- Table View
- List View
The Afterlives of Frankenstein: Popular and Artistic Adaptations and Reimaginings
An exploration of the treatment of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein in popular art and culture, this book examines adaptations in film, comics, theatre, art, video-games and more, to illuminate how the novel's myth has evolved in the two centuries since its publication. Divided into four sections, The Afterlives of Frankenstein considers the cultural dialogues Mary Shelley's novel has engaged with in specific historical moments; the extraordinary examples of how Frankenstein has suffused our cultural consciousness; and how the Frankenstein myth has become something to play with, a locus for reinvention and imaginative interpretation. In the final part, artists respond to the Frankenstein legacy today, reintroducing it into cultural circulation in ways that speak creatively to current anxieties and concerns.Bringing together popular interventions that riff off Shelley's major themes, chapters survey such works as Frankenstein in Baghdad, Bob Dylan's recent “My Own Version of You”, the graphic novel series Destroyer with its Black cast of characters, Jane Louden's The Mummy!, the first Japanese translation of Frankenstein, “The New Creator”, the iconic Frankenstein mask and Kenneth Brannagh's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein film. A deep-dive into the crevasses of Frankenstein adaptation and lore, this volume offers compelling new directions for scholarship surrounding the novel through dynamic critical and creative responses to Shelley's original.
The Afterlives of Frankenstein: Popular and Artistic Adaptations and Reimaginings
by Robert I. Lublin and Elizabeth A. FayAn exploration of the treatment of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein in popular art and culture, this book examines adaptations in film, comics, theatre, art, video-games and more, to illuminate how the novel's myth has evolved in the two centuries since its publication. Divided into four sections, The Afterlives of Frankenstein considers the cultural dialogues Mary Shelley's novel has engaged with in specific historical moments; the extraordinary examples of how Frankenstein has suffused our cultural consciousness; and how the Frankenstein myth has become something to play with, a locus for reinvention and imaginative interpretation. In the final part, artists respond to the Frankenstein legacy today, reintroducing it into cultural circulation in ways that speak creatively to current anxieties and concerns.Bringing together popular interventions that riff off Shelley's major themes, chapters survey such works as Frankenstein in Baghdad, Bob Dylan's recent “My Own Version of You”, the graphic novel series Destroyer with its Black cast of characters, Jane Louden's The Mummy!, the first Japanese translation of Frankenstein, “The New Creator”, the iconic Frankenstein mask and Kenneth Brannagh's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein film. A deep-dive into the crevasses of Frankenstein adaptation and lore, this volume offers compelling new directions for scholarship surrounding the novel through dynamic critical and creative responses to Shelley's original.
how to build a wax figure (Modern Plays)
by Isabella WaldronI was the eyes and she was the bodyI mean that sounds poetic but really that's how it workedGirl meets anatomical wax sculptor.Anatomical wax sculptor meets Girl.They fall in love. Or something like that.Bea's older neighbour was her first love, her first cigarette, her first prosthetic eye. When Bea is invited to the Wellcome Collection to speak about her expertise making glass eyes, she finds herself unable to untie Margot from all that she does. As she tries to unpack her mentor's effect on her work, Bea must dissect for herself what love really looks like.Isabella Waldron's electric new play, how to build a wax figure, brings a fresh perspective on queer love, age-gap relationships, and ocularistry.
how to build a wax figure (Modern Plays)
by Isabella WaldronI was the eyes and she was the bodyI mean that sounds poetic but really that's how it workedGirl meets anatomical wax sculptor.Anatomical wax sculptor meets Girl.They fall in love. Or something like that.Bea's older neighbour was her first love, her first cigarette, her first prosthetic eye. When Bea is invited to the Wellcome Collection to speak about her expertise making glass eyes, she finds herself unable to untie Margot from all that she does. As she tries to unpack her mentor's effect on her work, Bea must dissect for herself what love really looks like.Isabella Waldron's electric new play, how to build a wax figure, brings a fresh perspective on queer love, age-gap relationships, and ocularistry.
