This letter is the closest that Kafka came to setting down his autobiography. He was driven to write it by his father's opposition to his engagement with Julie Wohryzek. The marriage did not take place; the letter was not delivered.

He wears a mask - he pretends to be an idling, strolling observer of others: an amused spectator. He watches people on the street, in shops, in cafes: wherever he finds them he notes their peculiarities and imagines their lives. Like a naturalist with a bone of an unknown creature, he extrapolates and forms an entire animal in his mind's eye. It is his joy; it is his defence: he revels in life, so as to ignore death. For its shadow lies over him.

A diary in haiku - life at a rate of seventeen syllables a day.

Gregory Gun is devoted to his job and he is made redundant. And then he struggles. But he tries to cope and he fights against his own character; but finally he shuts himself away and becomes a hermit in London, and lives a strange and secret life.

A diary in haiku - life at a rate of seventeen syllables a day.

A diary in haiku - life at a rate of seventeen syllables a day.

A classic of the German stage adapted as a monologue. Though written in 1837 Woyzeck is widely regarded as the first Expressionist play due to its splintered and fragmentary nature. Here it is presented in a new form.

Somebody must have maligned Joseph K. because he was arrested one morning without having done anything wrong. Franz Kafka's novel translated and adapted for the stage for solo performance. "Colyer strips back the novel to get to the heart of the story but maintains the dreamlike - or perhaps nightmarish - quality for which Kafka was famous." Sian Rowland

Thirteen seasons in three lines, 2003/4 - 2015/16, short and sharp match reports from the Den.

A young woman attempts suicide - but she's found before the poison can kill her. A journalist becomes interested in her life, then a novelist - stories circulate, more people are drawn in, and even the Foreign Office tries to intervene. An adaptation of Pirandello's play set in London in the winter of 1979-80. "A thought-provoking play about identity, guilt and betrayal." UK Theatre Network "It is a bitesize philosophy lecture...delivered with confidence and competence." A Younger Theatre

Gogol's greatest play - indeed one of the best comedies ever written - freely adapted for studio productions.

A man is convinced his daughter is a genius and he drives her on and on until she has no choice but to reveal herself for what she is. "It is not a tragedy in the sense of confrontation and collision, but in the sense of a man overwhelmed by his fate. It is a classical tragedy in the guise of a middle class drama." Roberto Alonge

Late in the evening on 11 March, 1938, a man sits in a Jewish bar in Vienna as the German army invades Austria. The other guests flee, as does the owner, but he remains to contemplate his past and his future - bleak though that may be. "With this dramatic monologue, Colyer has continued to do what he does so skilfully-to take a noteworthy piece of writing and adapt it freely to create something new which has the essence of the original but is a compelling stage work in its own right." British Theatre Guide. Freely adapted from Joseph Roth's novel, The Emperor's Tomb.

You Take The 321, Again, Without Reluctance and Without Relief : Three dramatic monologues about strange and enigmatic lives staged together at the Jack Studio in South-east London in February 2015. "Howard Colyer paints lyrical landscapes of failed relationships, loneliness and desperation without ever giving in to sentimentality." Carolin Kopplin UK Theatre Network

Gogol's short story, Diary of a Madman, adapted for the stage. "This is a play about an individual's descent into madness, brought to life by a brilliant trio of actor David Bromley, director Scott Le Crass, and author Howard Colyer. But what makes the play interesting is that Gogol's protagonist defies the literary mould: he has a condition usually reserved for tormented kings and ladies imprisoned in the attic. Rather than being ordinary, he is 'extraordinary', a term peppering Howard Colyer's script. Through Poprishchin, Gogol portrays his contempt for government and bureaucracy, and allows this lowly civil servant to become a leader...at least in his own mind." Emma Slater, London Theatre, reviewing the production at the Jack Studio.

An epic drama set in the early seventeenth century as Russia descends into civil war. "Howard Colyer's extremely effective and pared-down style constantly adds energy to this adaptation of Pushkin's greatest play even as it cuts." Jon Wainwright, The Public Reviews.

A one act play with four characters. An interrogation and a ghost story. A man's wife has vanished. He can't remember when or why; nor can he remember his own name. "The relentlessness of this nightmarish scenario transfixes us to the last." What's On London. "This play of mysterious circumstances is created from an all too familiar hollow conference centre with sinister, soulless 'doctors', reminiscent of the infamous Weird Sisters." What's Peen Seen. "Completely spellbinding." Everything Theatre. "A briskly delivered, recondite ghost story, it echoes with the torment of a guilty conscience and the distress of a turbulent mind." British Theatre Guide.

He wants to get married; and he doesn't want to get married - he doesn't know what to do. But he has a friend who knows what's best for everyone. Marriage is Gogol's farce about desire, matchmakers, Imperial Russian speed dating and much else besides. "Howard Colyer's adaptation of Gogol's intriguing, funny and slightly unsettling play brings out the piece's absurdities. It's an entertaining version, with satisfyingly pared-down and peppy dialogue." Time Out.

The war is over and the hero returns. But what good is a hero without a war? What else does he know but warfare? And his city has managed without him. The gap left by his departure has closed. Yet the problems he left behind have remained. They have lain dormant. But his return revives them.