On the day Concord Webster turned eighteen, the Devil died. The Devil’s real name was Judge Martin, but Concord’s mother called him the Devil. She said he boiled babies for dinner and made lampshades out of human skin. So why did she, who hated him so venomously, have a key to his house? The key will unlock more than just Judge’s front door. It will also unlock a multitude of stories - where magic children talk to crows, men disappear in piles of leaves, and James Dean lookalikes kiss in dark alleys - and reveal a secret history that will change Concord’s life forever. Philip Ridley’s second novel (following the sexually charged tour de force Crocodilia) was an instant cult classic when originally published in 1989. Now, for this new edition, Ridley has reimagined the story, expanding the original short novel into the world’s first LGBT magical realist epic. A vast, labyrinthine, hall-of-mirrors saga, its breathtaking imagery and stunning plot twists – covering over a hundred years – reveal Ridley to be one of the most distinctive and innovative voices in contemporary fiction.

A doorway to a new future is ready to open. We are the hinge of that moment. We will let the door swing wide. On a beautiful spring evening – when both moons are full – two teenagers vow eternal love. It is a moment that will have cataclysmic consequences. Not just for them, but for the world on which they live. A world where Prom Night is a matter of life or death, where weapons are grown and trained like pets, and where a chosen few are hearing a voice. A voice that speaks of ... Karagula. Philip Ridley's extraordinary, form-shattering Karagula is a play of epic proportions. Written in a fractured timescale, it explores our constant need to find meaning. To believe we're here for a reason. To have faith in something. Faith in ... anything. Karagula received its world premiere on 10 June 2016 at a secret London location in one of the largest productions ever staged in the Off-West End.

Moonfleece is an intense and thrilling exploration of memory and identity, with themes of contemporary resonance: racism, homophobia, and how those in authority distort both the truth and the past. This play is Philip Ridley's most direct representation yet of his hopes and fears for disadvantaged, diverse communities of today's society, as two groups of teenagers are forced to judge for themselves the prejudices and preconceptions of their parents. This is a vital, relevant and compelling story for the whole country and especially young people from all backgrounds. The plot follows Curtis, who has arranged a secret meeting in a flat of a derelict tower block. Years ago, when he was a child, Curtis lived here before tragedy struck in the form of his elder brother's death. Now Curtis is seeing his brother's ghost. With the aid of Gavin and Tommy, fellow members of the right wing political party of which he is a leading figure, and his ex-girlfriend, Sarah, Curtis aims to find out why this ghost is haunting him. Things, however, do not go as planned and a hitherto secret story has to be revealed. A story that will change Curtis's life forever.

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

Winner of the 1990 Evening Standard Film Award for Best Film Post-war East End London. Ronnie and Reggie Kray are school ground bullies brought up by a domineering mother and two devoted aunts. National Service and spells in prison expose the brutality that helps establish the twin brothers as the kings of 1960s gangland London. Philip Ridley's original, uncut screenplay, almost as notorious as its subject matter is a stylised meditation on maternal love, childhood, violence and homoeroticism and takes its place as one of the masterpieces of contemporary cinema."Ridley...reveals himself most welcomely as a genuinely innovative film maker, untrammelled by conventions and with an individualistic imagination firing on all cylinders." (The Evening Standard)

It's at times like this I'm inspired by The Stupendous Santini. He toured the mid-West during the 1930s, entertaining farmers affected by the Dust Bowl. No one would have remembered him were in not for the fact that during his most famous trick – sword swallowing – he accidentally punctured a lung and died on the spot. He became a legend. Donny has committed an act that shocked everyone. Tabloids called him The Most Hated Boy Alive. But Donny doesn't want forgiveness. All Donny wants is . . . his own television show. Written by internationally acclaimed writer Philip Ridley, Tonight With Donny Stixx is the companion piece to Ridley's 2013 Fringe First-winner Dark Vanilla Jungle, and received its premiere at the Soho Theatre, London, on 27 July 2015 before premiering at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

In the beginning, Shadow Point was the tallest, most magnificent tower block anyone had ever seen. But soon the shining concrete began to crack and the gleaming windows became grimy and dull. Into this colourless decay comes Mercedes Ice, Crown Prince of Shadow Point, with an impossible demand: colour.

This second volume of Ridley's stage plays confirms him as one of the most imaginative, daring and unique voices currently working in theatre. All four plays collected here resonant with Ridley's trademark themes - East London, storytelling, moments of shocking violence, memories of the past, fantastical monologues, and that strange mix of the barbaric and the beautiful he has made all his own. Vincent River: '... a grieving mother and a traumatized teenager meet as adversaries, rough each other up and eventually bond over a barbaric act of cruelty...Ridley asks questions, lots of them, about how people respond to the loss of innocence in their lives, how they hold onto their sanity in the face of savagery and how they fight to keep the bonds of humanity intact in a mad, mad world.' Variety Mercury Fur: '...depicts a scary, post-apocalyptic London where, in their struggle to survive, a group of youths are reduced to organising parties that cater for the most perverted tastes.' Independent Leaves of Glass: 'There is a different kind of murder going on here: the murder of truth that goes on in all families to a lesser or greater degree. As with nations, a family's history is written by the victors.' Guardian Piranha Heights: 'The extravagance of Ridley's dark vision suggests a dangerously confused society in which individuals seize on random gobbets of semi-digested information and use them to construct their own personal narrative.' The Times

"Philip Ridley is a singular writer, a prolific polymath, probably a genius, and the creator of some of the most peculiar, grotesque and compelling British plays (and films) of the last several years" (Time Out) Ridley's film debut The Reflecting Skin caused a sensation at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival and went on to win eleven international awards. Set in the Idaho farmlands of the 1950s, the film follows eight-year-old Seth through a mythical summer where reality is heightened to the level of an hallucinogenic, quasi-fantasy. The Passion of Darkly Noon is a modern fable; echoing the surrealist style of Ridley's dazzling and innovative debut film. A young man roaming the American countryside, the victim of a savage attack on his religious cult, is rescued by Callie, for whom he develops a dangerous obsession. "Provocative, shocking and disturbing, a true original...a masterpiece." (What's On)