Nick Hern Books

Plays for One Performer

Discover fringe-theatre shows turned award-winning TV series, memoir-monologues, writer-actor collaborations and so many more excellent examples of solo shows in our collection below.

If you're a theatre-maker interested in creating your own solo show, there's no better place to start than with Making Your Solo Show: The Compact Guide, by Lisa Carroll and Milly Thomas – both experienced solo-show writers, who teach popular workshops on getting to grips with the form.

Discover 10 top tips to make your solo show memorable, an extract from Lisa and Milly's book over on our blog.

Showing 19-36 of 143 items.
Burgerz

Burgerz

By Travis Alabanza

A timely, unsettling and powerful play from one of the UK's most prominent trans voices.

 

Published in volume Contemporary Plays by Black British Writers
    Cold Comfort

    Cold Comfort

    By Owen McCafferty

    A powerful monologue about an Irish labourer living in London who returns home to Belfast to have a last, drunken 'conversation' with his recently dead father.

    Published in volume Singular Male Voices
      CripTales: Six Monologues

      CripTales: Six Monologues

      By various Curated by Mat Fraser

      Six fictional monologues portraying some very real experiences of disabled people in Britain, commissioned to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the UK's Disability Discrimination Act.

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      Daughter

      Daughter

      By Adam Lazarus

      A darkly satirical monologue about fatherhood, love and toxic masculinity.

      Dean McBride

      Dean McBride

      By Sonya Hale

      A vivid and poetic monologue play about deprivation, loss and redemption through love, telling the story of Dean, a young man hardened by suffering, who struggles in life before finding his way back to happiness.

      Death and Taxes: Hydriotaphia & Other Plays

      Death and Taxes: Hydriotaphia & Other Plays

      By Tony Kushner

      A wide-ranging collection of work from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Angels in America.

      • Paperback£19.99
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      Death of a Cyclist

      Death of a Cyclist

      By Steve Waters

      A poignant, bleakly comic short monologue told by a woman killed in a cycling accident.

      Decade

      Decade

      Two towers. Ten years. Twenty plays.

      By various

      Ten years after 9/11, twenty international writers respond to the defining event of our times.

      Drawing Crosses on a Dusty Windowpane

      Drawing Crosses on a Dusty Windowpane

      By Carys D. Coburn

      A play about losing someone close to you, about the human need to remember and connect.

      Dreaming and Drowning

      Dreaming and Drowning

      By Kwame Owusu

      An intimate and visceral play that dives into the mind of a young Black queer man wrestling with anxiety. Premiered at the Bush Theatre, London, in 2023.

      Drip

      Drip

      By Tom Wells By (composer) Matthew Robins

      A one-man musical comedy about a fifteen-year-old boy who finds himself in deep water when he joins a synchronised swimming team, even though he can't swim.

      Drip Feed

      Drip Feed

      By Karen Cogan

      An infectious, dark comedy monologue play about the messiness of being young(ish), female and queer.

      Duologue

      Duologue

      By Terence Rattigan

      Terence Rattigan's Duologue is a short monologue play for a female actor in which a woman reminisces movingly about her dead husband.

      Published in volume Who is Sylvia? and Duologue
        Eight

        Eight

        By Ella Hickson

        Eight compelling monologues offering a state-of-the-nation group portrait for the stage.

        The Encounter

        The Encounter

        By Simon McBurney and Complicite

        A solo show tracing one man's journey into the Amazon rainforest and to the limits of human consciousness, inspired by the book Amazon Beaming by Petru Popescu.

        England & Son

        England & Son

        By Ed Edwards

        A one-man play about disaster capitalism, empire, Thatcherite politics, stolen youth, stolen wealth and a working-class boy who just wants his dad to smile at him. First performed by the celebrated political comedian Mark Thomas in Paines Plough's Roundabout during the 2023 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

        Fanboy

        Fanboy

        By Joe Sellman-Leava

        A five-star hit at the Edinburgh Fringe, Fanboy is a love-hate letter to pop culture and nostalgia, about a thirty-something, self-confessed nerd obsessed with Star Wars and Nintendo.

        Far Gone

        Far Gone

        By John Rwothomack

        A profoundly moving play about a young Ugandan boy's journey from childhood innocence to child soldier, seen through the eyes of those that love him and those that betray him.

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