Kirjahaku

The Jackson are a nice middle aged English couple. Their best friends are their Canadian neighbors, the Krogers. All is blissful in their world until a detective from Scotland Yard asks to use their house as an observation station to try and foil a Soviet spy ring operating in the area. The Jacksons become more and more put out as Scotland Yard's demands on them increase. They are really put to the test when the detective reveals that the spies are the Krogers and he asks them to help set a trap. Should they betray their friends?

Smith commutes to the West End to her work as a secretary at a publishing company. Her evenings are spent at home with her beloved aunt - a world of battenberg cake, gossip, ginger nuts and sherry in tiny glasses. But at the same time as leading this seemingly mundane suburban existence, she is writing the piercing poetry and prose that will one day make her famous. Stevie is a biographical snapshot of both the poet and the private woman. Shot through with wit, this is the story of an endearing heroine, her unconventional life, powerful and popular poetry and her greatest struggle: to keep waving and not drowning.

Drama / 7m 2f / Unit set Derek Jacobi took London and Broadway by storm in this exceptional biographical drama about a man who broke too many codes: the eccentric genius Alan Turing who played a major role in winning the World War II; he broke the complex German code called Enigma enabling allied forces to foresee German maneuvers. Since his work was classified top secret for years after the war no one knew how much was owed to him when he was put on trial for breaking another code the tab

"Elma is a singer in a sleazy 1930s Berlin nighclub. Having suffered an appalling assault during the First World War, she has no memory of her former life. A man appears and tells her that she is, in fact, the wife of an Italian aristocrat, and a new life awaits her. But when she goes to Italy to pursue this dream, she is greeted only by problems and disappointments. Pirandello uses this story to explore the mysteries of identity and memory, themes that preoccupied him throughout his life. Hugh Whitemore's version premiered in London's West End in 2005 in a production starring Kristen Scott Thomas and Bob Hoskins. His other plays include Stevie, Pack of Liars, Breaking the Code and A Letter of Resignation. He has also written many film and TV scripts." .

"In 1961, Peter and Helen Kroger, two Americans living in a London suburb, were convicted of spying for the Russians and sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment. From these true facts Hugh Whitemore has written a powerfully moving fictional account of the events leading up to their arrest with the action centered on the totally unsuspecting Jackson household - Bob, Barbara and their daughter Julie. The Jacksons live opposite the Krogers, believing them to be a convivial Canadian couple and their closest friends. Then a mysterious stranger arrives, announcing he is from MI5 and quietly coerces the Jacksons into allowing their house to be used as a surveillance post. In the nightmare months that follow, the Jacksons' decent, happy life is shattered as the truth about their much-loved friends is gradually revealed to them and, helpless in an alien, sordid world of deception and treachery, Barbara reaches breaking point with the agonizing realization that the Krogers have betrayed her and she, in turn, has betrayed the Krogers."

This compassionate play is the story of Alan Turing, mathematician and father of computer science. Turing broke the code in two ways: he cracked the German Enigma code during World War II (for which he was decorated by Churchill) and also shattered the English code of sexual discretion with his homosexuality (for which he was arrested on a charge of gross indecency). Whitemore's play, shifting back and forth in time, seeks to find a connection between the two events. When first performed in the 1980s, Breaking the Code was critically acclaimed in the UK before a Broadway transfer won it a raft of awards & nominations including 3 Tony Awards, and 2 Drama Desk awards.

Britain in 1956: the Suez Crisis.Prime Minister Anthony Eden, described by a colleague as ‘half mad baronet and half beautiful woman’, is faced with the terrible possibility of leading his country into war. His health is collapsing. His friends, colleagues and opponents, among them Hugh Gaitskell and Ian Fleming and his wife Ann, are facing crises of their own, crises of conscience and crises of the heart. Hugh Whitemore’s new play is a true epic: a suspenseful thriller, an achingly romantic love story and a fascinating examination of a flashpoint in our history which still resonates today. What is the cost of an ‘illegal’ war?