Young Will Shakespeare has writer's block... the deadline for his new play is fast approaching but he's in desperate need of inspiration. That is, until he finds his muse - Viola. This beautiful young woman is Will's greatest admirer and will stop at nothing (including breaking the law) to appear in his next play. Against a bustling background of mistaken identity, ruthless scheming and backstage theatrics, Will's love for Viola quickly blossoms and insp

Goldoni's eighteenth-century masterpiece is an enduring story of love, passion and mistaken identity. Young Venetian Clarice can't marry her lover, Silvio. She had been betrothed to Rasponi, who appears to have returned from the dead to claim her. But the Rasponi who appears is actually Beatrice, Rasponi's sister who is in disguise as her brother and has come to Venice to find her suitor, Florinda. Complications arise when a servant greedily seeks employment with both the disguised Beatrice and Florinda and spends the rest of the play trying to serve two masters while keeping the two unaware of the other's presence.

The play is based on the Italian Renaissance theatre style, "Commedia dell'arte," and reinvigorated the genre, which is so heavily based on carnival, while bringing to it an element of realism, mishaps, mix-ups, confusions, disguises and mistaken identity that come with the style.

In this new, rapid fire adaptation by award winning dramatist Lee Hall, the language has been updated to now in order to give the action the fast-paced feeling of a Christmas pantomime.

Young Will Shakespeare has writer's block... the deadline for his new play is fast approaching but he's in desperate need of inspiration. That is, until he finds his muse - Viola. This beautiful young woman is Will's greatest admirer and will stop at nothing (including breaking the law) to appear in his next play. Against a bustling background of mistaken identity, ruthless scheming and backstage theatrics, Will's love for Viola quickly blossoms and inspires him to write his greatest masterpiece.

Racist abuse may at one time have been hurled across the sports stadium or scrawled on a wall. But in today's social media world it can be published to millions, from almost anywhere, in an instant. Sport, Racism and Social Media provides the first significant, academic account of how social media is shaping the nature of racisms in sport. Among the questions it addresses are: How, and why, is racism being expressed across different social media platforms and sporting contexts? To what extent is social media providing new platforms for traditional prejudices or actually creating new forms of racism? How can campaigners, authorities and individuals best challenge and counter these forms of racism? Combining analysis of social media content with in-depth interviews with athletes, fans, campaigners and officials, and including extensive case studies of soccer, boxing, the NHL, the NBA, and cricket, the book provides important new insights on a familiar but ever changing story. It is essential reading for any student, researcher, media professional, administrator or policy-maker with an interest in sport, new media or the issue of racism in wider society.

I will have poetry in my life. And adventure. And love. Love above all. Promising young playwright Will Shakespeare is tormented by writer's block until he finds his muse in the form of passionate noblewoman, Viola De Lesseps. Their forbidden love draws many others, including Queen Elizabeth, into the drama and inspires Will to write the greatest love story of all time, Romeo and Juliet. Based on Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard's Oscar-winning screenplay, Lee Hall's stage adaptation of Shakespeare in Love premiered in July 2014 at the Noel Coward Theatre, London, in a co-production by Disney and Sonia Friedman Productions.

In 1934, a group of Ashington miners and a dental mechanic hired a professor from Newcastle University to teach an Art Appreciation evening class. Unable to understand each other, they embarked on one of the most unusual experiments in British art as the pitmen learned to become painters. Within a few years the most avant-garde artists became their friends, their work was taken for prestigious collections and they were celebrated throughout the British art world; but every day they worked, as before, down the mine. The Pitmen Painters premiered at Live Theatre, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in September 2007, before transferring to the National Theatre in 2008.

I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore. Howard Beale, news anchorman, isn't pulling in the viewers. In his final broadcast he unravels live on screen. But when the ratings soar, the network seize on their newfound populist prophet, and Howard becomes the biggest thing on TV. Adapted for the stage by Lee Hall from the Paddy Chayefsky film, Network premiered at the National Theatre, London, in November 2017.