The Wheelchair on My Face (Modern Plays)
by Sonya Kelly'I got my first pair of glasses when I was seven.A nurse came to the school and tested everyone's eyes. And so it was discovered why I'd thrown bread to the floating crisp packets in our local pond and walked into lamp posts and said, 'excuse me'. Until that day the world was a swirl of moving coloured blobs. I thought it was the same for everyone.How wrong I was.'Part memoir, part theatre and part standup comedy this delightful story of a myopic seven year old is brought to you by actor, comedian and playwright Sonya Kelly. Sonya tells her story about growing up with poor vision that went undiagnosed until she was seven years old. Combining several forms of theatre, this delightful story shows us how we can better the world even if we cannot see the world.Winner: Scotsman Fringe First Award 2012Critic's Pick, New York Times
The Wheelchair on My Face (Modern Plays)
by Sonya Kelly'I got my first pair of glasses when I was seven.A nurse came to the school and tested everyone's eyes. And so it was discovered why I'd thrown bread to the floating crisp packets in our local pond and walked into lamp posts and said, 'excuse me'. Until that day the world was a swirl of moving coloured blobs. I thought it was the same for everyone.How wrong I was.'Part memoir, part theatre and part standup comedy this delightful story of a myopic seven year old is brought to you by actor, comedian and playwright Sonya Kelly. Sonya tells her story about growing up with poor vision that went undiagnosed until she was seven years old. Combining several forms of theatre, this delightful story shows us how we can better the world even if we cannot see the world.Winner: Scotsman Fringe First Award 2012Critic's Pick, New York Times
My White Best Friend: Volume 2: North
by Bloomsbury PublishingWhat's the one thing that you need to say but have never dared? And who needs to hear it?Based on the original concept by playwright Rachel De-Lahay, this follow-up volume to My White Best Friend (And Other Letters Left Unsaid) collects a series of personal letters, monologues and writings by 20 Black and ethnically diverse writers from across the North of England. Sometimes funny, sometimes poignant, sometimes political and full of fire, these letters explore the personal and political of the things we don't dare say – even to those closest to us.Originally commissioned by Everyman & Playhouse theatres, Eclipse and the Royal Exchange in 2021, in response to The Bunker Theatre's critically acclaimed 2019 festival, this volume contains a foreword by Rachel De-Lahay, creator of the project and editor of the first volume, as well as writings from some of the most exciting voices in the North of England: Levi Tafari, Brodie Arthur, Kiara Mohamed Amin, Yasmin Ali, Chantelle Lunt, Dominique Walker, Keith Saha, Samuel Rossiter, Cheryl Martin, Nikhil Parmar, mandla rae, David Judge, Yusra Warsama, Nick Ahad, Malika Booker, Jamal Gerald, Khadijah Ibrahiim, Chanje Kunda, Marcia Layne and Naomi Sumner Chan.
My White Best Friend: Volume 2: North
by Bloomsbury PublishingWhat's the one thing that you need to say but have never dared? And who needs to hear it?Based on the original concept by playwright Rachel De-Lahay, this follow-up volume to My White Best Friend (And Other Letters Left Unsaid) collects a series of personal letters, monologues and writings by 20 Black and ethnically diverse writers from across the North of England. Sometimes funny, sometimes poignant, sometimes political and full of fire, these letters explore the personal and political of the things we don't dare say – even to those closest to us.Originally commissioned by Everyman & Playhouse theatres, Eclipse and the Royal Exchange in 2021, in response to The Bunker Theatre's critically acclaimed 2019 festival, this volume contains a foreword by Rachel De-Lahay, creator of the project and editor of the first volume, as well as writings from some of the most exciting voices in the North of England: Levi Tafari, Brodie Arthur, Kiara Mohamed Amin, Yasmin Ali, Chantelle Lunt, Dominique Walker, Keith Saha, Samuel Rossiter, Cheryl Martin, Nikhil Parmar, mandla rae, David Judge, Yusra Warsama, Nick Ahad, Malika Booker, Jamal Gerald, Khadijah Ibrahiim, Chanje Kunda, Marcia Layne and Naomi Sumner Chan.
