Kirjahaku

April de Angelis's second collection covers six plays written between 2011 and 2021, including the previously unpublished short play Rune and her first musical, Gin Craze!Jumpy'The funniest new play the West End has seen in ages. It's not only funny, it's painfully acute; and its wit is of a piece with its insight.' - Daily TelegraphThe Village'A great piece of storytelling . . . flat-out wonderful.' - The TimesA Laughing Matter'De Angelis's writing is even funnier than it is stimulating. . Comedy needn't be soft and comforting. It can be mischievous and subversive. You see the bind in which Garrick finds himself, trapped as he is by the economic, social and moral pressures. It's a bind his descendants know even today. I haven't seen it dramatised before with such infectious brio.' - The TimesRune'A gorgeous little nugget of a show in which a bored teenager on a school trip to see the hoard at the Potteries Museum suddenly discovers a power within her when she gets to hold a piece of it.' - GuardianExtinct'Builds its drama with its own gripping truth ... Necessary and urgent.' - GuardianGin Craze!'It's terrifically vivid and exciting. . A Brechtian message delivered with the most glorious, full-throated ebullience: an intoxicating show that leaves your head spinning, your spirit soaring and a fire in your belly.' - The Times

So what have you got against gobby women running restaurants?El Barco is the newest tapas restaurant in fashionable Walthamstow Village, and it's Kerry Jackson's pride and joy.Wearing her working-class roots as a badge of honour, Kerry must navigate the local characters in a bid to make the business a success, without losing herself in the process.This biting comedy from April De Angelis premiered at the National Theatre, London, in November 2022.

I want you to imagine me in a crowd of people. It's 2030 and the mean temperature this summer has been 40 degrees celsius. It's midday. The sun is nuclear hot. There have been spontaneous outbreaks of fires round the country the closest to us in Epping forest, a monster conflagration which raged for 3 weeks.A woman stands alone on stage. She has one hour to change our future. One hour to avert catastrophe. She'll give everything she has.Addressing the climate emergency head on, Extinct includes testimony from environmental activists. Extinct opened at Stratford East in June 2021.

Famous and respectable? Can a woman be both?Emma Hamilton is the name on everyone's lips. Her attitudes are the latest dance craze sweeping Europe, inspiring a generation of artists from Romney to Goethe. But Emma doesn't want to be somebody's muse, she wants to be the somebody.With rumours of Nelson's imminent arrival swirling around Naples, Emma knows exactly which pose to strike to catch his attention and leave her mark on history. Or so she thinks.The extraordinarily vivid life of one of the most remarkable figures in Georgian society bursts out of the history books in April De Angelis's play.Infamous opened at Jermyn Street Theatre, London, in September 2023.

This was your first go. Did Shakespeare let Titus Andronicus put him off? An experimental tragedy about a pie. You've just begun. Mrs Sarah Siddons, acclaimed as the greatest actress of all time, holds complete sway over audiences and critics alike. Behind the scenes, however, she herself is subject to direction from her bone-headed brother, Kemble, who runs the Drury Lane theatre and chooses her roles. Sick of being cast as tragic, wounded mothers, Siddons decides it's time to harness her star power and become the leading lady of her own life. But she reckons without the absurdly comic plot twists of a life on the stage. The Divine Mrs S opened at Hampstead Theatre, London, in March 2024.