Edgar Plays: 2: Ecclesiastes, The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, Entertaining Strangers

Description

"David Edgar, like Balzac, seems to be the secretary for our times." - The Guardian This selection of David Edgar's dramatic work features three plays: Ecclesiastes, a late 1970s radio play; his acclaimed stage version of Nicholas Nickleby; and Entertaining Strangers, an English left-wing social drama. Ecclesiastes is a radio play that looks at the rise and fall of a "fundamentalist" Christian clergyman in the US. Nicholas Nickleby: "With uncommon audacity Nicholas Nickleby not only takes on Dickens' sprawling novel, it fractures all the petty limitations we have imposed upon the stage as well ... A landmark." - New Statesman In Entertaining Strangers, a community constructs a nativity play: "English left-wing social drama at its sturdiest and finest: human, argumentative, utterly unafraid of human realities, and seething with indignation and compassion." - The Sunday Times

David Edgar is a British playwright and journalist, whose works are known for their strong political content. Edgar began to write in the wake of the student rebellions of 1968. His reputation was established when Destiny (1976), which examines racist and fascist elements in British culture, was performed in a production by the RSC. His other works include Wreckers (1977), Mary Barnes (1977), The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs (1978), Maydays (1983), That Summer (1987), The Shape of the Table (1990), The Prisoner's Dilemma (2002), Albert Speer (1999), Continental Divide (2003), Playing With Fire (2005), and Testing the Echo (2008). Edgar has also been involved with community theatre projects, most notably A Time to Keep (2007), co-written with Stephanie Dale for community actors in Dorchester.

Love, sex and money, poverty and exploitation, hope and despair: Dicken's world is vividly brought to life in David Edgar's adaptation of his 1838 novel. * The Times, Sam Marlowe, 10/12/2007 *