Bøger i Contemporary Dramatists serien

Multi-award-winning Scottish playwright Kieran Hurley has been making waves since the early 2010s with his vivid storytelling and searing honesty, creating plays acutely concerned with society and community, and deeply enmeshed in Scotland's local political context. Tracking the evolution of Hurley's work from his early solo shows to his later large-cast plays and featuring an introduction by Scottish theatre critic Joyce McMillan, this is an exciting collection showcasing one of the UK's most exciting creators of politically-engaged theatre. The plays collected are:Hitch (2010): a previously unpublished solo show about Hurley's hitchhiking trip to the 2009 G8 meeting in L'Aquila, exploring the meaning of political protest.Beats (2012): a coming-of-age story exploring the aftermath of the 1994 Criminal Justice Act outlawing raves. It was adapted into a film in 2019, garnering nominations for BIFA Best Debut Screenplay and WGGB Best Screenplay.Heads Up (2016): a ferocious piece of storytelling asking what we would do if we found ourselves at the end of our world as we know it. (Winner of the Fringe First Award 2016.)Mouthpiece (2018): an unflinching Edinburgh-centric two-hander which examines whether it's possible to tell someone else's story without exploiting them along the way. (Winner of the Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award 2019.)The Enemy (2021): a provocative and timely drama offering a uniquely Scottish take on Henrik Ibsen's timeless work An Enemy of the People.

"James Graham is a political playwright so on top of his game that you kind of take it on faith that any play he comes up with will be a banger, regardless of how esoteric the subject." (Time Out) The third collection of James Graham's plays brings together four West End hits and a Tony Award Best Play nominee into one unforgettable anthology of political, national and human stories perceptively told and expertly crafted. INK: "It's a sharply written, vibrantly theatrical, boisterously performed piece of work. And while it vividly recaptures the now extinct world of Fleet Street - with its adrenalized and testosterone-heavy mix of news hounds and hacks, idealism and cynicism, professional pride and boozy waggishness - the play's depiction of the rise of a certain brand of populism and its immediately detrimental effect on British society makes it profoundly of the moment." - Hollywood Reporter Labour of Love: "James Graham [...] has a rare capacity to recreate pivotal moments from our past. In his brilliant new play, however, he adds another weapon to his armoury. He not only provides a portrait of the historic ups and downs of the Labour party; he also charts, with surprising tenderness, a turbulent relationship between an MP and his constituency agent". - Guardian Quiz: "Can we truly believe our eyes and ears, or do we only ever see what we want to see? In James Graham's glittering play you can take your pick from an array of alternative facts, but you might struggle to find the truth among the razzle-dazzle. One thing's for sure, though - Quiz is a winner." - TimesBest of Enemies: "History comes hurtling to life in "Best of Enemies," the latest attempt from the prolific playwright James Graham to put flesh on the bare bones of the past. Chronicling a sequence of televised face-offs that transfixed the United States in 1968, Graham once again shows a gift for mining the annals of politics and journalism for real theatrical gems. The result [...] is the most riveting play in London just now." - New York Times