The Prince (Modern Plays)
by Abigail ThornAll the world's a stage.Have you ever been trapped in a bad relationship, playing a role that doesn't suit you? Jen and Sam are also trapped … in a multiverse of Shakepeare's complete works.On their quest to discover the doorway back to reality they notice something unusual about Henry 'Hotspur' Percy. Now Jen and Sam must decide; do they risk losing their way home to help someone who might be like them – someone who does not yet know who she truly is?The Prince is a sharp new play that weaves through Henry IV Part One and other of the Bard's works, providing fun for the audience whether they be Shakespeare scholars or verse virgins. With sword fighting, lesbianism, and disappointed parents, this thrilling new work was written by Abigail Thorn,celebrated creator of Philosophy Tube.This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere at London's Southwark Playhouse, in September 2022.
The Prince (Modern Plays)
by Abigail ThornAll the world's a stage.Have you ever been trapped in a bad relationship, playing a role that doesn't suit you? Jen and Sam are also trapped … in a multiverse of Shakepeare's complete works.On their quest to discover the doorway back to reality they notice something unusual about Henry 'Hotspur' Percy. Now Jen and Sam must decide; do they risk losing their way home to help someone who might be like them – someone who does not yet know who she truly is?The Prince is a sharp new play that weaves through Henry IV Part One and other of the Bard's works, providing fun for the audience whether they be Shakespeare scholars or verse virgins. With sword fighting, lesbianism, and disappointed parents, this thrilling new work was written by Abigail Thorn,celebrated creator of Philosophy Tube.This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere at London's Southwark Playhouse, in September 2022.
Foxes (Modern Plays)
by Dexter FlandersThink how many others there are like me, hiding in the shadows, operating in the night like foxes, for fear of rejection and a life of ridicule. I've worked too hard to gain my respect only for it to be taken from me because of something I can't control.Foxes follows Daniel, a young black man trying to keep up with his life, which is moving fast. When his relationship with best friend Leon brings an unexpected change it creates turmoil, bringing a taboo into his family home that has the power to tear the closest and most loving relationships apart.Shortlisted for the 2018 Alfred Fagon Award, Dexter Flanders's debut play Foxes explores masculinity and identity within London's Caribbean community and Black street culture.This updated and revised edition was published to coincide with the premiere at Theatre503 in London in October 2021.
Foxes (Modern Plays)
by Dexter FlandersThink how many others there are like me, hiding in the shadows, operating in the night like foxes, for fear of rejection and a life of ridicule. I've worked too hard to gain my respect only for it to be taken from me because of something I can't control.Foxes follows Daniel, a young black man trying to keep up with his life, which is moving fast. When his relationship with best friend Leon brings an unexpected change it creates turmoil, bringing a taboo into his family home that has the power to tear the closest and most loving relationships apart.Shortlisted for the 2018 Alfred Fagon Award, Dexter Flanders's debut play Foxes explores masculinity and identity within London's Caribbean community and Black street culture.This updated and revised edition was published to coincide with the premiere at Theatre503 in London in October 2021.
Blood Harmony (Modern Plays)
by Matthew BulgoShe used to be everywhere, all at the sametime, do you know what I mean?And now she's nowhere.She was always there,that's what I'm trying to say.A fractured trio of sisters are pulled back together with news that turns their worlds upside down. Tensions from the past and worries about the future leave them feeling paralysed. When it feels like your world has come to a stop, how do you find a way to keep moving forward?Soaring music by Atlantic Records artists, The Staves, combines with dynamic movement and bold new writing in this compelling, intimate reflection on grief and the invisible bonds within families. Blood Harmony is a play with songs that'll make you want to pull your family a little closer and hold them a little tighter.
Blood Harmony (Modern Plays)
by Matthew BulgoShe used to be everywhere, all at the sametime, do you know what I mean?And now she's nowhere.She was always there,that's what I'm trying to say.A fractured trio of sisters are pulled back together with news that turns their worlds upside down. Tensions from the past and worries about the future leave them feeling paralysed. When it feels like your world has come to a stop, how do you find a way to keep moving forward?Soaring music by Atlantic Records artists, The Staves, combines with dynamic movement and bold new writing in this compelling, intimate reflection on grief and the invisible bonds within families. Blood Harmony is a play with songs that'll make you want to pull your family a little closer and hold them a little tighter.
