Keith Waterhouse is one of Britain’s most popular writers in nearly every field. This collection brings together for the first time his most celebrated plays from a career spanning more than forty years. Our Song is a warm, tender, romantic drama, infused with moments of great humour. Pulling himself out of the rut of his middle-aged executive lifestyle, Roger Piper stumbles into a sixteen-month tempestuous affair. Billy Liar tells the story of a funeral parlour worker with a humdrum life, who spends most of his time dreaming of ways to escape his drab existence in Yorkshire. Adapted from his celebrated novel. Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell Gambler, journalist, fervent alcoholic, four-times married Jeffrey Bernard writes the‘Low Life’ column for the Spectator magazine. Locked in The Coach and Horses in Soho overnight, he has time to reflect on a dissolute life. Good Grief is a sensitive, wryly humorous study of a middle-aged widow, coming to terms with bereavement, who finds the courage to break with the past. Mr and Mrs Nobody is an adaptation of George and Weedon Grossmith’s comic novel The Diary Of A Nobody and Mrs Pooter’s Diary. A respectable Victorian clerk has lofty social aspirations.

'Among the few great writers of our time' Independent 'An exceptionally talented novelist' Sunday Times 'Remarkable for the deep and unwavering insight it gives into child behaviour' The Times Seen through the eyes of a young boy living on a council estate in a northern town, a pre-war childhood emerges that is universal in its everyday adventures, shifting allegiances, mysteries and occasional tragedy. Yet it is also one that is rooted firmly in a bygone era of innocence. Acclaimed on its first publication, There is a Happy Land marked the debut of a brilliant new talent and is now seen as a much-loved classic.

This volume of Twentieth-Century Italian Drama covers the period spanning from the end of the nineteenth century to that immediately following World War II, displaying the rich breadth of Italian theater in the modern age, from the comedic legacy carried on by such writers as Eduardo De Filippo to the delicate tragedy of playwrights like Federigo Tozzi.Included are seven full-length plays, five one-act plays, one variety sketch, and three futurist sintesi (sketches). Brief introductions preceding each play contextualize the piece within the various movements in Italian theater, and biographies of the editors and translators appear at the end of the volume. An extensive bibliography offers many suggestions for further reading in English.The playwrights included are Gabriele D'Annunzio, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Ettore Petrolini, Raffaele Viviani, Pier Maria Rosso di San Secondo, Federigo Tozzi, Massimo Bontempelli, Achille Campanile, Italo Svevo, Luigi Pirandello, Eduardo De Filippo, and Ugo Betti.

(Applause Books). For six decades, Harold Clurman illuminated our artistic, social, and political awareness in thousands of reviews, essays, and lectures. His work appeared indefatigably in The Nation, The New Republic, The London Observer, The New York Times, Harper's, Esquire, New York Magazine , and more. The Collected Works of Harold Clurman captures over six hundred of Clurman's encounters with the most significant events in American theatre as well as his regular passionate embraces of dance, music, art and film. This chronological epic offers the most comprehensive view of American theatre seen through the eyes of our most extraordinary critic. 1102 pages, hardcover.

The classic comedy of a 50s youth trapped inside a Walter Mitty fantasy-world, published as a Penguin Essential for the first time. Keith Waterhouse's Billy Liar was published in 1959, and captures brilliantly the claustrophobic atmosphere of a small town. It tells the story of Billy Fisher, a Yorkshire teenager unable to stop lying - especially to his three girlfriends. Trapped by his boring job and working-class parents, Billy finds that his only happiness lies in grand plans for his future and fantastical day-dreams of the fictional country Ambrosia.

Gambler, journalist, fervent alcoholic and four-times married Jeffrey Bernard writes the "Low Life" column for the Spectator magazine chronicling Soho life as well as offering a very personal philosophy on vodka, women and race-courses. From this, Keith Waterhouse has brilliantly constructed a play (the title being the euphemism used by the Spectator when Bernard is incapable of writing his column) which is set in the saloon bar of Bernard's favourite Soho pub, the Coach and Horses. Having passed out in the lavatory, Bernard awakes in the early hours of the morning to find himself alone and in the dark. Unable to contact the landlord, he is resigned to spending the rest of the night with a bottle of vodka and an endless chain of cigarettes, narrating a story of hilarious anecdotes and witty reminiscences which are enacted by two actors and two actresses who bring to life the various characters who populate Jeff 's world. Starring Peter O'Toole, later succeeded by Tom Conti then James Bolam, the play enjoyed a hugely successful run at the Apollo Theatre, London.