Christopher William Hill

Bringing together five plays commissioned specially for the RADA Elders Company, this anthology provides a selection of dynamic and thought-provoking works for elders companies anywhere.The RADA Elders Company began in 2013 in order to provide opportunities for older people to experience the academy’s training at its best. Each year, a playwright is invited to create a new piece for the company, encompassing a wide range of theatre disciplines and skills.This collection features five pieces that showcase the breadth and diversity of RADA Elders commissions:Broken Pieces by A. C. SmithOur Father by Deborah BruceThe Word by Nell LeyshonDown the Hatch by Frances PoetOf Blood by Christopher William Hill

A BLEAKLEY BROTHERS MYSTERY by OSBERT THE AVENGER author Christopher William Hill What's that you say? You're off to Bleakley Manor? On Michaelmas eve? But dear child, hasn't anyone told you the legend of Old Bramble Head, who rises once a year to claim another victim from the unfortunate Bleakley household... Which one will it be this time? And could there be foul play? Crime-busting brothers Horatio and Eustace Bleakley feel certain they smell a rat. Or is that Cook's dinner? More importantly, can they solve the mystery before another Bleakley bites the dust? Go ahead and find out... if you dare!

Writing for Radio is an entertaining, accessible and informative book, providing a step-by-step guide to writing for this specific dramatic medium. A helpful approach to the process of writing a successful radio play from first draft to production draft and on into the recording studio, this book is suitable for first time writers, as well as established writers who simply haven't yet written for radio. A practical handbook that's both reliable and upbeat, providing an honest ‘insider’s view’ of how radio plays are written and recorded.

A gruesomely funny series for fans of Roald Dahl and Lemony Snicket.Meet Eugene, the most portly of princes, and Kalvitas, the most courageous of chocolate makers. Theirs is a tale of cakes and cowardice, bullies and battles, as they set out to defeat a terrifying tyrant.The characters are CURSED. The deserts are DEADLY. And people are NOT always as they appear...With cover and chapter head artwork by Chris Riddell.

A gruesomely funny series for fans of Roald Dahl and Lemony Snicket.When twins Greta and Feliks are sent to the ill-omened Schwartzgarten Reformatory for Maladjusted Children it seems their fate is sealed: that is until they are rescued by the glamorous Olga Van Veenen, a fabulously wealthy children's author, plagued by writer's block. But Olga's life is apparently in danger, threatened by a second-rate novelist who wishes to see his rival dead.When Olga and her faithful retainer, Valentin, disappear from the eerie and imposing Castle Van Veenen, many miles north by train from Schwartzgarten's Imperial Railway Station, Greta and Feliks conclude that the murderous novelist has finally exacted his revenge on Olga.Only by using their wits are the twins able to rescue their guardian before it is too late. As if by magic, Olga's writer's block lifts, and she quickly produces and publishes a new book for children. The novel has eerie similarities to the twins' adventures in Castle Van Veenen, and Greta and Feliks begin to question whether their guardian has deliberately placed them in danger for literary inspiration.But Olga Van Veenen has come too far to have her reputation muddied by the allegations of the twins, and will stop at nothing to silence them forever.With cover and chapter head artwork by Chris Riddell.

The first book in the gruesomely funny Tales from Schwartzgarten series. For fans of Roald Dahl and Lemony Snicket.Meet Osbert Brinkhoff, the unlikeliest of avengers. His is a tale of dark delights and ghastly goings-on, of injustice and revenge. The villains are vicious. The settings are sinister. And good does NOT always prevail...If you prefer cleavers to kittens and fiends to fairies...then welcome to the GRUESOMELY FUNNY Tales from Schwartzgarten.-Osbert the Avenger is the first in a thrilling series of four books, all set in the fictional city of Schwartzgarten -With shades of Lemony Snicket and Roald Dahl, the Tales from Schwartzgarten are as hilarious as they are dark-This brilliantly woven mock-gothic tale has huge child appealWith cover and chapter head artwork by Chris Riddell.

When little Conrad Van der Bosch claims he has an invisible tiger called Sigmund hiding on his wardrobe, his child-psychologist father sees the ‘lie’ as a deliberate act of juvenile defiance. Doctor Van der Bosch is concerned that the boy is mentally maladjusted and in an attempt to terrify Conrad into admitting that there never was an invisible tiger, creates the terrifying figure of Mister Holgado, a child-eating monster who is apparently hiding inside Conrad’s wardrobe, waiting to consume the little boy. This triggers a battle for supremacy, as Conrad and his father struggle to manipulate the myth of Holgado. In desperation, as the Doctor fails to curtail his son’s imagination, he realises he has no choice but to become the child-eating Holgado.Shortlisted for the Writers' Guild Award for Theatre Play for Young People 2013.

Sitting down to write a play can be a daunting experience and many a script has remained unwritten for fear of trying. Debunking the idea that there is a right way or wrong way to write a play, this title sets out to demystify the process, guiding the reader every step of the way from page to stage and beyond.

In a failing comprehensive school in Stockton-On-Tees, teacher Matt Dolby is struggling to inspire his art class. But then he spots 16-year-old Ryan Nesbitt's grafitti in the school toilets and, before either of them know quite what has happened, the skateboarding schoolboy is being hailed as the enfant terrible of the London art-scene. Inglorious Technicolour is a playful satire on contemporary art and OFSTED. The other two plays in this volume are written for large teenage casts. In the blackly comic Death to Mr Moody, the reluctant choir of St Hilda's Community School go to farcical lengths to plot the untimely death of their despised choirmaster. The Jonah Lie is an off-beat romantic comedy, set in a small whaling community at the turn of the century. Life in the village changes forever when sailor James True claims to have been swallowed and spat out by a whale of biblical proportions.