The first collection of plays of one of Scotland's best-known contemporary dramatists EUROPE is set in a railway station at an unnamed border town where old and new Europeans weave a tale of love, loss and longing. "Fierce, compassionate, mightily ambitious drama...there is the sharp, analytic intelligence, the crackling inventiveness of a real writer buzzing about this gripping play" Scotsman THE ARCHITECT charts the rise and fall of Leo Black, once an idealistic and idolised designer, whose magnificent visions are now crumbling, along with his family, in the light of grubby reality. "Provides convincing evidence of David Greig's confident transition from a dramatist of promise to one of stature" Independent. Lyrical, soulful and darkly funny, THE COSMONAUT'S LAST MESSAGE weaves together the stories of a fraught Scottish couple whose TV is on the blink, a Norwegian UN peace negotiator, a young prostitute, a French UFO researcher, a pregnant police woman and two forgotten Cosmonauts who sadly orbit the planet."The most important playwright to have emerged north of the border in years" Scotsman

David Greig has been described as 'one of the most interesting and adventurous British dramatists of his generation' (Daily Telegraph) and 'one of the most intellectually stimulating dramatists around' (Guardian). Since he began writing for theatre in the early nineties, his work has been both copious and remarkably varied, defying neat generalisations or attempts to pigeon-hole his work. Besides his original plays, he has adapated classics, is co-founder of the Suspect Culture Theatre Group and is currently Dramaturge for the National Theatre of Scotland. This Critical Companion provides an analytical survey of his work, from his early plays such as Europe and The Architect through to more recent works Damascus, Dunsinane and Ramallah; it also considers the plays produced with Suspect Culture and his work for young audiences. As such it is the first book to provide a critical account of the full variety of his work and will appeal to students and fans of contemporary British theatre. Clare Wallace provides a detailed analysis of a broad selection of plays and their productions, reviews current discourses about his work and offers a framework for enquiry. The Companion features an interview with David Greig and a further three essays by leading academics offering a variety of critical perspectives.

Drawing primarily on Judith Butler’s, Jacques Derrida’s, Emmanuel Levinas’s and Jean-Luc Nancy’s reflections on precariousness/precarity, the Self and the Other, ethical responsibility/obligation, forgiveness, hos(ti)pitality and community, the essays in this volume examine the various ways in which contemporary British drama and theatre engage with ‘the precarious’. Crucially, what emerges from the discussion of a wide range of plays – including Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem, Caryl Churchill’s Here We Go, Martin Crimp’s Fewer Emergencies and In the Republic of Happiness, Tim Crouch’s The Author, Forced Entertainment’s Tomorrow’s Parties, David Greig’s The American Pilot and The Events, Dennis Kelly’s Love and Money, Mark Ravenhill’s Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat, Philip Ridley’s Mercury Fur, Robin Soans’s Talking to Terrorists, Simon Stephens’s Pornography, theTheatre Uncut project, debbie tucker green’s dirty butterfly and Laura Wade’s Posh – is the observation that contemporary (British) drama and theatre often realises its thematic and formal/structural potential to the full precisely by reflecting upon the category and the episteme of precariousness, and deliberately turning audience members into active participants in the process of negotiating ethical agency.

With a Foreword by Dan Rebellato, this book offers up a detailed exploration of Scottish playwright David Greig’s work with particular attention to globalization, ethics, and the spectator. It makes the argument that Greig’s theatre works by undoing, cracking, or breaking apart myriad elements to reveal the holed, porous nature of all things. Starting with a discussion of Greig’s engagement with shamanism and arguing for holed theatre as a response to globalization, for Greig’s works’ politics of aesthethics, and for the holed spectator as part of an affective ecology of transfers, this book discusses some of Greig’s most representative political theatre from Europe (1994) to The Events (2013), concluding with an exploration of Greig’s theatre’s world-forming quality.

