Barnes Plays: 1: The Ruling Class; Leonardo's Last Supper; Noonday Demons; The Bewitched; Laughter!; Barnes' People: Eight Monol

Description

A selection of plays by "one of the most original and biting comic writers working in Britain" (The Times) The Ruling Class "is a scorching and savage tragedy, yet its jokes are innumerable...they throw wide open the windows of your mind, they enlarge your field of vision and they blow away the accumulated dust of ages" (Sunday Times); Leonardo's Last Supper and Noonday Demons are "two ironic plays of delusion...Peter Barnes' dialogue is rich in surprising verbal twists, intellectual allusions and splendid jokes". The Bewitched is "a feast for intellectuals as well as a rollicking example of folk theatre" (Plays and Players) while Laughter is a vicious satire on comedy itself and Barnes' People are eight monologues written for some of the great stars of the English stage which "let the listener into a whole and private world...their jokes in the face of existence were both burning and bitter." (Daily Telegraph) "Peter Barnes is one of the unrecognised geniuses of the English theatre" (Plays and Players)

Peter Barnes (1931-2004) was a British writer and director whose work includes The Ruling Class (Nottingham and Piccadilly Theatre, London, 1968), Leonardo's Last Supper and Noonday Demons (Open Space Theatre, London, 1969), The Bewitched (RSC, Aldwych Theatre, London, 1974), Laughter! (Royal Court Theatre, 1978), Red Noses (RSC, Barbican, 1985) and Sunsets and Glories (West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, 1990). Over the course of his career he won many awards including the Evening Standard Award, 1969; the John Whiting Award, 1969; the Sony Best Play Award, 1981; the Laurence Olivier Award, 1985; the Royal Television society Award for Best TV Play, 1987; and was nominated for an Oscar in 1993.

"A selection of plays by one of the most original and biting comic writers working in Britain" --The Times