Life Writing and the End of Empire: Homecoming in Autobiographical Narratives (New Directions in Life Narrative)
by Dr Emma ParkerThe dismantlement of the British Empire had a profound impact on many celebrated white Anglophone writers of the twentieth century, particularly those who were raised in former British colonial territories and returned to the metropole after the Second World War. Formal decolonisation meant that these authors were unable to 'go home' to their colonial childhoods, a historical juncture with profound consequences for how they wrote and recorded their own lives. Moving beyond previous discussions of imperial and colonial nostalgia, Life Writing and the End of Empire is the first critical study of white memoirists and autobiographers who rewrote their memories of empire across numerous life narratives. By focussing on these processual homecomings, Emma Parker's study asks what it means to be 'at home' in memories of empire, whether in the settler farms of Southern Rhodesia, or amidst the neon lights of Shanghai's International Settlement. These discussions trace the legacies of empire to the habitations and detritus of everyday life, from mansions and modest railway huts, to empty swimming pools, heirlooms, and photograph albums. Exploring works by Penelope Lively, J. G. Ballard, Doris Lessing, and Janet Frame, this study establishes new connections between authors usually discussed for their fiction, and who have been hitherto unrecognised as post-imperial life writers. Offering close, sustained analysis of autobiographies, memoirs, travel narratives, and autofictions, and identifying new subgenres such as 'speculative life writing', this book advances rich new readings of autobiographical narrative. By tracing the continuing importance of colonialism to white subjectivity, the role of imperial memory in Britain, and the ways that these unsettling forces move beneath the surface of modern and contemporary literature, this study offers new conceptual insights to the fields of life writing and postcolonial studies.
Life Writing and the End of Empire: Homecoming in Autobiographical Narratives (New Directions in Life Narrative)
by Dr Emma ParkerThe dismantlement of the British Empire had a profound impact on many celebrated white Anglophone writers of the twentieth century, particularly those who were raised in former British colonial territories and returned to the metropole after the Second World War. Formal decolonisation meant that these authors were unable to 'go home' to their colonial childhoods, a historical juncture with profound consequences for how they wrote and recorded their own lives. Moving beyond previous discussions of imperial and colonial nostalgia, Life Writing and the End of Empire is the first critical study of white memoirists and autobiographers who rewrote their memories of empire across numerous life narratives. By focussing on these processual homecomings, Emma Parker's study asks what it means to be 'at home' in memories of empire, whether in the settler farms of Southern Rhodesia, or amidst the neon lights of Shanghai's International Settlement. These discussions trace the legacies of empire to the habitations and detritus of everyday life, from mansions and modest railway huts, to empty swimming pools, heirlooms, and photograph albums. Exploring works by Penelope Lively, J. G. Ballard, Doris Lessing, and Janet Frame, this study establishes new connections between authors usually discussed for their fiction, and who have been hitherto unrecognised as post-imperial life writers. Offering close, sustained analysis of autobiographies, memoirs, travel narratives, and autofictions, and identifying new subgenres such as 'speculative life writing', this book advances rich new readings of autobiographical narrative. By tracing the continuing importance of colonialism to white subjectivity, the role of imperial memory in Britain, and the ways that these unsettling forces move beneath the surface of modern and contemporary literature, this study offers new conceptual insights to the fields of life writing and postcolonial studies.
