This is the first collection from groundbreaking playwright Alistair McDowall, "an exceptionally talented and fast-rising writer. Still only in his twenties, this writer is surely going places. Whatever he dreams up next, his name will almost certainly be in lights at the Royal Court soon, if not at the National Theatre." (The Times) Having won a Judges Award at the Bruntwood Prize in 2011 and been shortlisted for the Writers' Guild Best Play Award in 2013, Alistair McDowall is one of the most exciting playwrights of this generation. The anthology features the play that brought McDowall to people's attention, Brilliant Adventures, up to his latest major play, Pomona, that received ecstatic reviews, transferred to the National Theatre, and hailed him as one of the most important playwrights of this generation. It also includes two previously unpublished plays. Brilliant Adventures (Royal Exchange/Live Theatre, 2013) is a fast paced tale of brotherhood, addiction and breaking the laws of physics. It won McDowall a Bruntwood Prize. Captain Amazing (Live Theatre, 2013) is a funny and poignant one-man show that thrusts us into the life of Britain's only part-time superhero. Talk Show (Royal Court, 2013) is black comedy about talking and transmission. It was premiered as part of the Royal Court's Open Court season and has not previously been published. Pomona (Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama/Orange Tree Theatre, 2014) is a sinister and surreal thriller, which takes as its setting Manchester's Pomona - an abandoned concrete island at the heard of the city; a place where journeys end and nightmares are born. The anthology is introduced by the author and includes a foreword by Olivier-award-winning playwright Simon Stephens.

“McDowall masterfully plants ideas that grow until they explode into extraordinary shapes. Filthy humour breaks down into a cracked algorithm of letters and loss ... a play that will gnaw away at you. It's sci-fi – and theatre – at its best.” The Stage Billions of miles from home, the lone research base on Pluto has lost contact with Earth. Unable to leave or send for help, the skeleton crew sit waiting. Waiting. Waiting long enough for time to start eating away at them. To lose all sense of it. To start seeing things in the dark outside. X premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in 2016. This new Modern Classics edition features an introduction by Dr Cristina Delgado-García.

People find me. When it's dark. 1863. An asylum. A woman locked in a windowless cell, with no memory as to who she is, or how she arrived there. When spiritualist medium Mrs Lyall requires a new assistant, this nameless woman seems the perfect candidate. But as the woman's past begins to reveal itself, so do new powers neither are prepared for. Alistair McDowall's haunting new play The Glow was the 2018 Pinter Commission, an award given annually by Lady Antonia Fraser to support a new commission at the Royal Court Theatre. This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere at London's Royal Court Theatre in January 2022.

I think I'd sleep a lot easier if I knew none of us would wake up tomorrow. Ollie's sister is missing. Searching Manchester in desperation, she finds all roads lead to Pomona - an abandoned concrete island at the heart of the city. Here at the centre of everything, journeys end and nightmares are born. A sinister and surreal thriller from Alistair McDowall, Pomona received its world premiere at the Orange Tree Theatre, London, on 12 November 2014.

Nineteen-year-old science genius Luke finally has some peace to work on the extraordinary box in his living room, holed up in a dingy flat on a near-abandoned Middlesbrough housing estate. After his unbalanced brother Rob introduces him to a wealthy out-of-towner they're thrown into a dangerous world that threatens to tear the brothers apart and unleash the power inside his invention. Brilliant Adventures is a fast paced tale of brotherhood, addiction and breaking the laws of physics.

My dad is a superhero. No one else knows 'cos it has to stay a secret. Alistair McDowall's play is a funny and poignant one-man show that thrusts us into the life of Britain's only part-time superhero. Struggling to balance his family responsibilities and more conventional job with defeating super-villains and rescuing families from burning buildings, Captain Amazing represents how all parents strive to be heroes in the eyes of their children. Discover this man's origins, his family life, and how even the invincible aren't immune to tragedy. Captain Amazing received its world premiere at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2013, starring Mark Weinman, and directed by Clive Judd. It was revived for a national tour from March 2014. '[He] is the kind of man you wouldn't look twice at in the street: balding; stooped; tentative. He's skating over the surface of life, marking time with his job at B&Q, barely acquiring possessions, not speaking to his alcoholic father. And then he meets a woman who does look twice at him; who gives birth to their daughter, Emily, and suddenly Emily is convinced that her beloved father is a superhero.' Daily Telegraph

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