And Then Come the Nightjars


Book Description

South Devon, 2001. As disease ravages the countryside, local dairy vet Jeff arrives with a dire warning.




The Nightjar


Book Description

The Nightjar by Deborah Hewitt is a stunning contemporary fantasy debut about another London, a magical world hidden behind the bustling modern city we know. Alice Wyndham has been plagued by visions of birds her whole life...until the mysterious Crowley reveals that Alice is an ‘aviarist’: capable of seeing nightjars, magical birds that guard human souls. When her best friend is hit by a car, only Alice can find and save her nightjar. With Crowley’s help, Alice travels to the Rookery, a hidden, magical alternate London to hone her newfound talents. But a faction intent on annihilating magic users will stop at nothing to destroy the new aviarist. And is Crowley really working with her, or against her? Alice must risk everything to save her best friend—and uncover the strange truth about herself. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.




Nightjars of the World


Book Description

Covers all 135 known species and contains over 580 photos.




Representing the Rural on the English Stage


Book Description

This book explores how the English rural has been represented in contemporary theatre and performance. Exploring a range of plays, forms, and contexts of theatre production, Representing the Rural celebrates the lively engagement with rurality on English stages since 2000, constituting the first full study of theatrical representations of rural life. Interdisciplinary in its approach, this book draws on political philosophy and cultural geography in its definitions of rurality and Englishness, and works with key theoretical concepts such as nostalgia and ethnonationalism. Covering a range of perspectives from the country garden in Mike Bartlett’s Albion to agricultural labour in Nell Leyshon’s The Farm, the enclosure acts in D.C. Moore’s Common to Black rural history in Testament’s Black Men Walking, the book shows how theatre and performance can open up different ways of reading rural geographies, histories, and lives. While Representing the Rural is aimed at students and researchers of theatre and performance, its interdisciplinary scope means that it has wider appeal to other disciplines in the arts and humanities, including geography, politics, and history.




England’s Green


Book Description

A sweeping history of how ecological challenges have shaped English society over the last sixty years. England’s Green explores how environmental concerns have shaped and reflected English national identity since the 1960s. From agriculture to leisure, climate change, folklore, archaeology, and religion, David Matless shows how national environmental debates connect to the local, regional, global, and postcolonial worlds. Moving across a breadth of material including government policy, popular music, ecological polemic, and television comedy, England’s Green shows the richness and complexity of English environmental culture. Along the way, Matless tracks how today’s debates over climate and nature, land, and culture, have been molded by events over the past sixty years.




We Wait in Joyful Hope


Book Description

One wants to restore the image of the Church, gain back the community's trust. And as you know, this part of town has long been resistant to social progress. Otherwise Sister Bernadine wouldn't need to work so hard. Sister Bernie D'Amato doesn't look like a nun. In an oversize Bob Marley T-shirt, she smokes pot, befriends local gangs and passes out condoms to the Ukrainian prostitutes who cruise around their New Jersey slum. When the women's shelter Bernie runs comes under threat from a property developer, she vows to fight back, and recruits a teenage X-Factor wannabe and an ageing ex-nun to help. But as pressure mounts on the shelter to take their pay-out and close down, tensions start to mount in a community struggling to survive. We Wait In Joyful Hope is a funny and touching exploration of religion and capitalism in contemporary USA. Theatre503 Writer in Residence Brian Mullin delivers a sparkling 'state of the nation' debut drama. This edition is published to coincide with the play's world premiere at Theatre503, London, in May 2016.




The Greatest Play in the History of the World


Book Description

What is it that you would want to be preserved for eternity? A man wakes in the middle of the night to discover that the world has stopped. Through the crack in his bedroom curtains he can see no signs of life at all...other than a light in the house opposite where a woman in an oversized Bowie T-shirt stands, looking back at him. The Greatest Play in the History of the World is a beautifully constructed love story, set on Preston Road and also in space and in time. Presented as a monologue for one actor, it asks profound questions with deepest sincerity whilst simultaneously balancing the human quest for meaningful connections. This edition was published to coincide with the play's run at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh in summer 2018 starring Julie Hesmondhalgh.




Performing Farmscapes


Book Description

This book argues that the performance-based work in the featured case studies contributes to the construction of food democracy where the public takes back decision-making in shaping the food system. It explores how contemporary artists translate scientific research about local and global agricultural issues into life stories that inform and engage their audiences and, in so doing, transform passive food consumers into proactive food citizens. The pairing of performing and farmscapes (complex webs of farmlands and storylines) enables artists to use embodied practices to encourage audiences to imagine a just and sustainable agri-food system and to collaborate on making it a reality. The book arranges the case studies on a trajectory that moves from projects that foreground knowledge acquisition to ones that emphasize social engagement by creating conversations and coalitions between farming and nonfarming communities to a final one that pairs protest art and political activism to achieve legally-binding changes in the agricultural landscape.




Positive Stories For Negative Times, Volume Three


Book Description

Six exciting new plays by some of the best artists working in the UK today written with and for young people. Created as part of Wonder Fools' international participatory project Positive Stories for Negative Times which has reached over 8000 young people from 16 different countries including UK, South Africa, India, USA, Canada, Italy and Sweden. Co-commissioned by Wonder Fools and the Traverse Theatre these six plays offer a variety of stories, styles and forms for ages 10 to 25. These original and innovative plays are: The Day the Stampers United by Sara Shaarawi Ages 12+ Ms Campbell's Class Fifth Period by Leyla Josephine Ages 14+ And The Name for That Is?... by Robert Softley Gale Ages 16+ Are You A Robot? by Tim Crouch Ages 10+ Revolting by Bryony Kimmings Ages 13+ Thanks for Nothing by The PappyShow with Lewis Hetherington Ages 11+ Positive Stories For Negative Times was initially created in response to the lack of physical spaces for young people to participate in creative activities due to the pandemic, and instead allowing them to come together and be inspired through making new work. The project has now grown into a programme of work that includes hundreds of participating groups across the world, a youth board who dramaturg all the commissioned plays from inception to final draft, a continuing professional development programme for group leaders and four regional Scottish youth theatre festivals taking place in summer 2023. Supported by Creative Scotland, the Gannochy Trust, Hugh Fraser Foundation, William Syson Foundation, Trades House of Glasgow Commonweal Fund and Gordon Fraser Foundation. www.positivestories.scot




While We're Here


Book Description

Eddie and Carol were lovers once, but their lives went in different directions. Now they meet again on a park bench in a town full of memories, and find something still burns between them. Critics Circle and Offwestend Award-winning playwright and novelist Barney Norris has been heralded as 'one of our most exciting young writers' (Times), 'a rare and precious talent' (Evening Standard), 'a writer of grace and luminosity' (Stage) who is 'fast turning into the quiet voice of Britain' (British Theatre Guide).