Synopsis
Stephen Jeffreys - PLAYS
Published by Nick Hern Books
Included here are his first big success, Valued Friends, a comedy of manners about the property market which won both the Evening Standard and Critics' Circle Awards
A riotous farce set in the time of Elizabeth I, The Clink, in which a stand-up comedian becomes involved in the political skulduggery surrounding the ailing queen
An autobiographical drama set in 1966, A Going Concern, about a washed-up family business
And Jeffreys' smash-hit, The Libertine, a Restoration romp about the licentious Earl of Rochester, much revived and also filmed with Johnny Depp
Rounding off the volume are two previously unpublished plays:
Interruptions, inspired by Jeffreys' interest in the collective aspect of politics and his fascination with the Japanese aesthetic principle of Jo-ha-kyu
And a very likable, short autobiographical monologue, Finsbury Park
Together, all six plays represent the impressively wide range of topics and styles that Jeffreys can embrace
Above all, each one of them is intensely and enjoyably theatrical to its very core
REVIEWS
'I had the great pleasure of working with Stephen Jeffreys on his play, The Libertine. Would that all playwrights had his openness, his talent, his hard-headedness, his experience, his enthusiasm, his complexity, and perhaps best of all his talent and interest in eliciting the best in others' John Malkovich
'Stephen's plays always bear the kitemark of unique, handcrafted quality' Ian Rickson