'A masterly portrayal of an innocent.' Harold Pinter, from 'Directing Simon Gray's Plays', Simon Gray Plays 1 'Superficially, it is a light comedy about a group of educated, often eccentric English characters in an academic backwater in the early sixties. But though the jokes are excellent, the piece cuts deep. There are Strindberg-like glimpses of wretchedly unhappy marriages and, as in Ibsen, a sense of chickens coming home to roost. But the primary impression here is of an English Chekhov. As in the plays of the Russian master, the characters talk a lot, but they rarely listen, still less understand, so they are often at cross-purposes. And like The Seagull, the long time scheme in Quartermaine's Terms - it spans several years - creates a poignant sense of transience and mortality.' Daily Telegraph 'Gray's selection of details and exchanges is immaculate: he achieves drama and mystery in mundane lives; the comedy is beautifully stated and even personal tragedies are underlined with running gags that ring with truthfulness. No false hothouse effect is necessary to make bare the bewilderment of spirit of his central figure, the grinning, forgetful and deeply kind staff lecturer, St John Quartermaine, an inarticulate character of awesome loneliness who rivals the tragic force of Willy Loman.' The Times 'A play that is at once full of doom and gloom and bristling with wry, even uproarious comedy. The mixture is so artfully balanced that we really don't know where the laughter ends and the tears begin: the playwright is in full possession of the Chekhovian territory where the tragedies and absurdities of life become one and the same.' New York Times

'The brave little lives that Gray so compassionately illuminates could be lived by any of us, and that's why they arouse emotions that are anything but small.' New York Times on Quartermaine's Terms

'A superbly written play, a funny play, an agonising play. It is, moreover, a play of truth and insight. A play to savour.' Punch on Otherwise Engaged 'Life in the theatre hasn't brought me anything more rewarding than directing Simon Gray's plays.' Harold Pinter Plaintiffs and Defendants Exceptionally good... the play gave such a rending picture of married mess that it was hard to know where to look.' Clive James, Observer 'Simon Gray is the one [TV playwright] whose work I most relish seeing for his acerbic wit, wonderful ironies and above all for his care with our mother tongue.' Dennis Potter

Spies betray people. That's what we do. It becomes a - a habit. Difficult to break - even when it's not - not strictly necessary. Wormwood Scrubs Prison, London, 1961. One of Britain's most notorious double agents, George Blake, is serving a forty-two year sentence when he strikes up an unlikely friendship with Irish petty criminal, Sean Bourke. Both men are eccentric outsiders. Each sees in each other the possibility of escape and not just from prison. But once on the outside their mutual dependence faces mounting pressures from MI5, the KGB and indeed from themselves. Simon Gray's absorbing and deftly funny play explores how personal freedom is an illusion and how even friendship must have careful boundaries in a world where deception is a reflex response. Cell Mates premiered at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford, in January 1995 before transferring to the Albery Theatre, London. The play was revived at the Hampstead Theatre, London, in November 2017.

This is an adventure story that takes place over one long hot summer. It tells the story of a group of friends and the things they get up too. I would hope that values such as friendship and looking after and helping others would be evident throughout. Together with pleasant and protective family relationships creating an environment where the friendship can grow through the holidays.

This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

With Three Letters Of Dr. Blair, And Thoughts On The Present State Of The British Drama, And What Seems Calculated To Improve It.

With Three Letters Of Dr. Blair, And Thoughts On The Present State Of The British Drama, And What Seems Calculated To Improve It.

Butley 'What is so wondrous about a play so basically defeatist and hurtful is its ability to be funny. The stark, unsentimental approach to the homosexual relationship, the cynical send-up of academic life, the skeptical view of the teacher-pupil associations are all stunningly illuminated by continuous explosions of sardonic, needling, feline, vituperative and civilised lines.' Evening Standard

CONTENTSCell mates -- Life support -- Just the three of us -- Japes -- Little Nell -- The old masters -- The late middle classes.

'Sharp, funny and clever . . . What a pleasure to re-encounter a play that combines unabashed intelligence and zinging wit with a rare generosity of spirit.' Daily Telegraph on The Common Pursuit 'Gray's stature as one of the handful of great tragi-comic English dramatists of the second half of the twentieth century would appear now to be undisputed.' Howard Jacobson, Critical Quarterly Hidden Laughter 'A sad divine comedy, superbly written. Gray nurses his characters and cares for them, but he never pampers them, or pities them, or presumes to use them as his spokesman. In this respect, he has become an English Chekhov... At the same time, Gray dispenses some of the incandescent malice and moral savagery of Coward at his acid best... But, of course, comparisons can only help you get your bearings. Gray is entirely his own man in this painful, querulous, warm, hard and mature play.' Sunday Times

Here is a hilarious look at the artistic pretensions of the young and the rich that charts a decade in the life of a London family transplanted to an idyllic country setting. A literary agent and his wife buy a Devon cottage where she can write, children will be happy, and they can relax. Into their world walks the local vicar a classically comic character who tends their magnificent garden and their emotional if not spiritual needs as the outside world intrudes with failure and disillusionment.-3 women, 5 men

A very English modern play, reeking of real tragedy, real humour and real life. The Common Pursuit chronicles the erosion of the ambitions of a smug, elitist group of Cambridge frien's. Stuart is editor of a literary magazine and the pursuit of excellence is shown to be economically a bad proposition in this world. The magazine collapses and the characters' fates vary as the play proceeds. An ironic epilogue returns to the early days in Cambridge with the young people planning their futures.1 woman, 5 men

Never has the celebrated author of Butley and Otherwise Engaged been more amusing and more touching than in this thoroughly delightful portrait of a mediocre but lovable English schoolteacher named St. John Quartermaine and his fellow faculty at a small school in Cambridge which teaches English to foreigners.2 women, 5 men

Stage Struck, an inventive thriller that employs a handful of actors to play chameleon like parts within parts, opens in the living room of one Robert Simon. Formerly a first rate stage manager in a provincial repertory company, he now he keeps house for his West End actress wife while amusing himself with various sexual adventures. He is a thoroughly happy man until the clumsy intervention of a psychiatrist destroys his happiness and his marriage. He plans a hideous revenge on his wife and the psychiatrist a reveng, which allows him to rediscover all his old talents.1 woman, 3 men