Will Self

John Arden

An international financier and his young apprentice form the center of a wickedly acute story of capitalism run amuck, in a society in which consumerism, violence, and psychosis are the norm and the human soul becomes the ultimate product. Reprint.

Plays

"This is spell-binding, mind-challenging drama that touches greatness: and what is more, it is written in that wonderful Arden language that seems to be hewn out of granite." Michael Billington (The Guardian)

Sergeant Musgrave's Dance

Three plays--a social drama, a melodrama, and a history--presented with a preface by the author, a celebrated British dramatist

THE REAL PATH TO BRAIN HEALTH--BASED ON CUTTING-EDGE BRAIN SCIENCE Let's face it: you want to keep your brain in great shape. But But how do you sift through the clutter of information and media coverage in order to find the facts? The Brain Bible One of today's leading experts on brain health, Dr. John Arden tells it straight: There is no single remedy for maintaining sharpmindedness into old age. But there are a lot of things you can do that, over the course of time, will work wonders. It's not about adding one activity or breaking one habit--it's about making many small, simple changes in your everyday routine. Dr. Arden culls the latest findings in neuroscience, cognitive psychology, gerontology, and many other sciences and puts them all together into a smart, actionable, science-based plan. Basing his conclusions on cutting-edge research, Dr. Arden has broken down the vast amount of confusing and sometimes conflicting brain data into the five crucial Brain Bible factors you need to be mindful of: Education - Read and keep your brain active Diet - What you eat and drink directly affects your brain health Exercise - Starting a fitness routine is simpler than you think Relationships - The love of friends and family has a strong healing power Sleep - Get enough but not too much sleep Here are just a few samples of Dr. Arden's tips for improving your brain health: Drink water even when you're not thirsty Take the stairs instead of the elevator Laugh a lot Don't drink alcohol before going to bed Eat fish at least twice a week If you want to keep your brain sharp--and who doesn't?--The Brain Bible is packed with the simple lifestyle changes you will want to make. After exploring the five Brain Bible factors, Dr. Arden shares indispensable advice on how to lower your everyday stress level. Then he provides the 7-Day Brain Bible Jumpstart Plan you can use to start changing your lifestyle and improving your brain today. The Brain Bible can help make your brain--and your life--better than ever. PRAISE FOR THE BRAIN BIBLE: "Successful aging just doesn't happen--it takes knowledge, wisdom, and action. Read this book and let Dr. John Arden take you on a fascinating and very human journey through the science and steps to healthy aging." -- Louis Cozolino, PhD, Pepperdine University, author of The Neuroscience of Human Relationships and The Neuroscience of Psychotherapy "In The Brain Bible, Dr. John Arden provides an uplifting read.... This book is as scientifically rigorous as it is lively and accessible, and it is peppered with fascinating stories about real people and the things they do or do not do that affect their health and longevity. Building on the latest biomedical and psychosocial research, Arden beautifully describes the lifestyle factors we can control that have enormous effects on the length and quality of our lives. This is a must-read." -- Ian H. Robertson, PhD, Trinity College, author of The Winner Effect "This book translates the latest developments from the abstruse world of the neurological sciences into accessible, real-world guidance for those who are sharp enough to choose to remain sharp. Essential reading." -- John Soderlund, counseling psychologist and publishing editor, New Therapist "If you want to redefine the aging process so you can be what you want to be instead of what you have observed, read this book to have ample guidance for healthy longevity." -- Charlotte A. Tomaino, PhD, author of Awakening the Brain

The Brain Bible: How to Stay Vital, Productive, and Happy for a Lifetime

Margaretta D'Arcy

A Play on a Traditional British Theme in Three Parts

The Island of the Mighty

A Play about a Play Within the Play : Written for Radio

Pearl

John Arden presents a collection of fables, legends and vignettes, from revolutionary murmurs in 14th-century Yorkshire and the pomp of Sheridan's theatreland, to unfulfilled ambitions and doubtful affiliations in modern-day Ireland.

Nine Stories

The Stealing Steps

Set between 1860 and 1880, four deserters bring the body of a dead soldier back to his home town, a mining community in the grip of a coal strike and cut off by snow. Their leader, Serjeant Musgrave, plans to hold the town at gunpoint and confront its people with the realities of warfare. Arden's play questions the military principle of "Obey or suffer" and the cruelty and futility of war. Serjeant Musgrave's Dance was first performed at the Royal Court Theatre in 1959.This volume contains expert notes on the author's life and work, historical and political background to the play and a glossary of difficult words and phrases.

