NHB Modern Plays

The NHB Modern Plays series features the pick of modern and contemporary plays from leading UK and international playwrights. Championing quality, accessibility and diversity, it takes the best writing for the stage and gives it enduring life on the page.

Showing 19-36 of 1,565 items.

The Custom of the Country

Fletcher and Massinger's bawdy Jacobean drama is transposed to 1890s Johannesburg.

Published in volume Nicholas Wright: Five Plays

    The Desert Air

    A wartime comedy set in Cairo.

    Published in volume Nicholas Wright: Five Plays

      One Fine Day

      A play about the gulf that separates Britain and Black Africa.

      Published in volume Nicholas Wright: Five Plays

        Writer's Cramp

        The debut play from the author of The Slab Boys and Tutti Frutti, taking satirical swipes at Anglo-Scottish cultural pretensions.

        Published in volume Scot-Free

          Your Turn to Clean the Stair

          A comically sinister study of the tensions in an Edinburgh tenement.

            Bird

            A cutting-edge monologue that throws light on the experience of a teenager in contemporary Britain, from one of the country's most exciting young playwrights.

              Gypsy Girl

              A monologue first performed by Laura Lomas at Soho Theatre, London, on 5 October 2009 as part of Paines Plough's LATER programme.

                Where I'm From

                A monologue play about a woman on the day of her release from prison.

                  The Naked Eye

                  A short monologue play from the author of Jerusalem.

                  Published in volume Jez Butterworth Plays: One

                    Leavings

                    A short monologue play from the author of Jerusalem.

                    Published in volume Jez Butterworth Plays: One

                      Abortive

                      A couple in bed discuss the effect on them of the woman's recent abortion.

                      Published in volume Caryl Churchill: Shorts

                        The After-Dinner Joke

                        A short play satirising the charity business, written for television. First broadcast on BBC One as part of the BBC's Play for Today series.

                        Published in volume Caryl Churchill: Shorts

                          The Hospital at the Time of the Revolution

                          A forensic insight into the adjustment of morality for the sake of conscience.

                          Published in volume Caryl Churchill: Shorts

                            Hot Fudge

                            The competitive games of various professionals and their spouses present an amoral world where money is all and lies are the only truth.

                            Published in volume Caryl Churchill: Shorts

                              The Judge's Wife

                              A short play about justice and retribution, first seen as a BBC television drama.

                              Published in volume Caryl Churchill: Shorts

                                Lovesick

                                A therapist practices aversion therapy to rid his patients of sexual/romantic obsessions which interfere with their lives.

                                Published in volume Caryl Churchill: Shorts

                                  Not Not Not Not Not Enough Oxygen

                                  A short play set in a dystopian future, where a couple in a tower block hide from the violence and pollution outside.

                                  Published in volume Caryl Churchill: Shorts

                                    Schreber's Nervous Illness

                                    A short play based on the memoirs of a judge who spent ten years in asylums as a schizophrenic.

                                    Published in volume Caryl Churchill: Shorts