TCG Books

In 1974, Terence Rattigan wrote a television script for the BBC about the relationship between Diaghilev, the impresario behind the Ballets Russes, and Nijinsky, the most renowned dancer of all time, which Rattigan described as "the greatest love story since Romeo and Juliet." But the playwright withdrew the play and it was never produced. Now in this bold re-imagining of events, Nicholas Wright investigates why.

Two strong female roles provide fresh monologue material for actors and drama students in this new play about a smart and sassy young woman led into prostitution to survive in a foreign city far from home.

In this dark comedy from one of Britain's best young writers, long-forgotten secrets threaten a family get-together. Acutely observed and painfully funny, The Gatekeeper depicts the maddening aspects of family life, complete with sparkling dialogue that captures the endless conversations and annoying idiosyncrasies that drive us all up the wall.

Eight of the United Kindom's best young directors provide unique insight into the creative process, from first rehearsal to opening. Getting Directions will equip emerging directors with a practical handbook: a masterclass from a generation of theatre practitioners, and essential reading for anyone who wants to follow in their footsteps.

Celebrated actress Ruthie Henshall has starred on Broadway and the West End in Chicago, Les Misérables, Cats, and Oliver! among others. She brings her extraordinary knowledge and personal experiences to this insider account of how to make it in this very tough business. An essential guide to turning dreams into reality.

In late 2006 the everyday life of the quiet rural town of Ipswich was shattered by the discovery of the bodies of five women. This experimental and challenging work is a highly acclaimed new musical at London's National Theatre.

A funny and fascinating tribute to the European immigrants who became major players in Hollywood's Golden Age, from award-winning dramatist Nicholas Wright. Set in 1900 in the shtetls of Eastern Europe, and 1940s Hollywood, Travelling Light is a delightful comedy-drama about revolutionary storytelling and the cost of fulfilling one's dreams, fresh from its premiere at The National Theatre.

A practical, vocational guide to starting a career on television as a presenter. With a background in television, directing, working with professional presenters, and training new ones for the television industry, Kathryn Wolfe takes you through the techniques and skills required to become a successful presenter.

Now in paperback! Winner of the Sheridan Morley Prize for Theatre Biography. An alternative autobiography of the well-loved actor and man of the theater. In My Life in Pieces Simon Callow retraces his life through the multifarious performers, writers, productions, and events that have left their indelible mark on him.

Simon Callow writes with perceptiveness, wit and flair about the remarkable people he has encountered in the course of his career. My Life in Pieces coincides with his latest stage venture, a one-man show called Shakespeare: The Man from Stratford, written by the well-known Shakespeare scholar Jonathan Bate.

Republished to mark Antony Sher’s sixtieth birthday. In Beside Myself, Sher takes us to the heart of what it is to be an actor today, describing the journeys he undertakes in order to inhabit the roles for which he is famous. Utterly involving, this book will both inspire young actors and inform seasoned theatergoers.

Two small plays but big on ideas. Between them they provide a vivid search for home and a blackly comic exploration of the mad savagery of war. Plays included are Nightwatchman by Prasanna Puwanarajah and There is a War by Tom Basden.

"A love story laced with indignation. . . . The language in Mike Poulton's fine version is alternately highflown and splendidly raunchy."—The Times

Adapted from Friedrich Schiller's 1784 play Kabale und Liebe, a masterpiece of power and politics that explores the battle between honor and corruption, between truth and betrayal.

Women, Power and Politics: Now includes Joy Wilkinson's Acting Leader, in which a woman leads the Labor Party; Bola Agbaje's Playing the Game, about student politics today; Zinnie Harris' The Panel, about an appointments board's secret agenda; Sam Holcroft's Pink, in which a self-made millionaire thinks again, and Sue Townsend's You, Me and Wii, in which a doorstep canvasser arrives.

A thoughtful and funny glimpse into the final days of Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor, based on Caroline Blackwood's best-selling book of the same name. The Last of the Duchess is an elegy for a lost age, and a careful exploration of what it once was to be an icon.

This is the highly successful "Bible for any stage manager" in a revised and updated edition. Aimed at students, graduates, and all those who aspire to stage management, whether amateur or professional. Complete with illustrations, diagrams, and checklists, it takes the reader through a typical production, week by week.

