Judy Upton Plays 2

Since her early break-through at the Royal Court Theatre in 1995, where she won the George Devine award and was joint winner of the Verity Bargate Award, Judy Upton has proven herself to be one of Britain's most prolific and diverse writers. In this, her second collection, we see work ranging from 1995 through to the 2000s and a collection of short work created during the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic. Bruises (1995) Royal Court Theatre, London - "This is no angry polemic but a subtly atmospheric piece ... Neither writer nor director seeks easy answers in this coolly disturbing view of an issue usually hammered home with both fists." (Evening Standard) The Girlz (1998) Orange Tree, London - "Judy Upton's ever-promising career takes another small leap forward with this tantalising foray into characteristic Upton territory, the febrile world of foul-mouthed, disadvantaged young females from the south-east." (Time Out) Sliding With Suzanne (2001) Royal Court Theatre, London - "Judy Upton probably won't thank me for saying so, but her new play, Sliding with Suzanne, comes over as that rarest of phenomena - a contemporary play with a Right-wing agenda. If Margaret Thatcher went to see it she would be appalled by the language and much of the action but would, I suspect, end up applauding its sentiments." (Telegraph) Gaby Goes Global (2009) New Wimbledon Theatre, London - A wry and mischievous look at the benefits system, and the world of fine art. Gaby is a downtrodden employment advisor at the Benefit Delivery Centre. She tries to get rich by promoting the struggling artists who sign on. But it is Gaby who grabs all the attention - with the sort of exposure she hadn't bargained for... Lockdown Tales (2020) - "a story of struggle, hope, even more struggle and then hope which provides a sensitive and sincere insight into the mind of a key worker during lockdown ... a must watch and is the epitome of the type of work that should be produced during lockdown." (A Younger Theatre)

"Judy Upton's a playful writer who likes nothing better than to upset expectations" Independent Ashes and Sand: "Searing, brutal...Judy Upton's vicious little hand grenade of a play explodes onto the stage...her writing blazes with anger about the waste of a generation with no hopes" Independent "Sunspots confirms Upton as one of the most promising writers working in London at present" What's On People on the River: "A skilfully written and entertainingly hard-nosed look at the victim culture of tabloid telly" Time Out Stealing Souls: "The writing is diamond hard, slippery and clear like thin ice covering a particularly murky pond" Guardian Know Your Rights: "A moving and accomplished piece...Upton's play can dispense with arguments and right-on statements because in creating characters she develops situation." The Times

This second volume of Ridley's stage plays confirms him as one of the most imaginative, daring and unique voices currently working in theatre. All four plays collected here resonant with Ridley's trademark themes - East London, storytelling, moments of shocking violence, memories of the past, fantastical monologues, and that strange mix of the barbaric and the beautiful he has made all his own. Vincent River: '... a grieving mother and a traumatized teenager meet as adversaries, rough each other up and eventually bond over a barbaric act of cruelty...Ridley asks questions, lots of them, about how people respond to the loss of innocence in their lives, how they hold onto their sanity in the face of savagery and how they fight to keep the bonds of humanity intact in a mad, mad world.' Variety Mercury Fur: '...depicts a scary, post-apocalyptic London where, in their struggle to survive, a group of youths are reduced to organising parties that cater for the most perverted tastes.' Independent Leaves of Glass: 'There is a different kind of murder going on here: the murder of truth that goes on in all families to a lesser or greater degree. As with nations, a family's history is written by the victors.' Guardian Piranha Heights: 'The extravagance of Ridley's dark vision suggests a dangerously confused society in which individuals seize on random gobbets of semi-digested information and use them to construct their own personal narrative.' The Times

"John Godber is one of the unsung heroes of British theatre, reaching the giddy heights of number three in the most-performed playwrights league table, nestled in behind Shakespeare and Ayckbourn" - Guardian Teechers: "In a class of its own ... Godber takes a hard-hitting look at life in a modern comprehensive where class conflicts, teacher tantrums and cavorting chaos runs riot through the corridors" The Express Happy Jack: "Godber manages with an affectionate and unerringly accurate ear for the tongues of the pit village to turn these two into a Chaucerian kind of celebration of life. At the end of the line the play is a sad, bruised but richly comic love story" Guardian September in the Rain: "The work of a genuinely talented playwright" Evening Standard Salt of the Earth: "John Godber has a special gift for capturing the lives and inner turmoil of the working class ... In the most subtle and incisive ways, he suggests how the combination of innate personality and a changing society determines individual destiny" Chicago Times

The internationally acclaimed dramatist Edward Bond endures as one of the towering figures of contemporary British theatre. His plays are read at schools and university level. "Edward Bond is the most radical playwright to have emerged from the sixties" Lear - "Bond's greatest (and biggest) play ... It is even more topical now and will become more so as man's inhumanity gains subtle sophistication with the twenty-first century's approach" (The Times); The Sea - "It blends wild farce with tragedy and ends with a sliver of hope ... what makes the play fascinating is Bond's bleak poetry and social comedy" (Guardian); Narrow Road to the Deep North - "His best piece so far ... No one else could have written it" (The Times); Black Mass, written for performance at an anti-apartheid demonstration: "A Georg Grosz picture come to life ... the only possible kind of artistic imagery through which to speak of such evil" (Listener); Passion - a play for CND: "Mingles comedy and high anger with absolute sureness." (Guardian) Edward Bond is "one of our outstanding playwrights ... He is already an acknowledged classic" (Plays and Players)

The most controversial and newsworthy plays of British theatre are a rash of rude, vicious and provocative pieces by a brat pack of twentysomethings whose debuts startled critics and audiences with their heady mix of sex, violence and street-poetry. In-Yer-Face Theatre is the first book to study this exciting outburst of creative self-expression by what in other contexts has been called Generation X, or Thatcher's Children, the 'yoof' who grew up during the last Conservative Government. The book argues that, for example, Trainspotting, Blasted, Mojo and Shopping and F**king are much more than a collection of shock tactics - taken together, they represent a consistent critique of modern life, one which focuses on the problem of violence, the crisis of masculinity and the futility of consumerism. The book contains extensive interviews with playwrights, including Sarah Kane ( Blasted), Mark Ravenhill (Shopping and F**king), Philip Ridley (The Pitchfork Disney), Patrick Marber (Closer) and Martin McDonagh (The Beauty Queen of Leenane).

Upton's a playful writer who likes nothing better than to upset expectations Join the schemers and the dreamer on the English seafront, as another summer season begins. There's serious money to be made. Amongst the paint-peeling kiosks on the prom, Ella arrives like an erotic whilrwind, hell-bent on secruing the elusive jackpot and a ticket to Hollywood. But everyone else is raising their game too and, as events race towards an explosive conclusion, a pet hamster lies frozen amongst the melting Mivvis.