Simon Gray Four Plays: The Pig Trade, Japes, In the Vale of Health, The Holy Terror
(, Main)
Publishing Details
Simon Gray Four Plays: The Pig Trade, Japes, In the Vale of Health, The Holy Terror
By (Author) Simon Gray
Faber & Faber
Faber & Faber
15th April 2004
Main
United Kingdom
Classifications
General
Non Fiction
822.914
Physical Properties
320
Width 126mm, Height 198mm, Spine 23mm
342g
Description
In "The Pig Trade", a new play, set in 1937, under the menacing shadow of Mussolini, a famous art historian and a notorious art dealer have an explosive final encounter. "The Vale of Health" and "Japes" are companion plays, where the love of two brothers for one woman both highlights and obscures their dependency on each other. "The Holy Terror", grew out of "Melon", the story of a publisher's nervous breakdown, and has the same central character in it.
Reviews
'A terrific writer at the height of his powers.' Daily Telegraph 'A superb testament to a career written in booze and ink' Express
Author Bio
Simon Gray was born in 1936. He began his writing career with Colmain (1963), the first of five novels, all published by Faber. He is the author of many plays for TV and radio, also films, including the 1987 adaptation of J L Carr's A Month in the Country, and TV films including Running Late, After Pilkington (winner of the Prix Italia) and Emmy Award-winning Unnatural Pursuits. He wrote more than thirty stage plays amongst them Butley and Otherwise Engaged (which both received Evening Standard Awards for Best Play), Close of Play, The Rear Column, Quartermaine's Terms, The Common Pursuit, Hidden Laughter, The Late Middle Classes (winner of the Barclay's Best Play Award), Japes, The Old Masters (his ninth play to be directed by Harold Pinter) and Little Nell, which premiered at the Theatre Royal Bath in 2007, directed by Peter Hall. Little Nell was first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2006, and Missing Dates in 2008. In 1991 he was made BAFTA Writer of the Year. His acclaimed works of non-fiction are: An Unnatural Pursuit, How's That for Telling 'Em, Fat Lady, Fat Chance, Enter a Fox, The Smoking Diaries, The Year of the Jouncer, The Last Cigarette and Coda. He was appointed CBE in the 2005 New Year's Honours for his services to Drama and Literature. Simon Gray died in August 2008.
