Michael Frayn's Books

Collected Columns

By: Michael Frayn

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One of the funniest writers of his generation, Michael Frayn has been writing humorous newspaper columns since 1959, principally for the "Guardian" and "Observer", and originally came to prominence as the thrice weekly purveyor of these short, surreal, razor-sharp explorations of human foibles, sex, politics, manners, and the events of the day. This volume brings together 110 of his finest and funniest pieces from over the years, selected and introduced by Michael Frayn himself, and is an unmissable treat for the many fans of his unique comic voice, as well as a revelation for fans of the award-winning literary novels and plays of his later career.

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296

Publisher

Faber & Faber

Published Date

ISBN 10

0571328903

ISBN 13

9780571328901

Frayn Plays: 2

Balmoral; Benefactors; Wild Honey

By: Michael Frayn

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Frayn Plays: 2

Balmoral; Benefactors; Wild Honey

By: Michael Frayn

One of theatre's subtlest, most sophisticated minds" (The Times) Benefactors conjures the world of the suburbs observed through the lens of post-imperialism; "dazzling.. This prismatic work circumscribes the disillusionment of an era" (New York Times); Balmoral dares to imagine what Britain would be like if it had gone through the Russian revolution in 1917; "a sophisticated drollery, an educated amusement" (New Statesman); Wild Honey is a reworking of Checkov's first play (also known as Platonov) and is shot through with farce, feminism and eroticism.

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Page Count

325

Publisher

Bloomsbury Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1350013714

ISBN 13

9781350013711

Now You Know

Play

By: Michael Frayn

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Now You Know

Play

By: Michael Frayn

One of theatre's subtlest, most sophisticated minds" (The Times) Now You Know: "Frayn's light but serious, marvellous play, about official and unofficial secrets, about idle curiosity and investigative purpose" (Observer)

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132

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Bloomsbury Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1350013374

ISBN 13

9781350013377

Frayn Plays: 3

Here; Now You Know; La Belle Vivette

By: Michael Frayn

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Frayn Plays: 3

Here; Now You Know; La Belle Vivette

By: Michael Frayn

The new collection from the author of the Booker-shortlisted novel Headlong and the internationally acclaimed play Copenhagen Here: "about time, space and life...A touching, brilliant construction. It's both deeply thought and deeply felt' (Sunday Times); Now You Know: "Frayn's light but serious, marvellous new play, about official and unofficial secrets, about idle curiosity and investigative purpose" (Observer); La Belle Vivette: "Frayn's elegant libretto... Michael Frayn has made an Offenbach opera a farce to be reckoned with...a razor-sharp reworking" (Mail on Sunday) Michael Frayn was born in 1933 in the suburbs of London and began his career as a reporter on the Guardian, before becoming a columnist. His novels include The Tin Men, The Russian Interpreter, Towards the End of Morning and The Trick of It. He has written a number of plays for television and the stage, including translations of Chekhov and smash hits such as his screenplay Clockwise and his plays Donkeys' Years, Noises Off, Alarms and Excursions and Copenhagen. Deborah Levy "does not deal with realism, she does not deal with magic realism, rather she draws out a new territory, and if we follow we will find ourselves suspended over views we have not seen before" Jeanette Winterson, Observer

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354

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Bloomsbury Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1350013722

