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Candide is an optimist. A dreamer. He believes that everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. But that belief is about to be tested as Candide's comfortable life is overtaken by an endless barrage of misfortune.

First published in 1759, the story traces the journey of a young man who leads a sheltered life, believing that mankind lives in the best of all possible worlds and that everything happens for the best. But Candide's happiness comes to a sharp end when he is unfairly evicted from his uncle's castle...

This ground-breaking drama was Mark Ravenhill's first full-length play and part of a movement in the 1990s of "in your face" British theatre which frankly dealt with issues of sex and violence and pointedly challenged societal values. The play explores how consumerism has become our new value system which reduces everything else to a mere transaction, as shopping malls become the new cathedrals of Western consumerism.

The plot follows a crowd of drifters and sex traders in a seedy area of London in the 1990s. Five main characters are linked loosely and intermittently and at the...

"Ravenhill has more to say, and says it more refreshingly and wittily, than any other playwright of his generation"--Time Out

"There are few stage authors writing more interestingly than Mark Ravenhill ... He is - it is now yet more evident - a searing, intelligent, disturbing sociologist with a talent for satirical dialogue and a flair for sexual sensationalism."--Financial Times

Shopping and Fucking: "is a darkly humorous play for today's twenty-somethings ... a real coup de theatre"--Nicholas de Jongh, Evening Standard

Faust: ..".an...

This ground-breaking drama was Mark Ravenhill's first full-length play and part of a movement in the 1990s of "in your face" British theatre which frankly dealt with issues of sex and violence and pointedly challenged societal values. The play explores how consumerism has become our new value system which reduces everything else to a mere transaction, as shopping malls become the new cathedrals of Western consumerism.

The plot follows a crowd of drifters and sex traders in a seedy area of London in the 1990s. Five main characters are linked loosely and intermittently and at the...

Two bold new dramas from the author of Shopping & F***ing

The Cut
Paul is an ordinary man with a shocking secret. At home, he is a loving husband and father. At work, he administers the cut. In a society sickened by his profession, Paul struggles with his conscience and longs to tell the truth.
The Cut has its world premiere at the Donmar Warehouse, London, on 23 February 2006, starring Ian McKellan.
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'I love your work, I love it. I've seen you do those turns on a sixpence?.You're fabulous. And this material is going to be fabulous once it's punched up.' Amy is a...

A famous artist invites her old friends out to her luxurious new home and, for one night only, the group is back together. However, celebrations come to an abrupt end when the host suffers an horrific accident.

As the victim lies in a coma, an almost unthinkable plan starts to take shape: could her suffering be their next work of art? The group is ecstatic in its new found project until things slip out of their control and, to the surprise of all, the patient awakes?

pool (no water) is a visceral and shocking new play about the fragility of friendship and the jealousy...

Mark Ravenhill has established himself as one of the most important playwrights to emerge from the 1990s. Provocative, dark, witty and satirical, his plays consistently probe the debased culture of our times.

This second volume of plays brings together five plays from 2001-07. It includes Mother Clap's Molly House, a black comedy and celebration of human sexuality that premiered at the National Theatre in 2001; Citizenship, a bitter-sweet comedy about growing up that was developed by the National Theatre's Shell Connections programme in 2005; The Cut, a...

Award-winning playwright Mark Ravenhill examines the hungers releases when two countries separated by a common language, meet again. In the story when Franz's mother escaped Germany to the West with one of her identical twin boys, she left the other behind. Now, 25 years later, Karl crosses the border in search of his other half. As history takes an unexpected turn, the brothers must struggle to reconnect.

The play premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in London in 2009.

A collection of three plays for young actors written by Mark Ravenhill--Citizenship, Scenes from Family Life, and Totally Over You--each with an introduction by the author. Originally commissioned as part of the National Theatre's Connections program, these three plays were specifically written for teenagers and are ideal for young performers aged thirteen to twenty-five years old.

Written with greater warmth and humanity than you might expect from the author of notably controversial works, Ravenhill's plays for teenagers are compassionate, intelligent, and not...