NHB Most Performed Plays in 2017

Looking for inspiration? Here are some tried-and-tested plays to guarantee a sure-fire hit, have a look at this best-selling selection.

These are the most-performed plays from the first half year of 2017. As you can see Jessica Swale is contesting Amanda Whittington for the place at the top of the pyramid now. We are very proud that the top five most performed plays were all written by women, and that the ratio of female vs male playwrights overall is 7 to 3, again bucking the overall industry trend!

You must all have read Lucy Kerbel's All Change Please and made your programming decisions accordingly! Or possibly the reason for our women writer's success was that they have written plays with wonderful strong roles for women, which, as we all know, are always high in demand.

The plays include Nell Gwynn who is topping the charts with its quick-witted central character, tales of female friendship in Ladies' Day and Di and Viv and Rose to a group of students fighting for equal rights to education in Blue Stockings. There is also a great selection of fairy tales, comedies and historical drama - take your pick!

Here is the full list, in order of popularity:

• Nell Gwynn by Jessica Swale
• Ladies' Day by Amanda Whittington
• Blue Stockings by Jessica Swale
• The Thrill of Love by Amanda Whittington
• Swallows & Amazons by Arthur Ransome, adapted by Helen Edmundson and Neil Hannon
• The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, adapted by Steven Canny & John Nicholson for Peepolykus
• Kindertransport by Diane Samuels
• Di and Viv and Rose by Amelia Bullmore
• Philip Pullman's Grimm Tales by Philip Pullman, adapted by Philip Wilson
• Arabian Nights by Dominic Cooke