Its companion piece, Mothers Against, dealing with the Republican side, is a total triumph. The action takes place before a crucial televised debate. Together, the two plays are a tremendous achievement.”—Michael Billington, Guardian

This is an intensely practical handbook for students, actors, and teachers on how to cope with text, character, and situation. Barbara Houseman’s method is to state a precept and devise an exercise to explore it. The result is a book with a practical exercise on almost every page.

George Orwell’s 1945 satire on the perils of Stalinism has proved magnificently long-lived as a parable about totalitarianism anywhere—and has given the world at least one immortal phrase: “Everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others.”This new dramatization sticks very closely to the book, and the production has toured all over England, Scotland, Wales and Romania in Orwell’s centenary year. “Dare I say it . . . as good as the book.”—Guardian

Peter Harness’ Mongoose: “A darkly charming fairytale.”—The Times (London). Conor McPherson’s St. Nicholas: “About a boozy, rancorous Irish theatre critic who finds himself working for a group of vampires . . . wholly compelling.”—Sunday Telegraph. Ronan O’Donnell’s Brazil: “Like Mark O’Rowe and Enda Walsh, the Scottish O’Donnell has an ear for dialect—intoxicated writing larded with cynicism.”—The Times(London)

The book is both an in-depth analysis of the play, in which Davies looks at the many possible interpretations of both play and character, and a rehearsal diary in which we see the author’s personal journey through the role, from when he played Lear for the Almeida Theatre in 2002.

Dirty Butterfly is a mesmerizing and startling pressure cooker of a play about voyeurism, power and guilt.

"The writing is startlingly assured . . . the understated humor is devastating."—The London Sunday Independent

Drawing on a lifetime’s experience of playing Shakespearean roles, Oliver Ford Davies offers practical advice to actors, directors, and drama students on a wide variety of scenes, characters, speeches, and individual lines from almost every one of the plays. An authoritative, hands-on guide through the practical challenges involved in performing Shakespeare.

Terrorism contains six scenes from urban life linked by an almost invisible thread, subtly indicating that we bear responsibility for one another even in our urban limbo. Terrorism paints a picture at once familiar and strange, deftly depicting with minimal means the moral bankruptcy of the new Russia.

Shoot the Crow is a sad and hilarious play about a day in the life of four Irish tilers on a building site. As they come to the end of the job they’ve been working on, Ding-Ding and Randolph plan to nick a left-over pallet of tiles. Dind-Ding wants to buy a window-cleaning round and Randolph has his eye on a motorbike. But the foreman and his sidekick have had the same idea...