This study provides an authoritative overview of all Marlowe's work. It includes thorough investigations of his major plays, Tamburlaine, Edward II, The Jew of Malta and Doctor Faustus as well as a full discussion of The Massacre at Paris, Dido Queen of Carthage and all his extant poetry. Analysis of Faustus takes full account of both A and B text versions. Thoroughly researched and yet presented in an accessible, engaging style, A Preface to Marlowe reads Marlowe's life and times, as well as his work, in the light of current critical theory. Consequently, it is a vital guide for all students of early modern drama. As well as providing sharp analysis of stage history, Dr Simkin reflects on the wider significance of a stage-oriented approach. The result is a reading of Marlowe that re-opens debates about his status as a radical figure and as a subversive playwright and invites the reader to experience the plays as immediate, exciting, 'live' documents.

This study provides an authoritative overview of all Marlowe's work. It includes thorough investigations of his major plays, Tamburlaine, Edward II, The Jew of Malta and Doctor Faustus as well as a full discussion of The Massacre at Paris, Dido Queen of Carthage and all his extant poetry. Analysis of Faustus takes full account of both A and B text versions. Thoroughly researched and yet presented in an accessible, engaging style, A Preface to Marlowe reads Marlowe's life and times, as well as his work, in the light of current critical theory. Consequently, it is a vital guide for all students of early modern drama. As well as providing sharp analysis of stage history, Dr Simkin reflects on the wider significance of a stage-oriented approach. The result is a reading of Marlowe that re-opens debates about his status as a radical figure and as a subversive playwright and invites the reader to experience the plays as immediate, exciting, 'live' documents.

How do you define success? If you let somebody else define what success is, you re a sucker. I m no sucker. Chuck Prophet started out as a post-punk California kid who helped kick-start the alt-country genre when he joined Dan Stuart s Green On Red, then making a name for themselves as part of the so-called Paisley Underground alongside bands like The Dream Syndicate and The Bangles. While Green On Red established a reputation for self-destruction illuminated by flashes of brilliance in the studio and on festival stages around Europe in the late 1980s, Prophet simultaneously immersed himself in roots music and forged a solo career via backroom and basement venues across his adopted home of San Francisco. He has emerged as one of the most respected musicians of his generation, admired for his talents as a songwriter, guitarist, vocalist, and live performer. He has worked with the likes of Tony Visconti and Warren Zevon, and his songs have been performed by artists as diverse as Bruce Springsteen and Solomon Burke. Those who know him through his social-media presence or his live shows are well aware that no one tells a story quite like Chuck Prophet; here, his voice rings clearly from the first page to the last as he gives his perspective on writing, recording, and performing, and talks candidly about his struggles and remarkable recovery from years of addiction. As Prophet s official archivist, author Stevie Simkin draws on over a hundred hours of interviews with his subject as well as contributions from fellow musicians, producers, friends, and associates, and unique access to unreleased songs and live recordings and scores of previously unseen photographs. Time and again, Simkin puts the reader in the room with Chuck as he talks, or in the studio as he plays, and the live experience is captured from both sides of the stage monitors. An exciting rock n roll odyssey, What Makes The Monkey Dance is essential reading for every fan of this phenomenal artist, but also for anyone with an interest in alternative music during a period seismic change, offering a fascinating portrait of how a true artist has managed to carve out a career at the sharp end of a notoriously ruthless industry.

This latest book in the Controversies series is the first in-depth study of Basic Instinct (1992). Basic Instinct was one of the earliest mainstream 'erotic thrillers' - a film which significantly shifted the boundaries for graphic representations of sex in the Hollywood mainstream. Basic Instinct remains a significant milestone in terms of censorship and wider controversies. In his fascinating study of the film, Stevie Simkin explains how the Basic Instinct is also remarkable for stirring up a 'grass roots' form of censorship that has become more widespread in the twenty years that have followed its release. The unrest that Basic Instinct sparked in the gay and lesbian communities in the US, as well as amongst feminists, was unprecedented at the time. After the screenplay was leaked to the public, pressure groups - incensed by what they characterised as the script's homophobia - first lobbied the production company, director and writer for script changes, and then staged protests during the making of the film, continuing with demonstrations outside movie theatres when it opened.
This study considers the social and cultural context in which Basic Instinct was made. It includes a detailed examination of all stages of the production, certification, distribution and reception of the film, the nature of the objections and protests by GLAAD and other pressure groups, and critical responses to the film. It also offers a number of readings of the film, chiefly in terms of its representation of a 'transgressive' female protagonist, and its representation of bisexuality and a close analysis of key scenes, with comparison of the cuts made to different versions released in the UK and the US, for theatrical release and for home video, and for TV broadcast. It concludes by considering the longer term impact of Basic Instinct, focusing on representations of lesbianism/bisexuality, sex and violence, and the erotic thriller genre's place in relation to boundaries of censorship and classification.

Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs ignited fierce debate among censors, critics and audiences on both sides of the Atlantic on its release in 1971. When Amy (Susan George) returns to her home village with her American peacenik husband David (Dustin Hoffman), the residents of this tight-knit Cornish community slowly turn on them. The sexual tension and latent violence finally erupt in an explosion of violence that includes a rape scene that has remained controversial to this day. The film was heavily cut for theatrical release in the US, and the pressinspired furore in the UK led to several local councils cutting or banning it outright. Later, caught in the wake of the 'video nasties' panic of the 1980s, Straw Dogs was refused a home-video certificate in the UK for nearly twenty years. Stevie Simkin's study sheds light on the film's treatment by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) and tracks its subsequent tortuous journey towards home-video release, buffeted by various shifts in the BBFC's policy on representations of sexual violence. But, equally importantly, Simkin provides a highly original accountof themaking of the film, drawing on extensive research in Peckinpah's archive, including analysis of draft scripts, notes, memos and contemporary press items, as well as insights from a number of Peckinpah's associates, and key figures at the BBFC. 'A swift, compelling read. Thorough and scholarly without the faintest whiff of academic stuffiness, Stevie Simkin's study of Straw Dogs summons up the turmoil of the 1960s and 70s and illuminates the highly charged subject of sexual violence on film.' Stephen Farber, Film Critic, The Hollywood Reporter Stevie Simkin is Reader in Drama and Film at the University of Winchester, UK. He is the author of, among other works, Revenge Tragedy: A New Casebook (2001), Early Modern Tragedy and the Cinema of Violence (2005), and, also in the Controversies series, a volume on Basic Instinct (forthcoming, 2013).

Revenge has been an issue in all societies from ancient times to the present day. In western culture, the revenge plot has been one of the linchpins of narrative structure, it is central to much Greek tragedy and was immensely popular in Elizabethan and Jacobean theatres. In this volume Stevie Simkin has collected essays on five plays which are representative of this genre: The Spanish Tragedy, The Revenger's Tragedy, The Changeling, The White Devil and 'Tis Pity She's A Whore. These plays are a rich source of ideas about Renaissance society and politics; recurrent issues include sexuality, the complex relations of gender and power, and the relationship between the individual and the state. The collection as a whole demonstrates a variety of recent critical approaches to the genre, including feminist, psychoanalytic, new historicist and cultural materialist viewpoints, inspiring students to revisit these plays and to engage directly with the politics of the past and present, and the ways in which they interrelate.