Sing Yer Heart Out For The Lads

Premiered at London's Royal National Theatre in 2002, Roy Williams's fierce and excoriating portrait of British racism is set in a south-west London pub, during the 2000 England vs. Germany match. The dialogue snaps with alarming authenticity in Williams's challenging play about what it means to be British, and how people define it - whether it is a bulldog tattoo, or violence against those who do not fit in.

A fierce and excoriating portrait of British racism, Roy William's Sing Yer Heart Out for the Lads premiered in 2002 at the National Theatre. Set in a south-west London pub during the 2000 England vs. Germany match, tempers are running high. As England lose again, their supporters in The King George lose it too – at full time, patriotism has become unapologetic racism. This Methuen Drama Student Edition of the play includes commentary and notes by Gemma Edwards, University of Manchester, UK, which explore the production history of the play as well as the historical, social and cultural contexts that surround it, such as the rise of Nationalism and far-right groups in the UK. Also featuring an interview with Roy Williams about the play and its relevance 20 years on, this edition is a must-have resource for any student exploring Sing Yer Heart Out for the Lads.

Publisher Description

The Methuen Drama Book of Plays by Black British Writers provides an essential anthology of six of the key plays that have shaped the trajectory of British black theatre from the late-1970s to the present day. In doing so it charts the journey from specialist black theatre companies to the mainstream, including West End success, while providing a cultural and racial barometer for Britain during the last forty years. It opens with Mustapha Matura's 1979 play Welcome Home Jacko which in its depiction of a group of young unemployed West Indians was one of the first to explore issues of youth culture, identity and racial and cultural identification. Jackie Kay's Chiaroscuro examines debates about the politics of black, mixed race and lesbian identities in 1980s Britain, and from the 1990s Winsome Pinnock's Talking in Tongues engages with the politics of feminism to explore issues of black women's identity in Britian and Jamaica. From the first decade of the twenty-first century the three plays include Roy Williams' seminal pub-drama Sing Yer Hearts Out for the Lads, exploring racism and identity against the backdrop of the World Cup; Kwame Kwei-Armah's National Theatre play of 2004, Fix Up, about black cultural history and progress in modern Britain, and finally Bola Agbage's terrific 2007 debut, Gone Too Far!, which examines questions of identity and tensions between Africans and Caribbeans living in Britain. Edited by Lynnette Goddard, this important anthology provides an essential introduction to the last forty years of British black theatre.

Essential for students of theatre studies, Methuen Drama's Decades of Modern British Playwriting series provides a comprehensive survey and study of the theatre produced in each decade from the 1950s to 2009 in six volumes. Each volume features a critical analysis and reevaluation of the work of four/five key playwrights from that decade authored by a team of experts, together with an extensive commentary on the period . Edited by Dan Rebellato, Modern British Playwriting: 2000-2009 provides an authoritative and stimulating reassessment of the theatre of the decade, together with a detailed study of the work of David Greig (Nadine Holdsworth), Simon Stephens (Jacqueline Bolton), Tim Crouch (Dan Rebellato), Roy Williams (Michael Pearce) and Debbie Tucker Green (Lynette Goddard). The volume sets the context by providing a chronological survey of the decade, one marked by the War on Terror, the excesses of economic globalization and the digital revolution. In surveying the theatrical activity and climate, Andrew Haydon explores the response to the political events, the rise of verbatim theatre, the increasing experimentation and the effect of both the Boyden Report and changes in the Arts Council's priorities. Five scholars provide detailed examinations of the playwrights' work during the decade, combining an analysis of their plays with a study of other material such as early play drafts and the critical receptions of the time. Interviews with each playwright further illuminate this stimulating final volume in the Decades of Modern British Playwriting series.

'[Williams's] plays have brought the experience of black urban youth onto the stage' Observer Sucker Punch: 'As usual with Williams, the dialogue is crisp and bespoke: motives are mixed, nobody is a hero, nothing is just black and white.' The Times Joe Guy: 'Williams's dialogue ricochets around the stage like gunfire . . . energetic, exciting and entertaining.' Stage Category B: 'Category B is a harrowing play, but one shot through with both dark humour and tentative flickers of hope'. Daily Telegraph Baby Girl: 'The shocking thing about Roy Williams's Baby Girl is that it argues that there is a cyclical pattern to teenage pregnancy . . . Williams paints a rivetingly plausible picture of a world in which mothers and daughters are sexual rivals, 'virgin' is the ultimate peer insult and the school gates are a fertile hunting ground for male predators.' Guardian There's Only One Wayne Matthews: 'Williams's writing is punchy . . . Wayne's gradual understanding of the realities of the world make this a touching coming-of-age drama.' Guardian

Roy Williams has a deserved reputation as one of the most exciting young writers whose plays have electrified the sort of audiences most theatres rarely see: streetwise urban youth. 'His plays have brought the experience of black urban youth onto the stage' (Observer).This third collection of plays, introduced by the author, showcases the diversity, the moral probing and the fine ear for authentic dialogue characteristic of his writing: Fallout: first produced in 2003 the play focuses on the aftermath of the killing of a teenager. Slow Time was commissioned and developed by the National Theatre's Education Department and toured to London schools. Set in a young offender's institution the play depicts three young men and their fight to survive. Days of Significance was produced by the RSC in 2007 and is revived at the Tricycle Theatre, London in March 2008. It was described by the Daily Telegraph as 'the best new play of the year ... that powerfully caught the debased spirit of our times.' Absolute Beginners - a stage adaptation of the seminal novel of adolescence set in 1958 London - produced at the Lyric Hammersmith May 07: 'bags of energy and highly watchable' Daily Mail.

In New Labour's empathetic regime, how did diverse voices scrutinize its etiquettes of articulation and audibility? Using the voice as cultural evidence, Voice and New Writing explores what it means to 'have' a voice in mainstream theatre and for newly included voices to negotiate with the institutions that 'find' and 'represent' their identities.