Bøker av Douglas Maxwell

Look, there are two ways to go. Do you freeze in place, looking backwards all the time... or do you move on?Summer 2021. Lockdown is over. Just. Three months ago Milo lost his wife to Covid. She was only forty five. So young. Tonight he has invited his two oldest pals, Davie and Liane, to come round and drink some wine, listen to some tunes and reminisce about the olden days. And there's something else... He wants them to meet the new love of his life. Her name is Greta. They met online. And she's twenty years old. From the celebrated writer of Decky Does a Bronco and I Can Go Anywhere, Douglas Maxwell's So Young sees an innocuous evening slide towards ruin as old friends face the challenges of middle age... the pull of the past... and the promise of the future. This edition was published to coincide with the TravFest24 run at Edinburgh's Traverse Theatre in August 2024.

"My heart had broken. Cracked like a paving stone tapped by a mallet. All things in life which require effort - pleasure, passion, wit and thought - are impossible when your heart is cracked. And it's also very hard to get out of bed"Tonight everything must go.Melody's got secrets. Dirty, dark, sick-to-the-bottom-of-your-stomach secrets that she's hidden away from for years. The tattoos up her arms tell part of the story, but the truth is a lot more complicated.John, the boyfriend, thinks he knows Melody but he doesn't know the half of it. To him, it's just a question of presentation. Olive, Melody's irascible almost-mother-in-law, thinks she knows all about it. She isn't afraid to put her oar in, but she's got her version of events to hide. Ashley turns up at Melody's door on a mission to reveal everything. Only she doesn't know the full picture.The pressure that's been building up for years is about to boil over. Melody premiered at the Traverse Theatre in March 2006.

Our Bad Magnet is an unashamedly dark and deliciously funny play from one of Scotland's brightest young writing talents, in which the boundaries between fantasy and reality merge with unpredictable results.Centering on an uneasy reunion, Our Bad Magnet follows the progress of four boys from 9 to 29 as they try to unlock the secrets of childhood and memory. Throw in 1980s indie music, a ventriloquist's dummy, some magical fairy stories and the word 'nimston', and you have an hilarious black comedy which isn't afraid to make you think while you're laughing out loud.

This first volume includes:Toy Plastic Chicken (Uma Nada-Rajah)A Respectable Widow Takes to Vulgarity (Douglas Maxwell)Chic Murray: A Funny Place for A Window (Stuart Hepburn)Ida Tamson (Denise Mina)Jocky Wilson Said (Jane Livingstone and Jonathan Cairney)Do Not Press This Button (Alan Bissett)

Fever Dream: Southside is a surreal comic thriller set in Glasgow, where tensions are running high and fantasy and reality are becoming blurred.

A funny, lyrical, booze-soaked odyssey by acclaimed Scottish playwright Douglas Maxwell.

Based on La Nona, Yer Granny is a riotous new comedy about a diabolical 100-year-old granny who's literally eating her family out of house and home.

"Witty, provocative and heartbreaking, the pieces in this first collection by Douglas Maxwell explore childhood trashed and innocence lost, reinvent and subvert the very idea of a play for young people. Contains the plays Decky Does A Bronco, Helmet, Mancub, The Mother Ship and Too Fast.

A new play by prominent Scottish playwright who is the most performed playwright in Scotland over the last decade.

An innovative new twist on an original comedy.

Decky Does a Bronco is the tragi-comic story of a gang of nine-year-old boys who spend the summer of 1983 'Broncoing swings' in Girvan, on the west coast of Scotland. Broncoing (kicking the swing over the bar) is the social bench mark and a dangerous mixture of vandalism and sport.Decky is the smallest of the group and the only one who cannot Bronco. His friend David remembers the event of that summer, which at first seem hilarious but ultimately remain painful, as the boys are faced with an unthinkable tragedy and are thrown into a restless adulthood.

"Creates a near perfect encapsulation of the world of the troubled teen." -Herald

Helmet (a.k.a. Roddy) lives his life completely immersed in computer games. The little time he has away from his consoles is spent in The Zone, a low tech games shop, which has just this very day gone bankrupt. Sal, the down-trodden owner of The Zone, is left wondering where it all went wrong. The shop is Sal's prison, but it's Helmet's church. As they get to know each other, hiding from reality for a while, it becomes clear that Helmet has a secret that could make things a lot worse for both of them. Helmet is structured in levels like a computer game, in which each character has three lives. A production involving art graphics projections and effects, Helmet toured in 2002, including performances at The Traverse, Edinburgh and the Soho Theatre, London.