The debut play by actress and ex-Coronation Street star Deborah McAndrew, Flamingoland has strong female roles for four actresses. Homing in on the lives of four women unable to talk about their feelings, and a voluble pest exterminator who can, this is big-hearted, bittersweet comedy about mothers, sisters, love, and lies.

A hospital play that follows a tangle of doctors and nurses in a busy London hospital, from the award-winning playwright of the international hit Tribes. Professionalism and prejudice, turbulent staff romances, ambition and failure collide in this swirling, action-packed drama about an over-burdened health service and the tenacious individuals who keep it running.

In The Urban Girl's Guide to Camping, four young friends leave the city behind and head into the wilderness, but a burning secret threatens to tear their lives apart. A bittersweet comedy about life, love, and friendship. Also includes Mehndi Night, Stolen Secrets, and The Unravelling.

A unique guide to every aspect of putting on your own solo show: choosing the subject, raising the finances, booking the venue, and performing it! Being a veteran of the solo-show circuit as a writer, performer, and director, Gareth Armstrong is the ideal guide.

This invaluable inside account, written by a writer and director of many successful musicals, is jam-packed with great advice, information, and exercises designed to help new musicals reach their full potential. It's the ultimate guide to what to do and not do when you're putting your show together.

Nine parallel lives, interlocked by four infidelities, one missing person and a mysterious stiletto, are woven through a fragmented series of confessionals and interrogations that gradually reveal a darker side of human nature.

From the Governor General's Literary Award-winning author of If We Were Birds comes a fierce battle between integrity and desire. In a developing country, a middle-aged western man waits in a squalid hotel room for a very young local girl. Soliciting Temptation shines a fresh light on the complexities of sex tourism and explores power struggles within gender, sex and class.

A collection of three earlier, hard-to-find plays, from renowned Canadian playwright Judith Thompson. Includes: White Biting Dog, a poetic black comedy about a divorced lawyer contemplating suicide; I Am Yours, a harrowing story about a group of characters on the brink of despair; and Pink, a moving monologue set in 1970s South Africa following a violent protest.

The gripping story of the sensational, real-life case. In 1903, Birmingham solicitor George Edalji was found guilty of a 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 case and win him a pardon.

This darkly comic and free-wheeling epic of modern Russian life, reminiscent of Gogol at his most satirical, was commissioned by the RSC for their Russian season in the summer of 2009.

Love, sex, birth, death, and salsa classes—three generations of Dublin women tell the story of one extraordinary year in Elaine Murphy's award-winning debut play, critically acclaimed at the Traverse Theatre.

A topical satire on bankers and their dog-eat-dog lifestyle. This is what life was like in the big financial institutions before the ceiling fell in. Topical and fast-paced, Roaring Trade exposes just how far people would go to secure the highest-risk, highest-earning jobs.

A fast-moving, exhilarating play about teenage hopes, dreams and frustrations in a rural part of England.

Wheeler is a high-flying comprehensive kid destined for university, while football-mad Fitz is struggling to cope with his dysfunctional father and his schoolwork. They live in Walberswick, a sleepy Suffolk village known for hosting the British Open Crabbing Championship.

Set on a sweltering summer's day on the eve of their last GCSE exam, they are ambushed by Dani, the fittest (and poshest) girl on the beach. So begins a crazy twenty-four hours that will change the lives of the three sixteen-year-olds for ever.

A dark and compelling vision of a world infected by violence.

A seemingly normal detention in a seemingly normal modern-day comprehensive school. A teacher valiantly battles on with biology revision. She believes only education will set her pupils free. For outside the classroom, the world is in the middle of a long and bloody war.

Despite her best efforts, the tide of conflict is soon lapping at the school gates and, one by one, pupils and teacher are pulled under as their hopes and dreams float away from them.

Taking us back to a forgotten world that is nonetheless brimming with familiar passions and human foibles, Lay Me Down Softly is another slice of vintage Billy Roche. Set in rural Ireland of the early ’60s, Roche’s new play takes us into the burlesque world of Delaney’s Traveling Roadshow.

Renowned poet and dramatist Liz Lochhead tells the story of Frankenstein's creation.

Using flashbacks and the rich poetic language for which she has become admired, Lochhead weaves a spider's web of connections between Mary's own tragic life and that of her literary monster.