The Pitchfork Disney

The Pitchfork Disney heralded the arrival of a unique and disturbing voice in the world of contemporary drama. Manifesting Ridley's vivid and visionary imagination and the dark beauty of his outlook, the play resonates with his 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. The Pitchfork Disney was Ridley's first play and is now seen as launching a new generation of playwrights who were unafraid to shock and court controversy. This unsettling, dreamlike piece has surreal undertones and thematically explores fear, dreams and story-telling. First produced in 1991, it has gone on to be recognised as the annunciation of Ridley's dark and seductive world.

'Tender Napalm' is a high-impact, high-concept two handed play which explores the landscape that is a relationship between a man and a woman. Explosive, poetic, brutal and ultimately redemptive, the play weaves a compelling theatrical tapestry to re-examine and re-define the language of love.

It's Cougar's birthday. He's having a party. And the gift he'd kill for is youth... In a strange room in East London the party preparations are under way. Everything has been planned to the last detail. Surely nothing can go wrong? After all, there's the specially made birthday cake, the specially written cards, the specially chosen guest of honour... and a very, very sharp knife. Philip Ridley's edgy and provocative drama caused a sensation when it premiered at Hampstead Theatre in 1992, winning the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Newcomer to the Stage and the Meyer Whitworth Prize. It is now regarded as a contemporary classic. 'A bit like a ride on a ghost train... you find yourself shuddering with shock and laughing uproariously... horror has rarely been so much fun' Daily Telegraph 'Scorchingly nasty... fingers an age and its icons with terrifying accuracy' Guardian

This volume contains Ridley's first three plays, which heralded the arrival of a unique and disturbing voice in the world of contemporary drama. They are seminal works in the development of the 'in yer face' theatre that emerged in Britain during the mid-1990s.The three plays here all manifest Ridley's vivid and visionary imagination and the dark beauty of his outlook. They resonate with his 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. The Pitchfork Disney was Ridley's first play and is now seen as launching a new generation of playwrights who were unafraid to shock and court controversy. This unsettling, dreamlike piece has surreal undertones and thematically explores fear, dreams and story-telling. The Fastest Clock in the Universe is a multi-award-winning play which caused a sensation when it premiered at Hampstead Theatre in 1992. An edgy and provocative drama, it is now regarded as a contemporary classic. Ghost from a Perfect Place is a scorchingly nasty blend of comedy, spectacle and terror where a monster from the past meets the monsters of the present. The volume contains the definitive version of the plays, plus an extended and updated introduction and three monologues (Bloodshot, Angry and Voosh), published here for the first time.

First published in 2003. The Theatre Arts Audition Books offer one hundred speeches from plays of the past twenty-five years, fifty in a volume for men, fifty in a volume for women. Each excerpt is preceded by a note situating the play and the selection. Speeches come from a wide range of plays, including David Mamet's Oleanna, Caryl Churchill's Serious Money, Martin McDonagh's The Beauty Queen of Leenane, Jim Cartwright's Road, and Timberlake Wertenbaker's Our Country's Good, as well as plays by Anthony Minghella, Mark Ravenhill, Sue Townsend, Alan Ayckbourn, and others. Annika Bluhm has assembled two sparkling collections of monologues that will challenge and inspire the actor

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).

If you think I'm threatened by you, you're wrong. I'm Travis Flood. I was threatening people before you were born. Back in the sixties, Travis Flood and his gang terrorised Bethnal Green. Now, after an absence of 25 years, Travis returns and meets Rio, whose haunting beauty leads him to confront a story that bears no relation to his own distorted memory. And then there's the Cheerleaders . . . a present-day gang, more vicious and terrifying that anything Travis led in the past. This edition of Ghost from a Perfect Place was published to coincide with the first major revival of the play at the Arcola Theatre, London, in September 2014.