Between Two Fires (Modern Plays)
by Sylvia PankhurstYou're between two fires…They're very warm sometimes.Noah Adamson is the first Leader of the Labour Party; frequently torn between his socialism and principled support for votes for women on the one hand and the more reactionary views of too many of his colleagues. A middle-aged married man; he is also in love with the young socialist suffragette Freda McLaird. Things look bleak for the cause and the man. Still Noah – inspired by his soulmate – has time for hope and beauty. He looks forward to a time when the movement will be stronger.Sylvia Pankhurst wrote this previously unpublished play when imprisoned for sedition in the infamous HMP Holloway in 1920/21. Deprived of writing materials in solitary confinement, the legendary activist composed this dramatisation of earlier times with her beloved Keir Hardie – Labour's founding leader – with a contraband pencil on prison issue toilet paper. It would be nearly a hundred years before Pankhurst's biographer Dr Rachel Holmes would discover the play via painstaking analysis of the delicate fragments jumbled into brown envelopes in the archives of the British Library. Holmes' arrangement of the incomplete text brings the poignant story to life in this startlingly topical drama that speaks directly to our own times.
Between Two Fires (Modern Plays)
by Sylvia PankhurstYou're between two fires…They're very warm sometimes.Noah Adamson is the first Leader of the Labour Party; frequently torn between his socialism and principled support for votes for women on the one hand and the more reactionary views of too many of his colleagues. A middle-aged married man; he is also in love with the young socialist suffragette Freda McLaird. Things look bleak for the cause and the man. Still Noah – inspired by his soulmate – has time for hope and beauty. He looks forward to a time when the movement will be stronger.Sylvia Pankhurst wrote this previously unpublished play when imprisoned for sedition in the infamous HMP Holloway in 1920/21. Deprived of writing materials in solitary confinement, the legendary activist composed this dramatisation of earlier times with her beloved Keir Hardie – Labour's founding leader – with a contraband pencil on prison issue toilet paper. It would be nearly a hundred years before Pankhurst's biographer Dr Rachel Holmes would discover the play via painstaking analysis of the delicate fragments jumbled into brown envelopes in the archives of the British Library. Holmes' arrangement of the incomplete text brings the poignant story to life in this startlingly topical drama that speaks directly to our own times.
Destiny (Modern Plays)
by Florence Espeut-NicklessThey're sayin I brought it on myself.Oh yeah, they've heard about me. Basically it must've been my fault cause I'm me, Destiny.Destiny dreams big. She dreams glamour. She's gonna be an MTV Base backing dancer, you watch. If J-Lo can make it outta the Bronx then Destiny can make it off the Hill Rise estate in Chippenham. She'sfearless, ferocious and up for the fight (she's had to be). Born below the breadline, she's desperate to see beyond the neighbourhood and find hope in hopelessness.This monologue follows the story of a teenage girl growing up on a rural Wiltshire council estate. After a big night out takes a turn for the worst, Destiny's life spirals out of control as she desperately tries to learn how to love and be loved. Florence Espeut-Nickless' debut play is a recipient of The Pleasance's 2021 National Partnerships Award with Bristol Old Vic FERMENT and was shortlisted for Theatre West's Write On Women Award.This edition was published to coincide with the run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2022.
Destiny (Modern Plays)
by Florence Espeut-NicklessThey're sayin I brought it on myself.Oh yeah, they've heard about me. Basically it must've been my fault cause I'm me, Destiny.Destiny dreams big. She dreams glamour. She's gonna be an MTV Base backing dancer, you watch. If J-Lo can make it outta the Bronx then Destiny can make it off the Hill Rise estate in Chippenham. She'sfearless, ferocious and up for the fight (she's had to be). Born below the breadline, she's desperate to see beyond the neighbourhood and find hope in hopelessness.This monologue follows the story of a teenage girl growing up on a rural Wiltshire council estate. After a big night out takes a turn for the worst, Destiny's life spirals out of control as she desperately tries to learn how to love and be loved. Florence Espeut-Nickless' debut play is a recipient of The Pleasance's 2021 National Partnerships Award with Bristol Old Vic FERMENT and was shortlisted for Theatre West's Write On Women Award.This edition was published to coincide with the run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2022.