In a period marked by the Spatial Turn, time is not the main category of analysis any longer. Space is. It is now considered as a central metaphor and topos in literature, and literary criticism has seized space as a new tool. Similarly, literature turns out to be an ideal field for geography. This book examines the cross-fertilization of geography and literature as disciplines, languages and methodologies. In the past two decades, several methods of analysis focusing on the relationship and interconnectedness between literature and geography have flourished. Literary cartography, literary geography and geocriticism (Westphal, 2007, and Tally, 2011) have their specificities, but they all agree upon the omnipresence of space, place and mapping at the core of analysis. Other approaches like ecocriticism (Buell, 2001, and Garrard, 2004), geopoetics (White, 1994), geography of literature (Moretti, 2000), studies of the inserted map (Ljunberg, 2012, and Pristnall and Cooper, 2011) and narrative cartography have likewise drawn attention to space. Literature and Geography: The Writing of Space Throughout History, following an international conference in Lyon bringing together literary academics, geographers, cartographers and architects in order to discuss literature and geography as two practices of space, shows that literature, along with geography, is perfectly valid to account for space. Suggestions are offered here from all disciplines on how to take into account representations and discourses since texts, including literary ones, have become increasingly present in the analysis of geographers.

THE WILEY BLACKWELL COMPANION TO CONTEMPORARY BRITISH AND IRISH LITERATURE An insightful guide to the exploration of modern British and Irish literature The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Contemporary British and Irish Literature is a must-have guide for anyone hoping to navigate the world of new British and Irish writing. Including modern authors and poets from the 1960s through to the 21st century, the Companion provides a thorough overview of contemporary poetry, fiction, and drama by some of the most prominent and noteworthy writers. Seventy-three comprehensive chapters focus on individual authors as well as such topics as Englishness and identity, contemporary Science Fiction, Black writing in Britain, crime fiction, and the influence of globalization on British and Irish Literature. Written in four parts, The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Contemporary British and Irish Literature includes comprehensive examinations of individual authors, as well as a variety of themes that have come to define the contemporary period: ethnicity, gender, nationality, and more. A thorough guide to the main figures and concepts in contemporary literature from Britain and Ireland, this two-volume set: Includes studies of notable figures such as Seamus Heaney and Angela Carter, as well as more recently influential writers such as Zadie Smith and Sarah Waters. Covers topics such as LGBT fiction, androgyny in contemporary British Literature, and post-Troubles Northern Irish Fiction Features a broad range of writers and topics covered by distinguished academics Includes an analysis of the interplay between individual authors and the major themes of the day, and whether an examination of the latter enables us to appreciate the former. The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Contemporary British and Irish Literature provides essential reading for students as well as academics seeking to learn more about the history and future direction of contemporary British and Irish Literature.

The first collection of plays by the multi-award winning playwright and winner of the 2001 "Most Promising Playwright" Evening Standard Theatre Award THE NO BOYS CRICKET CLUB (1996): Living alone on a drab London council estate, Abi has long since lost sight of the good things in life, until an old friend takes her back to her glorious past in Jamaica as the greatest all-rounder of the No Boys Cricket Club. STARSTRUCK (1997): is a hilarious and moving snapshot of the hopes and broken dreams of a family in the Caribbean at a time when Hollywood heart-throb Stewart Granger lands in Kingston to shoot his latest movie. It was the winner of the John Whiting Award and the Alfred Fagon award (1997). LIFT OFF (1999): When old time school friends Mal and Tone begin to break their lifelong friendship, bitter prejudices are brought to the fore. Joint-winner of the George Devine Award 2000. "Williams' writing snaps and crackles, his characters burst with life, emotion and contradiction" Guardian "Williams, a young, prolific and successful black British writer...certainly has a gift" Sunday Times "Roy Williams shows himself to be a sassy, sophisticated diviner of the human heart" Evening Standard

A remarkable writer – an original fresh voice, with a sharp political edge (Vicky Featherstone, Artistic Director the Royal Court Theatre). British writer Rory Mullarkey is the winner of the Harold Pinter Commission, the James Tait Black Prize for Drama and the George Devine Award for most promising playwright. His original work has been staged at the Royal Court Theatre, the National Theatre, Manchester Royal Exchange and Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. His first play collection brings together three previously published plays with two unpublished works. A writer of “considerable talent” (Telegraph), this is a powerful and diverse collection from an established contemporary voice. Single Sex: “a truly disturbing and twisted tale of obsession” (Culture Bean) Tourism: A compelling and humorous take on modern cultural identities. Cannibals: “Brilliantly exciting drama” (Independent) Wolf From the Door: “Fervent and bracingly original...laced with exuberant absurdity and moments of twisted humour...” (Evening Standard) Each Slow Dusk: 'A great war play, original and richly reflective in form . . . [It] encapsulates the British soldier's experience in under an hour . . . Remarkable.' ReviewsGate