David Edgar

David Edgar is a leading UK playwright, author of many original plays and adaptations. He also pioneered the teaching of playwriting in the UK, founding the Playwriting Studies course at Birmingham University in 1989.

His plays include: A Christmas Carol, adapted from the story by Charles Dickens (Royal Shakespeare Company, 2017); If Only (Minerva Theatre, Chichester, 2013); Written on the Heart (RSC, 2011); a version of Ibsen's The Master Builder (Minerva Theatre, Chichester, 2013); Arthur and George, adapted from the novel by Julian Barnes (Birmingham Rep & Nottingham Playhouse, 2010); Testing the Echo (Out of Joint, 2008); A Time to Keep, written with Stephanie Dale (Dorchester Community Players, 2007); Playing With Fire (National Theatre, 2005); Continental Divide (US, 2003); The Prisoner's Dilemma (RSC, 2001); Albert Speer, based on Gitta Sereny's biography of Hitler's architect (National Theatre, 2000); Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde (Birmingham Rep, 1996); Pentecost (RSC, 1994); The Shape of the Table (National Theatre, 1990); Maydays (1983); The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (RSC, 1980); Destiny (1976); and The National Interest (1971).

His work for television includes adaptations of Destiny, screened by the BBC in 1978, The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs, televised by the BBC in 1981, and The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, televised by Channel 4 in 1982, as well as the plays Buying a Landslide (1992) and Vote for Them (1989). He is also the author of the radio plays Ecclesiastes (1977), A Movie Starring Me (1991), Talking to Mars (1996) and an adaptation of Eve Brook's novel The Secret Parts (2000). He wrote the screenplay for the film Lady Jane (1986).

He is the author of How Plays Work (Nick Hern Books, 2009; revised 2021) and The Second Time as Farce: Reflections on the Drama of Mean Times (1988), and editor of The State of Play: Playwrights on Playwriting (2000). He was Resident Playwright at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in 1974-5 (Board Member from 1985), Fellow in Creative Writing at Leeds Polytechnic, Bicentennial Arts Fellow (US) (1978-9) and was Literary Consultant for the RSC (1984-8, Honorary Associate Artist, 1989). He founded the University of Birmingham's MA in Playwriting Studies in 1989 and was its director until 1999. He was appointed Professor of Playwriting Studies in 1995.

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Arthur & George (stage version)

The gripping story of the sensational, real-life case in which Sir Arthur Conan Doyle found himself playing detective.

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The Master Builder

An enthralling version of an unforgettable Ibsen classic.

Written on the Heart

An enthralling historical drama about the creation of the King James Bible, commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company to mark its four-hundredth anniversary.

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Edgar: Shorts

A collection of shorter plays from stage and television by one of the UK's foremost political playwrights.

The Shape of the Table

An urgent political play about the collapse of an Eastern Bloc government at the end of 1989. Part of David Edgar's post-Cold War trilogy of plays.

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Pentecost

A valuable mural is discovered in a church in war-torn Eastern Europe. Part of David Edgar's trilogy of plays about post-Communist Eastern Europe.

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (stage version)

A superb adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's famous story of the unassuming Dr Jekyll and his dark alter-ego Mr Hyde.

Albert Speer

A panoramic historical drama about the man whose devotion to Hitler blinded him to the worst crime of the twentieth century, drawing closely on Gita Sereny's definitive and magisterial biography of Albert Speer.

Testing the Echo

A timely, provocative and witty look at the campaign to redefine Britishness for a multicultural society.

A Time to Keep

A large-scale historical romp in the terrain between Jane Austen and Charles Dickens.

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The Prisoner's Dilemma

An urgently topical account of a bloody conflict on Europe's Eastern borders. The third in David Edgar's post-Cold War trilogy.

Continental Divide: two plays

In this two-play cycle set against the background of a bitterly fought American governor's election, David Edgar explores what has happened to the revolutionary fervour which took hold of both the Right and the Left in the 1960s, and how it has been carried over into the politics of today.

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