Darke Plays: 1 - (Contemporary Dramatists) by Nick Darke (Paperback)

About the Book

A new volume of plays by a contemporary dramatist who has suddenly come back into fashion.

Book Synopsis

"Passionately satirical and sharply observant, he is one of the most interesting of our playwrights" (Sunday Telegraph)

The Dead Monkey - "Darke has something both hilarious and horrific to say about the decay of a marriage and he compels the attention while doing so." (Sunday Telegraph)The King of Prussia - "A meaty play...seethes with life, wit and ideas. Darke give shape to a Cornish identity that feels vital and real and has nothing to do with clay pipes and clotted cream. Like Cornwall's coves, it has many unexpected depths...It also raises questions about the points where justice, conscience and the law part company" (Financial Times)The Body - "The best moments in Nick Darke's play are extremely good - and not all good in the same way...the most obvious debt is to Brecht. There are other reminiscences of Auden and Isherwood's The Dog Beneath the Skin, of Tom Stoppard's After Magritte and of T.S Eliot's verse plays."Tin Tang Mine - "A lament for an industry and a way of life; but this should not suggest anything sentimental. The writing is rugged and muscular; lyrical but not ornate; vigorous but not folksy...oddball, quirkily parochial and as authentic as a slice of rough bread." (The Times)

From the Back Cover

A new volume of plays by a contemporary dramatist, Nick Darke, has suddenly come back into fashion. The Dead Monkey, a play set in California, was re-staged in London's West End in the fall of 1998. The King of Prussia is a rich and good-humored work that navigates Cornish identity with admirable stealth. The Body is an anti-nuclear play and a madcap rural comedy about a body rising from the dead and wreaking havoc. Ting Tang Mine is a lament for a rural way of life destroyed by urbanization. The author introduces the volume.

Review Quotes

"Passionately satirical and sharply observant, he is one of the most interesting of our playwrights." --Sunday Telegraph