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$26.31 ex GST
$28.94 inc GST
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Jack Thorne
2nd May 1997. An historic victory. The Tories, eighteen years in
power, are defeated as New Labour sweeps into government. From the
euphoria and despair, three deeply personal stories emerge.
Tory
MP Robert prepares to attend the count. With defeat looming large, he
fears becoming a forgotten man, while his wife Marie counts the cost of
her own sacrifice to politics. Lib Dem footsoldier Ian is no hero, but
party-crasher Sarah is determined to make him one. Best mates Jake and
Will wake up with a new world order to memorise before their A-level
Politics class. Jake dreams of Number 10. Will dreams of Jake
A smouldering play about escaping the past, seizing the present and owning the future.
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Nick Hern Books | 978-1-84842-080-9 | PB
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$36.32 ex GST
$39.95 inc GST
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Lyn Haill (ed)
In 1986, Peter Gill, the then director of the National Theatre Studio, sent a group of young actors to interview their seniors about speaking on stage. The transcripts provide fascinating insights into the theatre of the past, but they also show how little has changed: the actor’s primary tools are still the body and voice. Actors interviewed include Harry Andrews, Alec Guinness, Rex Harrison, Robert Stephens and Margaret Tyzack, with notes from John Gielgud. Peter Gill provides an introduction.
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Oberon Books | 978-1-84002-776-1 | PB
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$26.31 ex GST
$28.94 inc GST
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Six Polemics on Religion and an Essay on Kindness
A C Grayling
Do religions have an inherent right to be respected? Is atheism itself a form of religion, and can there be such a thing as a ‘fundamentalist atheist’? Are we witnessing a global revival in religious zeal, or do the signs point instead to religion’s ultimate decline?
In a series of bold, unsparing polemics, world renowned philosopher A C Grayling tackles these questions head on, exposing the dangerous unreason he sees at the heart of religious faith and highlighting the urgent need we have to reject it in all its forms, without compromise. In its place, he argues for a set of values based on reason, reflection and sympathy, taking his cue from the great ethical tradition of western philosophy.
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Oberon Books | 978-1-84002-727-3 | HB
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$15.41 ex GST
$16.95 inc GST
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Catharine Lumby
‘A wonderful read: I feel like I've been excavated and carbon dated.’
Graeme Blundell
One of the seminal films of the 1970s,
Alvin Purple depicts Alvin’s struggles with his irresistibility to women—from his school days and time as a waterbed salesman to his short-lived career as a sex therapist. The ‘definitive ocker comedy’,
Alvin Purple survived a critical mauling and went on to become the most commercially successful Australian film of the 1970s.
Catharine Lumby takes a fresh look at the film, the social and political era in which it was made and the forces that fuelled its success. She revisits claims that the movie is little more than an exercise in sexploitation and argues that the film is far more complex than its detractors have allowed.
See other titles in Currency's Australian Screen Classics Series.
Interviews and reviews:
To read our author interview with Catharine Lumby, click here.
Read an extract of
Alvin Purple (pdf)
An extract of Catharine Lumby's critique has also been published in the
Australian. To read, click here.
To read Philip O'Brien's article for the
Canberra Times, click here.
'this admirably lucid and wide-ranging study ... is another feather in the cap of a generally provocative series.' Brian McFarlane, Senses of Cinema. To read the article, click here.
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Currency Press | 978-0-86819-844-6 | PB
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$26.32 ex GST
$28.95 inc GST
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Peter Gill
Apprenticeship is Peter Gill’s potent recollection of the changing theatrical landscape of the 1960s and his journey from being a young actor to becoming a world-renowned director and playwright. Using his recently re-discovered 1962 diary, he recalls being in
The Caucasian Chalk Circle, as part of the first RSC London season, and how this experience began to develop his own ideas of what theatre might be.
