Winner of the Time Out award for best children's production during its London premiere, this imaginative play with music de mystifies and humanizes Anne Frank's story of tremendous bravery.4 women, 4 men

A powerful psychological drama set in an oppressive old house in London, where grown-up siblings Norman and Sandra resist their lonely future by living out their fantasies in the music of their idol, Frank Sinatra. Norman, an agoraphobic bookbinder, works at home and heats microwave meals to perfection; Sandra, with outside job and interests, longs to break free of her existence. But the option of leaving her mentally-disturbed brother and running off with the "mystic" Phillip proves less than straightforward...1 woman, 2 men

This is Bernard Kops' autobiography of his early years in London's East End through to his emergence as a major writer in Soho in the 1950s and his drug-induced madness in the 1960s.

Inspired by the author's intense family life with his wife, four children and three grandchildren, these poems are dedicated to the tribe.

A coming-of-age story by a master of storytelling on the need to love and cherish life and grab it by the drosky's reins. This is Kops at his most irrepressible and irreverent, vibrant and lyrical and connected - to the present and the past. Seventeen-year-old Sam Glass is depressed. Since his father died suddenly, he sees no point in life especially not among the cosy middle class environs where his love of quoting from classical literature falls on deaf ears. Then a strange figure appears who claims to be a rabbi from the Middle Ages, who takes Sam back in time to the Russia of 1881. He meets a panoply of characters including his own forebears and some familiar figures from Jewish history. Then he discovers the secret purpose for which he has been chosen -- to assassinate Tsar Alexander II ..

This will be the first major collection of poems by Bernard Kops for more than 20 years. He is one of Britain's most celebrated writers, with seven previous volumes of poetry, 40 plays for stage and radio, nine novels, and two autobiographies, making him one of Britain's most prolific and versatile authors. Earlier this year, in recognition of his literary work, he had the rare honour of a Civil List pension being conferred on him by the Queen. Awarded for life, it puts him in the exalted company of poets such as Lord Byron and William Wordsworth. This collection contains many new poems and also his most celebrated poems from his exceptional and varied body of work, such as "Shalom Bomb", an unofficial anthem for the CND movement in the 1960's and his more recent "Whitechapel Library, Aldgate East" which, mourns the passing of the old library in the East End of London, where he grew up. Events include: December 29 Limmud Festival, Warwick University; Feb 17 Housman's Bookshop, London; Feb 28 Jewish Book Week reading with George Szirtes and Michele Wandor, 11 am March Josephs Bookstore; April 1 Whitechapel Art Gallery (free admission) 20-50 expected; and, Aug 12 Lauderdale House (Thursday).

"The Dream of Peter Mann was first produced at the Edinburgh Lyceum in 1960 and is a bold exploration of what it is to live in a world threatened by nuclear annihilation. In Enter Solly Gold, an irreverent and much lighter work, Kops' protagonist fleeces a family of vulgar snobs, reducing them to penury but also introducing them to an enjoyment of life. Who Shall I Be Tomorrow? was a hit at the Greenwich Theatre in 1982 with Joanna Lumley as the frighteningly deluded woman trying to flee her own reality by building herself a world of daydreams."

"Includes the plays Playing Sinatra, The Hamlet of Stepney Green, and Ezra Playing Sinatra explores with humour our inexhaustible capacity for trying to escape the traps in life. The Hamlet of Stepney Green, a sad comedy, is full of lively songs. Sam Levy is about to die, and is fearful for the survival of his community of the East End. He is also fearful for his son's future. Ezra is about the anti-Semitism and treachery of the great poet Ezra Pound, and his subsequent incarceration and remorse."

"In celebrating the spirit of optimism that shines through the thoughts and dreams of one extraordinary thirteen-year-old during the darkest of times, Bernard Kops has created a dramatic masterpiece" (Time Out) "This play has been a catalyst in stimulating young people not only to question the past but also to confront the very real issues of racism today." (Jenny Culank, Artistic Director of Classworks Theatre, Cambridge) In 1942 Anne Frank, a young Jewish girl, was forced into hiding with seven others in a secret annexe in Amsterdam. Dreams of Anne Frank vividly brings her story to life in a poignant and highly charged drama. Using actors, movement and song Bernard Kops re-imagines and explores Anne Frank's hidden world, a world in which she lived, fell in love and dreamed of freedom. Dreams of Anne Frank won the 1993 Time Out award for best children's production and has been performed around the world. Commentary and notes by Bernard Kops

Aubrey Field, thirty-five, balding, and not exactly slim, daydreams of a rich future. I want my life to bear fruit, he cries, but home is with his mother above a sweetshop in Whitechapel. They are among the few survivors of what was once a large local community and they live, surrounded by strangers, in the house where Aubrey was born. Suffocating but resigned, Aubrey cannot leave Whitechapel, and he cannot leave his mother. It was useless, he was trapped. She would never let him go. Then fate, in the guise of Zena, the beautiful blonde daughter of a kosher butcher, intervenes. From the moment Aubrey meets this femme fatale, life becomes enormously more complicated. In pursuit of Zena, Aubrey determines to break free. He passes himself off as a young barrister with a fast sports car and forges his mother s signature to a check. One incredible experience follows another, and for a while it seems as though Aubrey s fantasies are about to become reality. Against the background of a Jewish East London that is fading and changing, Bernard Kops s new novel is a novel to remember. It is at once funny and macabre, and it cuts deep into the quixotic posturing of a man who is both pathetic and endearing. Aubrey Field finally escapes from his mother and his despair, but not in the way that he or anyone else could possibly have imagined."

" Dreams of Anne Frank was 1993 winner of Time Out award for Best Play. Bernard Kops is one of the best-known Jewish playwrights of his time. Dreams of Anne Frank won him the Time Out award for Best Play in 1993. It is an original approach to one of the most touching stories in our history. On Margate Sands is a humorous and poignant portrait of a group of dispossessed mental patients, who manage to survive against all the odds. Call in the Night examines the excessive guilt of a world-famous violinist, the only survivor of a family which was wiped out by the Nazis."