ISBN 13

9781350013728

Frayn Plays: 4

Copenhagen; Democracy; Afterlife

By: Michael Frayn

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Frayn Plays: 4

Copenhagen; Democracy; Afterlife

By: Michael Frayn

Michael Frayn is one of the great playwrights of our time, enjoying international acclaim and prestige. This anthology contains three of his strongest titles of serious drama: Copenhagen, Democracy and Afterlife. The volume features the definitive version of each play together with an introduction by the author and a chronology of his work. Copenhagen: 'The most invigorating and ingenious play of ideas in many a year and a work of art that humanizes physics in a way no other has done' New York Times 'Michael Frayn's tremendous new play is a piece of history, an intellectual thriller, a psychological investigation and a moral tribunal in full session.' Sunday Times 'A profound and haunting meditation on the mysteries of human motivation.' Independent Democracy: 'Michael Frayn's complex and richly rewarding new play...is wonderfully alert to the piquant paradoxes and ironic twists of this intensely tricky period in Germany's conversation with itself.' Independent 'What makes Frayn's play essential viewing is its Schiller-like grasp of practical politics' Guardian 'Michael Frayn's Democracy...is one of those rare dramas that don't just dare to think big but that fully translate their high aspirations to the stage, with sharp style and thrilling clarity' New York Times Afterlife: 'This play is almost literally brilliant - it glitters, shines and gleams with Frayn's trademark perceptive wit as it sends up the whole concept of theatre in the process of telling a strong, essentially tragic biographical story' The Stage

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424

Publisher

Bloomsbury Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1350013749

ISBN 13

9781350013742

Travels with a Typewriter

A Reporter at Large

By: Michael Frayn

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Travels with a Typewriter

A Reporter at Large

By: Michael Frayn

In mid-career, Michael Frayn took up his old trade of journalism, and wrote a series of occasional articles for the Observer about some of the places in the world that interested him. He wanted to describe 'not the extraordinary but the ordinary, the typical, the everyday', and his accounts became the starting point for some of the novels and plays he wrote later. From a kibbutz in Israel to summer rains in Japan, bicycles in Cambridge to Notting Hill at the end of the 1950s, they are glimpses of a world that sometimes seems tantalisingly familiar, sometimes vanished forever. Michael Frayn is the celebrated author of fifteen plays including Noises Off, Copenhagen and Afterlife. His bestselling novels include Headlong, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Spies, which won the Whitbread Best Novel Award and Skios, which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. "All writers of fiction should be required by law to go out and do a bit of reporting from time to time, just to remind them how different the real world in front of their eyes is from the invented world behind them." Michael Frayn 'Whether he's on a kibbutz or a bicycle, Frayn makes acute observations and the writing is enchanting.' Conde Nast Traveller

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290

Publisher

Faber & Faber

Published Date

ISBN 10

0571265421

ISBN 13

9780571265428

The Human Touch

Our Part in the Creation of a Universe

By: Michael Frayn

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The Human Touch

Our Part in the Creation of a Universe

By: Michael Frayn

What do we really know? What are we in relation to the world around us? Here, the acclaimed playwright and novelist takes on the great questions of his career—and of our lives Humankind, scientists agree, is an insignificant speck in the impersonal vastness of the universe. But what would that universe be like if we were not here to say something about it? Would there be numbers if there were no one to count them? Would the universe even be vast, without the fact of our smallness to give it scale? With wit, charm, and brilliance, this epic work of philosophy sets out to make sense of our place in the scheme of things. Our contact with the world around us, Michael Frayn shows, is always fleeting and indeterminate, yet we have nevertheless had to fashion a comprehensible universe in which action is possible. But how do we distinguish our subjective experience from what is objectively true and knowable? Surveying the spectrum of philosophical concerns from the existence of space and time to relativity and language, Frayn attempts to resolve what he calls "the oldest mystery": the world is what we make of it. In which case, though, what are we? All of Frayn's novels and plays have grappled with these essential questions; in this book he confronts them head-on.

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516

Publisher

Metropolitan Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1466829419

ISBN 13

9781466829411

Noises Off

By: Michael Frayn

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Noises Off

By: Michael Frayn

“As finely worked as a Swiss watch and as funny as the human condition permits..the zigzag brilliance of the text as the clunky lines of the farce-within-a-farce rub against the sharp dialogue of reality” Guardian A play-within-a-play following a touring theatre company who are rehearsing and performing a comedy called Nothing On, results in a riotous double-bill of comedic craft and dramatic skill. Hurtling along at breakneck speed it shows the backstage antics as they stumble through the dress-rehearsal at Weston-super-Mare, then on to a disastrous matinee at Ashton-under-Lyne, followed by a total meltdown in Stockton-on-Tees. Michael Frayn's irresistible, multi-award-winning backstage farce has been enjoyed by millions of people worldwide since it premiered in 1982 and has been hailed as one of the greatest British comedies ever written. Winner of both Olivier and Evening Standard Awards for Best Comedy. This edition features a new introduction by Michael Blakemore.