Gill explores his reaction to that apprenticeship in the context of young directors training today. An experience the diary shows to have been at times "baffling and exhilarating and sometimes frankly awful", it nevertheless produces an evocative portrait of post war British theatre and the profound impact of the work of Brecht and the Berliner Ensemble on theatre and on Gill's own subsequent work.
Apprenticeship is also, in part, the story of a young actor trying to understand what the theatre is and, in the process, moving towards becoming a director.
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Oberon Books | 978-1-84002-871-3 | HB
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$54.55 ex GST
$60.01 inc GST
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Murray Melvin (Editor)
The publication of this title coincides with a major exhibition at the National Theatre in London. This is a photographic record of the work of Joan Littlewood's famous Theatre Workshop, based at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East.
In the 1950's and 60's the company was responsible for some of the most famous and influential work of modern British theatre such as
The Quare Fellow and
The Hostage both by Brendan Behan;
A Taste of Honey by Shelagh Delaney;
Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'be by Frank Norman, music by Lionel Bart; and the massive success of
Oh, What a Lovely War.
Joan Littlewood, considered
‘one of the great creative forces of British theatre in the 1950s and 1960s and one of the great figures of political theatre in this country [UK]’, left an enduring legacy which is celebrated in this volume.
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Oberon Books | 978-1-84002-691-7 | PB
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$45.41 ex GST
$49.95 inc GST
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His Plays, People and Politics
Alan Shelley
A playwright whose work is appreciated on a global scale, Athol Fugard’s plays have done more to document and provide a cultural commentary on Apartheid-era South Africa than any other writer in the last century. Using mostly migrant workers and township dwellers, and staging guerrilla-raid productions in black areas, Fugard frequently came into conflict with the government, forcing him to take his work overseas. Consequently, powerful plays such as
The Blood Knot,
Sizwe Banzi is Dead, and
Master Harold... and the boys came to broadcast the inequities of the Apartheid-era to the world. Fugard’s work retains an insistent influence, and is studied and performed the world over.
Alan Shelley’s study is an accessible but profound analysis of the man, his work and its influence, the social injustices that drive him, and the lives of those who people his remarkable plays.
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Oberon Books | 978-1-84002-821-8 | PB
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$27.23 ex GST
$29.95 inc GST
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Brian Adams & Graham Shirley
Both chronological and thematic, this is a comprehensive history of the Australian film industry—covering the pioneering days of the silent era, the move into sound in the 1930s, the spectacular revival from 1965 onwards and international recognition in the 1980s.
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Currency Press | 978-0-86819-232-1 | PB
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$19.95 $4.54 ex GST
$21.95 $4.99 inc GST
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The Story of the Harmonica in Australia
Ray Grieve
A captivating localised history of the most popular and accessible musical instrument in the country. Based on ten years of extensive research and interviews with players, this book also includes an Australian harmonica discography and fascinating illustrations.
Limited stock, available only from Currency Press direct.
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Currency Press | 978-0-86819-447-9 | PB
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$45.41 ex GST
$49.95 inc GST
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Australian Playwriting in the 20th Century
John McCallum
John McCallum’s new history explores the relationship between 20th century Australian drama and a developing concept of nation. The book focuses on the creative tension sparked by dueling impulses between nationalism and cosmopolitanism; and between artistic seriousness and larrikin populism. It explores issues such as the domineering influence of European high culture, the ongoing popularity of representational realism, the influence of popular theatrical forms, the ambivalence (between affection and aggression) of much Australian humour and satire, and the interaction between the personal and the political in drama.
The strength of Belonging is its comprehensiveness. Anyone studying an Australian play will find it here in the context of the other works by its author or the time and place in which it was written. As well as a rundown of the major writers and their works, the book also investigates a number of lesser known plays and writers.
This authoritative study of Australian drama gives an account of the relationship between our theatre and our sense of self while taking into account a broad range of influences that helped to shape both.
To read an interview with John McCallum our author of the month, click here.
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Currency Press | 978-0-86819-658-9 | PB
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