Serjeant Musgrave's Dance

Seven Tall Tales Linked Together for an Indecorous Toy Theatre

Jack Juggler and the Emperor's Whore

'The modern English theatre has had its poets and it has had its dramatists but in John Arden it has acquired its first dramatic poet since - well, let's be rash - the days of Shakespeare.' - Sunday Times. The Waters of Babylon: 'This wild, acidly funny and oddly tragic story of London low-life... reveals Arden's tough linguistic freedom and the free-wheeling ease with which he switches from prose to verse and back again' Sunday Times Live Like Pigs: 'Thrilling theatre... a rumbustious delight, outrageously funny, powerfully dramatic and, when you least expect it, genuinely moving... a modern classic' Daily Telegraph The Happy Haven (written with Margaretta D'Arcy): 'This rare and excellent revival perfectly reflects the play's bizarre atmosphere, its potent mixture of farcical prose, rhymed poetry, its marked avoidance of schematic moral codes' Time Out Serjeant Musgrave's Dance: 'A modern classic... a white-hot piece of work... Since its first appearance in 1959, the play has advanced towards us as if in a slow prophetic march' The Times Also included in the volume is When is a Door not a Door?, a one-act 'industrial episode'.

Waters of Babylon; When is a Door...; Live Like Pigs; Serjeant Musgrave's Dance; The Happy Haven

Arden Plays: 1

DramaOnline

'The Business of Good Government' was written for and first performed in 1960 in the village of Brent Knoll, Somerset. Telling the traditional story of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, it focuses less on the divine and miraculous, and more on the geopolitical forces at play in Herod's kingdom. Under threat of Roman invasion from the west and Persian invasion from the East, Herod is disconcerted to receive a party of Persian delegates, wise men, whom he fears are spies for his neighbour. Realising the threat that might come from a child born which might match and ancient prophecy, he issues an edict to slaughter all males aged under two-years-old. In spite of this heinous crime, the play presents a not altogether unsympathetic portrait of that infamous king, in whom echoes of calculated government policy in modern times can perhaps be seen.

The Business of Good Government

A Christmas Play

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Ironhand

A Romantic Melodrama

The Hero Rises Up

The Stealing Steps is a collection of fables, legends and vignettes, from revolutionary murmurs in 14th-century Yorkshire and the pomp of Sheridan's theatreland, to unfulfilled ambitions and doubtful affiliations in modern-day Ireland. These nine stories, which include the V.S. Pritchett award-winning Breach of Trust, are lavish, bawdy tales of love, age, betrayal and the astonishing acts of individual men and women. Arden's protagonists are failed artists, poets, writers and storytellers, who dictate from the margins and through time, a history that is not that of kings and queens, but of the forces underpinning human nature.

"Arden is to me a writer a bit like Shakespeare in approach, in that the writing not only has to convey...the dialogue of characters speaking together, but also has to carry the sense of the social environment and the texture of people's lives." This second volume of John Arden's plays includes works from the 1960s. Armstrong's Last Goodnight, although set in 16th century Scotland, sheds new light on the experience of conscript soldiers at the tail end of colonialism in the 1960s; The Workhouse Donkey presents "not just a kaleidoscopic portrait of a living community; it also has the moral uncertainty of life itself" (Michael Billington The Guardian). Left-handed Liberty anatomises the disintegration of the feudal system under King John; while The True History of Squire Jonathan and his Unfortunate Treasure and the radio play The Bagman are based on real incidents, personal and political in Arden's own life. "Arden is a giant of modern playwriting. He writes on an epic scale that few have attained since, the plays tumble into action, and with vivid human response." (Dominic Dromgoole)

The Workhouse Donkey, Armstrong's Last Goodnight, Left-Handed Liberty, The True History of Squire Jonathan and his Unfortunate Treasure, The Bagman

Arden Plays: 2

Subtitle: some events at the time of the failure of a Republic. While following a man's adventures across Asia Minor to Rome in the first century BC, the reader gets a glimpse of a world in turmoil under the heel of colonial ambition.

Some Events at the Time of the Failure of a Republic

Silence Among the Weapons

This collection brings together some of the best and most frequently performed plays by John Arden and Margaretta D'Arcy whose collaboration stems from the political years of the Sixties The Business of Good Government is a nativity play which develops a sense of a disappearing community; Ars Longa Vita Brevis is composed out of children's games and The Royal Pardon tells the story of the adventures of a group of strolling players who fall in with a deserter from the war in Flanders. Other plays in this collection such as Little Gray Home in the West and The Vandaleur's Folly arise from the highly charged political arena of the 1970s in Ireland. Arden and D'Arcy have been consistently interested in using drama to extend the very boundaries of national identity and human freedom.

John Arden

Books

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