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176

Publisher

Bloomsbury Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

135018487X

ISBN 13

9781350184879

Alarms And Excursions

More Plays Than One

By: Michael Frayn

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Alarms And Excursions

More Plays Than One

By: Michael Frayn

Michael Frayn has the rare ability to construct farcical comedy around philosophical principles and the laughs and the ideas effortlessly intermesh" (Guardian) Four old friends sit down for a quiet evening together. But they are harassed by various bells, sirens, buzzers, warblers, beepers and cheepers, all trying to warn them of something. What are these electronic voices trying to tell them? Can they understand the mysterious disasters before disaster strikes? It's a race against time - because there are seven more plays and twenty more characters still to come before the evening is through, plus a lot more strange noises - and increasingly desperate calls from eleven separate pay phones...

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100

Publisher

Bloomsbury Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1350013099

ISBN 13

9781350013094

Magic Mobile

35 pre-loaded new text files

By: Michael Frayn

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Magic Mobile

35 pre-loaded new text files

By: Michael Frayn

A mobile phone is something that gives you the whole world at the touch of your finger - but this book is even better. Magic Mobile is a collection of thirty 'pre-loaded' new text files in a no-fuss, non-digital entertainment system. In a volume that succeeds Matchbox Theatre and Pocket Playhouse, each of these short comic masterpieces displays Michael Frayn's unique genius in forever capturing life's latest absurdities. Tune in to the BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Magic Mobile 13 May, 20 May, 27 May, 3 June. Michael Frayn's eleven novels include Towards the End of the Morning, Headlong, Spies and Skios. His seventeen plays range from Noises Off to Copenhagen.

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Page Count

167

Publisher

Faber & Faber

Published Date

ISBN 10

0571355013

ISBN 13

9780571355013

First & Last

By: Michael Frayn

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First & Last

By: Michael Frayn

One of theatre's subtlest, most sophisticated minds" (The Times) One spring morning a quiet, shy man in his sixties sets out from Land's End to walk the length of his native land. He has never walked more than a dozen miles in his life before, his health is uncertain, his boots are new, and he is too diffident to talk to anyone he meets along the way. His slow, solitary progress up the spine of Britain is watched by an unseen audience - his family and friends at home. How far will he get before he is forced to give up? Is he being heroic or merely selfish? As the days of his absence go by the old alliances and quarrels inside the family shift and alter. What emerges is a story about the arbitrariness of human endeavour and about the tenacious complexity of human relationships; about one man's glimpse of the country he lives in; about courage and about love. First and Last was directed by Alan Dossor in a production for BBC television, with Joss Ackland as the walker.

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119

Publisher

Bloomsbury Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1350013323

ISBN 13

9781350013322

Copenhagen

By: Michael Frayn

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Copenhagen

By: Michael Frayn

Michael Frayn's tremendous play is a piece of history, an intellectual thriller, a psychological investigation and a moral tribunal in full session' Sunday Times 'A profound and haunting meditation on the mysteries of human motivation' Independent 'Frayn has seized on a ral-life historical and scientific mystery. In 1941 the physicist Werner Heisenberg, who formulated the famous Uncertainty Principle about the movement of particles, and was at that time leading the Nazi's nuclear programme, went to visit his old boss and mentor, Niels Bohr, in Copenhagen. What was the purpose of his visit to Nazi-occupied Denmark? What did the two old friends say to each other, particularly bearing in mind that Bohr was both half-Jewish and a Danish patriot?... Frayn argues that just as it is impossible to be certain of the precise location of an electron, so it is impossible to be certain about the workings of the human mind... What is certain is that Frayn makes ideas zing and sing in this play' Daily Telegraph