Listen, girls, if we stick together there's no ways we'll even get to the second round... Young, lost and out of control, a bunch of Catholic schoolgirls go wild for a day in the big city, the singing competition a mere obstacle in the way of sex, sambuca and a night back home with the submarine crew in Mantrap. Funny, sad and raucously rude, Lee Hall's musical play Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour, adapted from Alan Warner's novel The Sopranos, premiered at the Traverse Theatre in August 2015, in a production by the National Theatre of Scotland and Live Theatre and transferred to the National Theatre, London, in August 2016. The play won the Olivier Award for Best New Comedy 2017 and transferred to the Duke of York's, London, in May 2017 in a co-production with Sonia Friedman Productions.

In the second case recorded by Benjamin Franklin's young charge and assistant Nick Handy, the great Doctor Franklin is confronted with a shocking event. While attending a mummers' play at the home of a popular merchant Roddy Fairbrass on Christmas Eve 1757, their host suddenly collapses and dies. Although the bereaved family denies it, Franklin is convinced that he has witnessed a murder. Franklin had been to the Fairbrass home one time before to investigate the report of a ghost and now believes that there must be some sinister connection between the two events. Determined to uncover the truth, the intrepid inventor and statesman, accompanied by Nick, unravels a tangled plot of intrigue and scandal while matching wits with some of London's most notorious criminal minds.

More than ten years ago, Robert Lee Hall made a startling discovery. Within a secret compartment of an old armoire once owned by his great aunt, he found a yellowing manuscript describing a series of mysterious criminal cases. What made these stories so unusual was that they were solved by the renowned scientist and statesman, Benjamin Franklin, while he was a resident of London to plead the case of the American colonies before the British crown. Written by Hall's ancestor, Nick Handy, who happened to be Franklin's assistant throughout these adventures, Hall transcribed the tales and presented them in the order of their occurrence. In Benjamin Franklin Takes the Case, the first mystery in Hall's series, the great Doctor Franklin meets the young orphan Nick Handy in the print shop of an old friend. When his friend is suddenly murdered, it is up to Franklin and Nick to prove who was responsible for the grisly deed. Turning detective, Franklin pursues the strange case along the dark byways of London and into its grand houses, uncovering a theft ring, a profitable trade in slaves and prostitutes, and strong reasons to believe that Nick is in grave danger. Employing his keen sense of scientific observation and his inventor's creative mind, the doctor is able to solve a case that the constables had thought would be impossible to break.

Racist abuse may at one time have been hurled across the sports stadium or scrawled on a wall. But in today's social media world it can be published to millions, from almost anywhere, in an instant. Sport, Racism and Social Media provides the first significant, academic account of how social media is shaping the nature of racisms in sport. Among the questions it addresses are: How, and why, is racism being expressed across different social media platforms and sporting contexts? To what extent is social media providing new platforms for traditional prejudices or actually creating new forms of racism? How can campaigners, authorities and individuals best challenge and counter these forms of racism? Combining analysis of social media content with in-depth interviews with athletes, fans, campaigners and officials, and including extensive case studies of soccer, boxing, the NHL, the NBA, and cricket, the book provides important new insights on a familiar but ever changing story. It is essential reading for any student, researcher, media professional, administrator or policy-maker with an interest in sport, new media or the issue of racism in wider society.

This Student Edition of Goldoni's classic 18th century play, "A Servant to Two Masters," features expert and helpful annotation, ideal for anyone studying or performing the play. Editor Joseph Farrell's accessible Introduction includes a plot synopsis, a commentary on the dramatic, social and political context, and on the themes, characters, language and structure of the play, as well a list of suggested reading, questions for further study and a review of performance history.

The play revolves around the wily, greedy servant Truffaldino, who in trying to fill both his purse and his stomach, attempts to serve two masters simultaneously. Meanwhile, his mistress disguises herself as her dead brother to claim the dowry from his bewildered, bereft fiancee. The plot is full of mishaps and mix-ups, confusions, disguises and mistaken identity, before the murder and entangled romances can be resolved.
Lee Hall's contemporary, faithful version is fast-paced, funny and idiomatic. Updating the comedy for the reader and audience, this version is thoroughly accessible, whilst also portraying the plot's tricks and absurdities with comic flair.