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The Reluctant Emigre
The year is 1789. A naive young woman ran away with a soldier and lived for a while in London lodgings. The soldier was called away and the rent went unpaid until the landlady accused the woman of theft and pawning of metal fire cheeks. She was arrested and due to a false witness was found guilty. The opening of the play finds her shackled in leg irons, about to be taken abroad to a new colony in Botony Bay, Australia. CHARACTERS (Unless otherwise directed, each actor may use any accent with which they are comfortable in order to add colour to their character) Miss Goodbody……………. Tough prison warden, sent to London to escort Sarah Whitlam who is to join a convict ship to New South ...
The Accidental Adjudicator
A one-act comedy. A village drama group, which often has trouble with yobs outside, is about to put on their first Shakespeare play (Macbeth) and they have put it into the "Play of the Year" county competition. They are expecting a well-known adjudicator to arrive. The adjudicator has a reputation of being somewhat strange with an alcohol problem after a recent divorce so the director orders everyone not to allow him any drinks. In the last minute turmoil the adjudicator arrives but is asked by someone to wait in the nearby drama store and then stage hands bring on trolley loads of alcohol for the Xmas party. They dump this into the drama store and the director, unknowing, slams the door shu...
Bill
Monologue for one female. An old lady reminisces about the life she's had in her present home and talks to her husband who is changing upstairs. She relives all the things that have happened in brining up her family and talks about the social worker who has been visiting who says she needs help. She tells Bill (upstairs) that she doesn't need help but at the end of the piece we realise that Bill isn't there but is only existing in her lonely memory.
My Father's House
The play opens in the arid summer of 1929 with an American farmer, Joe MacDonald and his family living in poverty on a run-down rented farm in the dustbowl. The ramshackle farm buildings are overshadowed by a large tree growing next to the house. The farm is owned by a local businessman, Cornelius Spenk, who has fingers in every pie. Spenk’s son is friendly with one of MacDonald’s sons, Billy. The MacDonalds also have a daughter, Becky, another small son nicknamed Peewee and an ornery grandmother living with them. There is a sandstorm in progress and during the storm we see MacDonald in his daily struggle as he carries in a heavy sack of grain. After he’s gone a black vagrant comes on ...
Ticking
Set at some time in the future. A group of people are living underground because in the past there has been a nuclear confrontation and the community is led to believe there is no possibility of life on the surface. Then one day a rebellious individual finds an old fashioned watch ticking in an air vent and brings some workmates to see what he has found. One of the group is a an "establishment supporter" and poo-poos the idea that there might be life on top. The rebel sends a smaller one of the group up an air vent and he returns having smelled life from above but the establishment figure soon spolis things by "accidentally" standing on the ticking watch and breaking it.
Zoo
There are two armchairs in front of the house curtains. In each chair we can see someone sitting behind a newspaper in dressing gown and pyjamas with their legs visible but not their faces. Beneath one paper are the pyjama-clad legs of a male and beneath the other those of a female.
"The Eckersley Rising"
Walter Midgley is a henpecked husband who decides to give up work and give his time to his two hobbies ... amateur radio and keeping chickens. He builds a multi-story chicken shed in his tiny back yard and settles down to listen to radio signals from around the world. His nephew and neice are frequent visitors and one day he surprises them by saying he thinks he's the first person to receive signals from another planet ... but who do you tell ? He tries the local radio station who laugh him off the air and eventually gets a visit from London scientists who tell hime that the signals may be genuine. Walter decides to reply by sending up his own home made rocket which will be powered by the gas from ... chicken manure! The town gathers around the rocket but after count down it doesnt work ... not until later when his wife is nosing round inside the rocket looking for him.
Diaghilev's Bag
The play opens in semi darkness as we see two men in overalls shining torches and looking for something on the ground. the men turn out to be police officers carrying out the horrific task of looking for body parts on a railway line. Their supervisor, a soft and caring sergeant, appears and they tease him for his softness. He has had the fortune of marrying one of the boss's daughters but cant stand the nastiness at ground level. The men have to load the parts into a bag and tease the sergeant because he's scared to look into the nastiness of the bag. Then they here a noise and a young child appears who has run away from home. The child wants to know whats in the bag but they wont tell him. A car is heard and they escort the boy away back into the real world where there is hope for the future.
The Personal Assistant
Mr Rolf is a disabled man who used to be a tyrannical college principal. Due to his recent disabilities has been forced to advertise for a personal assistant. An applicant arrives who seems to have all the necessary qualifications for the post and is taken on for a trial period. The story of the personal assistant is interspersed with flashbacks from another story, the story of Jerry Marshall, a left-wing English lecturer who used to work under Rolf. Marshall has apparently reached the lowly zenith of his career and is going through a mid-life crisis, trying to make a mark by writing novels in his spare time but none have yet been published. He is persuaded by a colleague to try for a positi...
My Brother's Keeper
Two brothers were equally talented. One grew up to be a successful writer and the other, a musician, stayed at home to look after his ageing parents. Both married but the writer is now divorced and has a young actress girlfriend. The play deals with the period when the writer returns home from abroad after a message that his father is seriously ill. In the first scenes the writer tries unsuccessfully to bring his father out of his persistent vegetative state and there is a confrontation between him and the stay-at-home brother who suggests that euthanasia might be their only way out. The coup de grace isn’t necessary as the father dies at the end of the first act while the brothers are arguing. In the second act we see the clearance of the house and all its memories; greedy neighbours who want the deceased’s possessions for nothing; an opportunity for the stay-at-home brother to get his music published (which he turns down) and finally the writer is made to face up to his own fatherhood in an emotional but silent final embrace between him and the teenage son that he hasn’t seen for years.