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219

Publisher

Bloomsbury Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1350013196

ISBN 13

9781350013193

My Father's Fortune

A Life

By: Michael Frayn

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My Father's Fortune

A Life

By: Michael Frayn

For the first time, Michael Frayn, the "master of what is seriously funny,"* turns his humor and narrative genius on his own family's story, to re-create the world that made him who he is Whether he is deliriously funny or philosophically profound, as a novelist and a playwright Michael Frayn has concerned himself with the ordinary life lived by erring humans, which is always more extraordinary than people think. In My Father's Fortune, Frayn reveals the original exemplar of the extraordinary-ordinary life: his father, Tom Frayn. A clever lad, a roofing salesman with a winning smile and a racetrack vocabulary, Tom Frayn emerged undaunted from a childhood spent in two rooms with six other people, all of them deaf. And undaunted he stayed, through German rockets, feckless in-laws, and his own increasing deafness; through the setback of a son as bafflingly slow-witted as the father was quick on his feet; through the shockingly sudden tragedy that darkened his life. Tom Frayn left his son little more than three watches and two ink-and-wash prints. But the true fortune he passed on was the great humor and spirit revealed in this beguiling memoir. * Anthony Burgess

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288

Publisher

Metropolitan Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

142991873X

ISBN 13

9781429918732

A Landing on the Sun

A Novel

By: Michael Frayn

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A Landing on the Sun

A Novel

By: Michael Frayn

From the bestselling author of Headlong and Spies, "an unconditional triumph" (The Washington Post Book World) For fifteen years, ever since the taciturn civil servant Summerchild fell to his death from a window in the Admiralty, there have been rumors. So Brian Jessel, a young member of the Cabinet Office, is diverted from his routine work and asked to prepare an internal report. Slowly, from the archives in the Cabinet Office Registry, Jessel begins to reconstruct Summerchild's last months. It begins to emerge that, at a time when America had just put men on the moon, the British were involved in an even bolder project, and that Summerchild was investigating a phenomenon as common as sunlight, but as powerful and dangerous as any of the forces that modern science has known. The secret world into which Brian Jessel stumbles turns out to be even more extraordinary than his department had feared.

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276

Publisher

Macmillan

Published Date

ISBN 10

0312421907

ISBN 13

9780312421908

Here

A Play in Two Acts

By: Michael Frayn

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Here

A Play in Two Acts

By: Michael Frayn

Two people move into an empty room and begin to construct a life together in this work by the author of Noises Off, Copenhagen, Benefactors and numerous other well known plays. Should the bed go here and the table go there? Or the bed there and the table here? Everything inside this small space is for them to decide. The responsibility is daunting - especially when they reflect that it has taken the whole history of the world to get them together in this particular place at this particular time and that the whole future of the world will be different if the table is here instead of there. But how can they decide anything when the other person keeps disagreeing and when the woman downstairs maddeningly dumps unwanted furniture on them that they do not have the heart to refuse?

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116

Publisher

Samuel French, Inc.

Published Date

ISBN 10

0573694087

ISBN 13

9780573694080

Audience

A Play in One-act

By: Michael Frayn

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Audience

A Play in One-act

By: Michael Frayn

This amusing satire about audiences by the author of Noises Off, Copenhagen and other acclaimed plays takes place in the stalls (orchestra) of a West End theatre. The cast includes an usherette, audience members and a playwright in agony over crinkling candy wrappers, talking out loud, and inattention to his play. The characters in Michael Frayns metatheatrical comedy are actually watching the audience, expecting them to perform, and comedy ensues as Frayn holds a mirror up to the audience and they see their our own foibles as audience members.

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Samuel French, Inc.

Published Date

ISBN 10

0573620687

ISBN 13

9780573620683

Benefactors

A Play in Two Acts

By: Michael Frayn

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Benefactors

A Play in Two Acts

By: Michael Frayn

This long-running hit starred Sam Waterson on Broadway as an urban architect whose attempts to improve humanity by the environments he creates, only leads to chaos when the high-rise boom goes bust and two close friends are caught in the cross-hairs."--Page 4 of cover.

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Samuel French, Inc.

Published Date

ISBN 10

0573690235

ISBN 13

9780573690235

Frayn Plays: 3

Here; Now You Know; La Belle Vivette

By: Michael Frayn

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Frayn Plays: 3

Here; Now You Know; La Belle Vivette

By: Michael Frayn

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Page Count

322

Publisher

Bloomsbury Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1350013730

ISBN 13

9781350013735

Spies

A Novel

By: Michael Frayn

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Spies

A Novel

By: Michael Frayn

When a long-forgotten scent forces Stephen Wheatley to confront his past, he starts to remember a troubling childhood summer in wartime London where an imaginative child's game of playing spies wreaked havoc upon innocent lives.

