Monologues are an essential part of every actor's toolkit. Actors need them for drama school entry, training, showcases and when auditioning for roles in the industry. Edited by Dee Cannon, author of the bestselling In-Depth Acting, this book showcases selected monologues from some of the finest modern plays by some of today's leading contemporary playwrights. The monologues contain a diverse range of quirky and memorable characters that cross cultural and historical boundaries, and comes in a brand new format, with a notes page next to each speech, acting as an actor's workbook as well as a monologue resource.

Tom Hiddleston (The Night Manager) stars as Jonathan Harker with David Suchet (Poirot) as Dracula in Liz Lochhead and John Foley's powerful BBC radio adaptation of the classic novel by Bram Stoker. When solicitor Jonathan Harker sets off for Transylvania to sell the mysterious Count Dracula a Gothic mansion, his bride-to-be Mina begs him to stay - to no avail. But on arrival at Dracula's castle, deep in a black forest surrounded by wolves, Harker wishes he had listened to his fiancee. The Count is welcoming but unnerving, and his castle oppressive. Plagued by nightmares, Harker soon longs to leave... Back in Whitby, Mina is increasingly worried. She has heard nothing from Jonathan, and now her sister Lucy - newly engaged to Harker's friend, Dr Seward - is becoming pale and thin. In Seward's lunatic asylum in London, a madman named Renfield babbles about his master who is coming. And as a midnight storm rages, a black ship heads towards the English coast... Acclaimed poet and playwright Liz Lochhead's adaptation was first performed on stage in 1985, and this thrilling radio drama was broadcast on the World Service in 2006. Suspenseful, chilling and suffused with dark eroticism, it retains all the eerie dread of Stoker's infamous horror novel. Duration: 2 hrs approx.