Wearing its influences on its sleeve, <i>One Hand Clapping</i> is an enjoyable if bitter-sweet portrait of the struggling sanctity of lifetime togetherness amidst the darker side of convenience culture. Daringly surreal and innovatively executed.

What's On Stage

Sometimes when I’m at work and waiting for customers I think about the two of us living like kings and not bothering about the future. Because there may not be any future to bother about, you know. Not for anybody, one of these days. And it’s a wicked world.

Average couple Janet and Howard's lives begin to unravel when Howard's photographic memory helps win him a gameshow fortune.

Janet doesn’t want their lives to change that much. She’s quite happy working at the supermarket, cooking for her husband three times a day and watching quiz shows in the evening.

But once Howard unleashes his photographic brain on the world, the once modest used-car salesman can’t seem to stop.

And what he sees as the logical conclusion to his success isn’t something Janet can agree to.

Burgess's 1961 darkly comic satire of drab English consumerism is adapted for the stage by Lucia Cox. This edition was published to coincide with the US premiere at the Brits Off-Broadway Festival, at 59E59 Theatre, New York, in May 2015.

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From the writer of<i> A Clockwork Orange</i> comes a dark comic tale of an American Dream turned nightmare in England, adapted by Lucia Cox from the original novel.
This edition was published to coincide with the US premiere at the Brits Off-Broadway Festival at 59E59 Theatre in May 2015
The Modern Plays series is world famous for containing the work of many of the finest contemporary playwrights. Established in 1959 with the publication of Shelagh Delaney's A Taste of Honey, it remains a series synonymous with the very best in new writing for the stage. Today it features over 1000 plays and continues to grow alongside the staging of new work.
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Product details

ISBN
9781474253802
Published
2015-03-09
Publisher
Vendor
Methuen Drama
Weight
68 gr
Height
198 mm
Width
129 mm
Age
G, 01
Language
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet
Number of pages
64

Adapted by

Biographical note

Anthony Burgess was born in Manchester in 1917. He was an author, poet, playwright, composer, linguist, translator and critic. Diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour in 1959, Burgess became a full-time writer and went on to write a book a year up until his death in 1993. His many works include: The Complete Enderby, Tremor of Intent and The Kingdom of the Wicked, as well as works for the stage such as Blooms of Dublin: A Musical Play Based On James Joyce's Ulysses (1986), and an adaptation of his own novel, A Clockwork Orange, produced in 1987.

Lucia Cox has a BA (Hons) in Acting and a Masters in Creative Writing. She has performed in theatre, film and on TV. She has written short films and for the theatre and for BBC Learning for which she is a regular contributor. She has also taught Acting and Creative Writing workshops at MMU and Manchester College.