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276

Publisher

Macmillan

Published Date

ISBN 10

0312421176

ISBN 13

9780312421175

Skios

A Novel

By: Michael Frayn

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Skios

A Novel

By: Michael Frayn

The great master of farce turns to an exclusive island retreat for a comedy of mislaid identities, unruly passions, and demented, delicious disorder On the private Greek island of Skios, the high-paying guests of a world-renowned foundation prepare for the annual keynote address, to be given this year by Dr. Norman Wilfred, an eminent authority on the scientific organization of science. He turns out to be surprisingly youthful, handsome, and charming—quite unlike his reputation as dry and intimidating. Everyone is soon eating out of his hands. So, even sooner, is Nikki, the foundation's attractive and efficient organizer. Meanwhile, in a remote villa at the other end of the island, Nikki's old friend Georgie has rashly agreed to spend a furtive horizontal weekend with a notorious schemer, who has characteristically failed to turn up. Trapped there with her instead is a pompous, balding individual called Dr. Norman Wilfred, who has lost his whereabouts, his luggage, his temper, and increasingly all sense of reality—indeed, everything he possesses other than the text of a well-traveled lecture on the scientific organization of science. In a spiraling farce about upright academics, gilded captains of industry, ambitious climbers, and dotty philanthropists, Michael Frayn, the farceur "by whom all others must be measured" (CurtainUp), tells a story of personal and professional disintegration, probing his eternal theme of how we know what we know even as he delivers us to the outer limits of hilarity.

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268

Publisher

Metropolitan Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

0805095500

ISBN 13

9780805095500

Headlong

A Novel

By: Michael Frayn

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Headlong

A Novel

By: Michael Frayn

Academic Martin Clay is asked by a boorish country squire to assess his paintings. Clay spots what he suspects is a Bruegel and so begins a tale of lies and concealment as he schemes to separate the painting from its owner.

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356

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Macmillan

Published Date

ISBN 10

0312267460

ISBN 13

9780312267469

Frayn Plays: 1

Alphabetical Order; Donkeys' Years; Clouds; Make and Break; Noises Off

By: Michael Frayn

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Frayn Plays: 1

Alphabetical Order; Donkeys' Years; Clouds; Make and Break; Noises Off

By: Michael Frayn

One of theatre's subtlest, most sophisticated minds" (The Times) Alphabetical Order: "A comic essay about two types of woman... a very intelligent comedy because of its classic simplicity, and unusual in the way that the two types of women do not become stereotypes" (Daily Telegraph); Donkeys' Years, a satire on the establishment and British Institutions "Gorgeous farce, all the funnier for emerging from credible aspirations and natural anxieties... the play is richer and cannier than we expect farces to be." (New Statesman); Clouds, is a satire on government sponsored trips and a portrait of sexual jealousy,"it is poignantly and unerringly funny" (Guardian); Make and Break is a satirical commentary on British corporate interests abroad "Full of pain, ruthless observation, and a sense of humour which is sardonic, lunatic and warm" (Sunday Times); Noises Off - the West End hit play about a company of actors stepping from a sex farce into their own nightmarish lives backstage "A very intelligent joke about the fragility of all forms of drama...a pulverisingly funny play." (Guardian) "All of these plays are attempts to show something of the world, not to change it or to promote any particular idea of it. That's not to say there are no ideas in them. In fact what they are all about in one way or another is the way in which we impose our ideas upon the world around us...it might be objected that one single theme is a somewhat sparse provision to sustain five separate and dissimilar plays. I can only say that it is a theme which has occupied philosophers for over two thousand years and one which is likely to occupy them for at least two thousand more..."(Michael Frayn)

