Douglas Maxwell

It’s Dougie’s birthday. He just turned 50 and his family are throwing him a party. But it’s he who has a surprise for them. A bombshell proposal. He wants his ex-wife Arlene to back his new endeavour. He wants to serve a good cause, a global cause. He wants to make right a terrible wrong, even if it puts their daughter’s future at risk. An explosive new play about power, privilege, blood ties and our inescapable past.

The Whip Hand

This collection of energetic, fun and emotionally honest, tragi-comic plays explore the turbulent journey from childhood through adolescence towards eventual adulthood. DECKY DOES A BRONCO ‘One of the finest plays to emerge from a Scottish working-class story in the last ten years...the sheer force and depth of Maxwell’s study of an end of childhood and an abrupt loss of innocence brings tears to the eyes.' The Scotsman 'A good deed in a naughty world... Ten years on, Decky Does A Bronco has lost none of its ability to excite the senses and stop the heart.' Sunday Herald HELMET ‘Douglas Maxwell’s impeccably observed little script transcends the everyday to tap into what moves the young and the troubled. The Glasgow Herald ‘This extraordinary chronicler of youth.’ Scottish Daily Mail MANCUB ‘A near perfect encapsulation of the world of a troubled teen.' The Glasgow Herald 'A corker of a show that I’d urge everyone to see as soon as they can.' The Mail On Sunday 'Amazingly engaging...a must see’ The List THE MOTHER SHIP Winner of the Brian Way Award 2009 for Best Play for a Younger Audience. TOO FAST Performed by 25 Youth Theatres in 2011 as part of the National Theatre’s NT Connections Project.

Maxwell: Plays for Young People

Teachers' Notes by Anthony Banks Sensation Nation is a vocal group founded and led by the unstoppable DD. Her grand plan is for the group to storm next year’s Britain’s Got Talent. But first they need a gig, and more importantly a heartbreaking backstory that will win them votes later on down the line. So she’s booked them in to sing at a funeral. And not just any funeral either. Sensation Nation is to sing at the funeral of Ali Monroe, an older girl from their school who was killed in a car crash. Too Fast is an ensemble comedy for young performers with a strong emotional heart and a huge theatrical reveal in the final scene. It was originally produced as part of National Theatre Connections 2011.

Too Fast

Nell Leyshon

Noel Clarke

James Graham

Carl Grose

Alia Bano

Katori Hall

Molly Davies

Sam Adamson

Helen Blakeman

This brilliant new collection of ten plays for young people will prove indispensable to schools, colleges and youth theatre groups. Specially commissioned by the National Theatre for the Connections Festival 2011 involving 200 schools and youth theatre groups across the UK and Ireland, each play is accompanied by production notes and exercises. The Pied Piper re-imagined, the aftermath of genocide in Rwanda, witches in seventeenth century Norfolk, a giant baby on the rampage, an extraordinary day in an ordinary school are just some of subjects covered in the thrilling and varied new plays created by talented writers for young actors to perform in National Theatre Connections 2011. The plays in this anthology offer a huge variety of stories and styles to ignite the imagination of young casts and creative teams. Themes are both teenage and universal - ambition, dashed hopes, fear and confidence, loyalty and betrayal. These new plays embrace a huge range for their inspiration: they plunder classics and imagine the future.

Plays for Young People: Frank & Ferdinand; Gap; Cloud Busting; Those Legs; Shooting Truth; Bassett; Gargantua; Children of Killers; The Beauty Manifesto; Too Fast

National Theatre Connections 2011

"Heartbreakingly powerfula wonder of grace and beauty' - London Herald

If Destroyed True

Holding on to your virginity, getting a ring for your pains and something to believe in, that's what Dawn, Rob and Fawziya want. Ozzy, their loser PE teacher needs to believe in something too. It will all be fine when the Miracle Man gets here. Won't it? The characters are bright, fizzy and fast and on a journey heading for a great big unabashed, get-it-right-up-ye finale. This is a National Theatre of Scotland play which will be touring Scotland throughout Spring of 2010.

Miracle Man

Based on La Nona by Roberto Cossa Yer Granny is a riotous new comedy about a diabolical 100-year-old granny who’s literally eating her family out of house and home. She’s already eaten their fish and chip shop into bankruptcy and now she’s working her way through their kitchen cupboards, pushing the Russo family to desperate measures just to survive beyond 1977. As proud head of the family, Cammy is determined that The Minerva Fish Bar will rise again and that family honour will be restored – and all in time for the Queen’s upcoming Jubilee visit. But before Cammy’s dream can come true and before Her Maj can pop in for a chat, a single sausage and a royal seal of approval, the family members must ask themselves how far they will go to solve a problem like Yer Granny.

Yer Granny

Our Bad Magnet is an unashamedly dark and deliciously funny play from one of Scotland's brightest young writing talents, in which the boundaries between fantasy and reality merge with unpredictable results. Centering on an uneasy reunion, Our Bad Magnet follows the progress of four boys from 9 to 29 as they try to unlock the secrets of childhood and memory. Throw in 1980s indie music, a ventriloquist's dummy, some magical fairy stories and the word 'nimston', and you have an hilarious black comedy which isn't afraid to make you think while you're laughing out loud.

Our Bad Magnet

Anyone can learn maps and battles. Geezer, I feel it! I live it! I'm giving everything to this beautiful, wild, absolutely pure British thing. Like, do you know what it took to get here, man? Stevie is a disillusioned academic who once wrote an unfashionable book on youth movements in Britain, now struggling to cope after a painful break-up. His misery is interrupted by Jimmy who lands unexpectedly on his doorstep beaming with excitement. Jimmy is 100% Mod: oversized military parka, fitted Italian suit, dessy boots, pork pie hat. The full package. Jimmy is seeking asylum in the UK. With just a few days before the substantive interview that's going to decide his fate, the stakes are high. So he came up with a brilliant plan. A plan that's going to work against all odds. It has to work. He can't go back. And Stevie has an important part to play.

I Can Go Anywhere

High summer in Glasgow’s Southside and a heatwave bears down on the residents of Govanhill, driving them off the streets. Tensions are running high and fantasy and reality are becoming blurred. Fighting to reclaim their neighbourhood, the lives of a sleep-deprived new parent and his civic-minded wife begin to unravel. Meanwhile an ambitious Hutchie boy, a pair of young missionaries, a performance artist and her alter ego and an unscrupulous property manager, are forced to confront their monsters.

Douglas Maxwell

Books

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