The Fastest Clock in the Universe

Description

It's Cougar's birthday. He's having a party. And the gift he'd kill for is youth... In a strange room in East London the party preparations are under way. Everything has been planned to the last detail. Surely nothing can go wrong? After all, there's the specially made birthday cake, the specially written cards, the specially chosen guest of honour... and a very, very sharp knife. Philip Ridley's edgy and provocative drama caused a sensation when it premiered at Hampstead Theatre in 1992, winning the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Newcomer to the Stage and the Meyer Whitworth Prize. It is now regarded as a contemporary classic. 'A bit like a ride on a ghost train... you find yourself shuddering with shock and laughing uproariously... horror has rarely been so much fun' Daily Telegraph 'Scorchingly nasty... fingers an age and its icons with terrifying accuracy' Guardian

Philip Ridley was born in the East End of London where he still lives and works. As well plays for young people and the highly acclaimed screenplay for the The Krays feature film, his plays for adults include The Pitchfork Disney, Leaves of Glass, Piranha Heights and the highly controversial Mercury Fur.

'Just like its antihero Cougar Glass, for whom every birthday is his 19th, Ridley's play, first produced in 1992, is for ever young, muscled and glowing, exuding something cattle-prod-electrifying.' * Lyn Gardner, Guardian, 23.9.09 * 'Ridley's writing has a hopefulness that counteracts its harshness. It's wonky, uncomfortable, and rewards your patience.' * Dominic Maxwell, The Times, 24.9.09 * 'A "BARBARIC beauty" is the term that describes Philip Ridley's work - a rich combination of menace and poetic nuance' * Paul Callan, Daily Express, 25.9.09 * 'Ridley's writing is full of gleeful, incantatory menace' * Robert Shore, Metro (London), 28.9.09 * The play is a masterpiece of construction and runs like clockwork . . . throbbing electrics, macabre sense of menace and vivid imagery . . . this East End gothic drama really rocks . . . remarkably prescient . . . Its vivid writing and compelling plotting are as fresh as ever . . . Royal Court playwrights such as Butterworth owed a great debt to Ridley. * Tribune *