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552

Publisher

Bloomsbury Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1350013684

ISBN 13

9781350013681

Democracy

A Play

By: Michael Frayn

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Democracy

A Play

By: Michael Frayn

A brilliant exploration of character and conscience from the author of COPENHAGEN, set amid the tensions of 1960s Berlin In Democracy, Michael Frayn once again creates out of the known events of twentieth-century history a drama of extraordinary urgency and subtlety, reimagining the interactions and motivations of Willy Brandt as he became chancellor of West Germany in 1966 and those of his political circle, including Günter Guillaume, a functionary who became Brandt's personal assistant-and who was eventually exposed as an East German spy in a discovery that helped force Brandt from office. But what circumstances allowed Brandt to become the first left-wing chancellor in forty years? And why, given his progressive policies, did the East German secret police feel it necessary to plant a spy in his office and risk bringing down his government? Michael Frayn writes in his postscript to the play, "Complexity is what the play is about: the complexity of human arrangements and of human beings themselves, and the difficulties that this creates in both shaping and understanding our actions.

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148

Publisher

Macmillan

Published Date

ISBN 10

0571211097

ISBN 13

9780571211098

A Very Private Life

By: Michael Frayn

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A Very Private Life

By: Michael Frayn

Easily the most original thing Frayn has done . . . written with elegant simplicity.' New Statesman Uncumber lives at a time in the distant future when all humanity is divided in two - the Insiders and the Outsiders. The Insiders are privileged, with their every need catered to by somatic drugs, three-dimensional holovision and a prolonged life. Uncumber lives in this luxurious world and is told that she must never go out into the dust and disease of the real world. Uncumber, however, is haunted by a restless and inquisitive spirit. When she falls in love with an Outsider, she decides to go exploring ... 'A fairy tale of the future.' Guardian

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156

Publisher

Faber & Faber

Published Date

ISBN 10

0571329861

ISBN 13

9780571329861

Frayn Plays: 2

Balmoral; Benefactors; Wild Honey

By: Michael Frayn

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Frayn Plays: 2

Balmoral; Benefactors; Wild Honey

By: Michael Frayn

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296

Publisher

Methuen Drama

Published Date

ISBN 10

041366080X

ISBN 13

9780413660800

Stage-Play and Screen-Play

The intermediality of theatre and cinema

By: Michael Ingham

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Stage-Play and Screen-Play

The intermediality of theatre and cinema

By: Michael Ingham

Dialogue between film and theatre studies is frequently hampered by the lack of a shared vocabulary. Stage-Play and Screen-Play sets out to remedy this, mapping out an intermedial space in which both film and theatre might be examined. Each chapter’s evaluation of the processes and products of stage-to-screen and screen-to-stage transfer is grounded in relevant, applied contexts. Michael Ingham draws upon the growing field of adaptation studies to present case studies ranging from Martin McDonagh’s The Cripple of Inishmaan and RSC Live’s simulcast of Richard II to F.W. Murnau’s silent Tartüff, Peter Bogdanovich’s film adaptation of Michael Frayn’s Noises Off, and Akiro Kurosawa’s Ran, highlighting the multiple interfaces between media. Offering a fresh insight into the ways in which film and theatre communicate dramatic performances, this volume is a must-read for students and scholars of stage and screen.

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239

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Published Date

ISBN 10

131755521X

ISBN 13

9781317555216

The 101 Greatest Plays

From Antiquity to the Present

By: Michael Billington

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The 101 Greatest Plays

From Antiquity to the Present

By: Michael Billington

Having surveyed post-war British drama in State of the Nation, Michael Billington now looks at the global picture. In this provocative and challenging new book, he offers his highly personal selection of the 100 greatest plays ranging from the Greeks to the present-day. But his book is no mere list. Billington justifies his choices in extended essays- and even occasional dialogues- that put the plays in context, explain their significance and trace their performance history. In the end, it's a book that poses an infinite number of questions. What makes a great play? Does the definition change with time and circumstance? Or are certain common factors visible down the ages? It's safe to say that it's a book that, in revising the accepted canon, is bound to stimulate passionate argument and debate. Everyone will have strong views on Billington's chosen hundred and will be inspired to make their own selections. But, coming from Britain's longest-serving theatre critic, these essays are the product of a lifetime spent watching and reading plays and record the adventures of a soul amongst masterpieces.

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