Rodney Ackland

A Play in Three Acts

Strange Orchestra

Includes the plays Smithereens, Strange Orchestra, Before The Party and The Old Ladies With an Introduction by Michael Hastings. No other major British playwright of the last 50 years has undergone such a radical reappraisal as Rodney Ackland. Interest in his work renewed in the 1990s, starting at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, with further revivals at many theatres, including the Chichester Festival Theatre and the Royal National Theatre. In Plays Two, we are reminded once again of Ackland's unique and dangerous gift.

Strange Orchestra; Before the Party; Smithereens; Old Ladies

Rodney Ackland: Plays Two

Aleksandr Nikolaevich Ostrovsky

The Diary of a Scoundrel

The Dark River

The Diary of a Scoundrel, Adapted by Rodney Ackland from a Comedy by Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky

Terence Rattigan

Warwick MANNON (pseud. [i.e. Hector Kenneth Hopkins])

Anatole de GRUNWALD

Bond Street ... Adapted from the Screenplay by Anatole de Grunwald, Based on Original Stories by Terence Rattigan, Rodney Ackland and Anatole de Grunwald, Etc. [With Illustrations.].

Condemned as a "libel on the British people" when it was first produced in 1951, Absolute Hell is set in a decaying West End drinking club at the end of the Second World War. The 1995 production at the Royal National Theatre starred Judi Dench and was directed by Anthony Page.

Absolute Hell

W. Somerset Maugham

Based on a short story by Somerset Maugham, Before The Party tells the story of a family attempting to return to normal in the wake of the Second World War. With daughter Laura returned from Africa, widowed but not alone, they prepare for the latest social gathering. Amidst the never-ending whirl of hats and dresses and below stairs skirmishes, Laura reveals a shocking secret that threatens to ruin more than one party on the climb to social success.

Before the Party

Rodney Ackland

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