The Death Penalty in Dickens and Derrida: The Last Sentence of the Law
by Jeremy TamblingIn the nineteenth century, Charles Dickens backed the cause of abolition of the death penalty and wrote comprehensively about it, in public letters and in his novels. At the end of the twentieth century, Jacques Derrida ran two years of seminars on the subject, which were published posthumously. What the novelist and the philosopher of deconstruction discussed independently, this book brings into comparison.Tambling examines crime and punishment in Dickens's novels Barnaby Rudge, A Tale of Two Cities, Oliver Twist and Bleak House and explores those who influenced Dickens's work, including Hogarth, Fielding, Godwin and Edgar Allen Poe. This book also looks at those who influenced Derrida – Freud, Nietzsche, Foucault and Blanchot – and considers Derrida's study on terrorism and the USA as the only major democracy adhering to the death penalty.A comprehensive study of punishment in Dickens, and furthering Derrida's insights by commenting on Shakespeare and blood, revenge, the French Revolution, and the enduring power of violence and its fascination, this book is a major contribution to literary criticism on Dickens and Derrida. Those interested in literature, criminology, law, gender, and psychoanalysis will find it an essential intervention in a topic still rousing intense argument.
Hamlet (Modern Plays)
by William ShakespeareA murdered King. A usurped Prince. A promise of revenge. Returning to court to find his father murdered and his mother married to the murderer, Hamlet faces a terrible dilemma. This is Shakespeare's great tragedy of passion, corruption and revenge.Rob Icke's acclaimed adaptation of Shakespeare's most famous play originally ran in at London's Almeida Theatre before transferring to the West End. This revised and updated edition was published to coincide with the run at New York's Park Armory in summer 2022.
In the Weeds (Modern Plays #123)
by Joseph Wilde“You name something, you change what it is, who it belongs toPeople do it everywhere they go: new namesNot one of them even knows what we called this island before they came” Kazumi is hunting a sea monster. Arriving on a remote Hebridean island, he meets Coblaith, a local woman whose family have lived there for generations. When she offers to help him find the mythical creature that he believes drowned his family, their relationship blossoms. But there's something strange about Cob's obsessive affection for the lochs and something even stranger about the way the other islanders treat her. Suspicious of his new lover, Kazumi's imagination gets the better of him. Could it be that Coblaith is the mythical creature he has been searching for? Or are humans the real monsters after all? In The Weeds examines our relationship to the land we live on, its heritage and who it belongs to. A gothic thriller, it asks how remote communities can survive the dangers created by the tourism they rely on. This edition was published to coincide with the UK tour ahead of a run at Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2022.
549: Scots of the Spanish Civil War (Modern Plays)
by Robbie Gordon Jack NurseYOU CAN GO PROUDLY.YOU ARE HISTORY.YOU ARE LEGEND.1936. In villages, towns and cities across Scotland, 549 lives are gradually intertwining.People of contrasting backgrounds, ideologies and religions. Spurred on by their burning passion for equality and freedom, they will form the Scottish ranks of the Spanish Civil War's legendary International Brigade.2022. The country is in crisis. In a small pub in Prestonpans, East Lothian, four millennials are told a story.The true story of four local miners who, over 80 years ago, travelled from the streets of Prestonpans to the valleys of Spain. They gave up everything that was familiar: for a land that was not; for a people they had never met; and for a cause they believed was right.549, a play with songs and storytelling, is a timely insight into one of Scotland's almost forgotten conflicts.549: Scots of the Spanish Civil War was first performed 7 February 2018 at Prestonpans Town Hall.
549: Scots of the Spanish Civil War (Modern Plays)
by Robbie Gordon Jack NurseYOU CAN GO PROUDLY.YOU ARE HISTORY.YOU ARE LEGEND.1936. In villages, towns and cities across Scotland, 549 lives are gradually intertwining.People of contrasting backgrounds, ideologies and religions. Spurred on by their burning passion for equality and freedom, they will form the Scottish ranks of the Spanish Civil War's legendary International Brigade.2022. The country is in crisis. In a small pub in Prestonpans, East Lothian, four millennials are told a story.The true story of four local miners who, over 80 years ago, travelled from the streets of Prestonpans to the valleys of Spain. They gave up everything that was familiar: for a land that was not; for a people they had never met; and for a cause they believed was right.549, a play with songs and storytelling, is a timely insight into one of Scotland's almost forgotten conflicts.549: Scots of the Spanish Civil War was first performed 7 February 2018 at Prestonpans Town Hall.