Bøker av Michael Frayn

Michael Frayn's classic novel is set in the crossword and nature notes department of an obscure national newspaper during the declining years of Fleet Street, where John Dyson dreams wistfully of fame and the gentlemanly life - until one day his great chance of glory at last arrives.Michael Frayn is the celebrated author of fifteen plays includingNoises Off,CopenhagenandAfterlife.His bestsellingnovels includeHeadlong, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize,Spies, which won the Whitbread Best Novel Award andSkios, which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize.'Still ranks with Evelyn Waugh'sScoopas one of the funniest novels about journalists ever written.'Sunday Times'A sublimely funny comedy about the ways newspapers try to put lives into words.'Spectator

A unique memoir of a lifetime's friendships - from one of Britain's most beloved literary companions.

"It's the other people around you, says Michael Frayn, who make you what you are. So he would like to say a brief word, looking back on life from his ninetieth year, about a few of the people who have formed his own particular world. Some were friends; some not; some more than friends. Some have had a profound effect; some only a passing one. Some you may know yourself; some you certainly won't. Some he now wonders if he ever really knew himself. The last of his subjects in this selection, and the longest and closest acquaintance of all, is his own body, a companion on life's road at least as idiosyncratic and puzzling as everyone and everything around it. Among Others is a patchwork memoir of a lifetime's encounters. Truthful and loving, sometimes elegiac, sometimes comic, it is a celebration of the endlessly intriguing otherness of others."--

Anything but analogue, Magic Mobile is the latest offering of comic genius from Michael Frayn, the author of Matchbox Theatre and Pocket Playhouse. 'Michael Frayn is the most philosophical comic writer - and the most comic philosophical writer - of our time.' Daily Mail

This amusing satire about audiences by the author of Noises Off, Copenhagen and other acclaimed plays takes place in the stalls (orchestra) of a West End theatre. The cast includes an usherette, audience members and a playwright in agony over crinkling candy wrappers, talking out loud, and inattention to his play. The characters in Michael Frayns metatheatrical comedy are actually watching the audience, expecting them to perform, and comedy ensues as Frayn holds a mirror up to the audience and they see their our own foibles as audience members.

Two people move into an empty room and begin to construct a life together in this work by the author of Noises Off, Copenhagen, Benefactors and numerous other well known plays. Should the bed go here and the table go there? Or the bed there and the table here? Everything inside this small space is for them to decide. The responsibility is daunting - especially when they reflect that it has taken the whole history of the world to get them together in this particular place at this particular time and that the whole future of the world will be different if the table is here instead of there. But how can they decide anything when the other person keeps disagreeing and when the woman downstairs maddeningly dumps unwanted furniture on them that they do not have the heart to refuse?

Characters: 6 male, 2 female, plus extras (w/doubling)Multiple SetsA man who has everything. Money, friends, a beautifulhome. And then - pfft! It's all vanished. Max Reinhardt,one the greatest impresarios of theatrical history, had alifelong ambition - to dissolve the boundary betweentheatre and the world it portrays. Each year at theSalzburg Festival he directed a famous morality play,Everyman, about God sending Death to summon arepresentative of mankind for judgment. The vict

A collection of short plays Black and SilverCharacters: 1 male, 1 female Interior Set In this short, affecting and laughable scene parents are awakened in the middle of the night by the baby. They stumble about trying to pacify the infant. At one point the husband panics because he cannot hear the baby breathing in the cradle, which is only reasonable because the wife has put it on their bed.Mr. FootCharacters: 1 male, 1 female Interior Set A

Owen Shorter, professional journalist, and Mara Hill, well known lady novelist, discover at the beginning of the play that they have been sent to Cuba to write for rival colour supplements.

The National BestsellerThe sudden trace of a disturbing, forgotten aroma compels Stephen Wheatley to return to the site of a dimly remembered but troubling childhood summer in wartime London. As he pieces together his scattered memories, we are brought back to a quiet, suburban street where two boys--Keith and his sidekick, Stephen--are engaged in their own version of the war effort: spying on the neighbors, recording their movements, and ferreting out their secrets. But when Keith utters six shocking words, the boy's game of espionage takes a sinister and unintended turn, transforming a wife's simple errands and the ordinary rituals of family life into the elements of adult catastrophe.Childhood and innocence, secrecy, lies and repressed violence are all gently laid bare as once again Michael Frayn powerfully demonstrates that what appears to be happening in front of our eyes often turns out to be something we cannot see at all.

This play opens with a touring company dress-rehearsing "Nothing On", a conventional farce. Mixing mockery and homage, Frayn heaps into this play a stock of characters and situation

Terry, an ex-petty-criminal, runs a small charity organization which campaigns for freedom of information. When he is handed a not-to-be-missed case it becomes apparent that everybody in the office has something to hide in this comical drama.

Called the funniest farce ever written, Noises Off presents a manic menagerie as a cast of itinerant actors rehearsing a flop called Nothing's On. Doors slamming, on and offstage intrigue, and an errant herring all figure in the plot of this hilarious and classically comic play. "The play opens with a touring company dress-rehearsing Nothing On, a conventional farce. Mixing mockery and homage, Frayn heaps into this play-within-a-play a hilarious mel¿e of stock characters and situations.

This long-running hit starred Sam Waterston on Broadway as an urban architect whose attempts to improve humanity by the environments he creates, only leads to chaos when the high-rise boom goes bust and two close friends are caught in the cross-hairs.2 women, 2 men

John Garrard is a successful manufacturer who is driven by a compulsion to use and consume the world and the people around him. He is briefly intensely curious about everything he comes across, particularly other people's worlds: their religious beliefs, their sexual and artistic yearnings and their feelings about him. During one climactic night amid the hectic activities of a trade fair in Germany, it looks as if he will be forced to turn his sharp eyes upon himself and come face to face at last with silence and darkness.2 women, 11 men

Set in the library of a provincial newspaper where battle is joined between the forces of order and chaos, between arid organization in the person of the new library assistant, Leslie, and humane confusion in the person of Lucy, the much-loved resident librarian. Drawing on his experience as a journalist, Frayn draws his gallery of characters with the hilarious accuracy which can only come from first-hand experience. Winner of the Evening Standard's Best Comedy Award after a long run at the Hampstead Theatre and on London's West End in 1975. This edition features the author's revised version of the script presented at the Hampstead Theatre in 2009.

Designed to meet the requirements for students at IGCSE and A level, this guide offers detailed analyses of character, setting and theme; close examination of the novel's plot, structure and narrative techniques; and, key quotations and activities both for the student working alone and in the classroom.

One of the funniest writers of his generation, Michael Frayn has been writing humorous newspaper columns since 1959, principally for the "e;Guardian"e; and "e;Observer"e;, and originally came to prominence as the thrice weekly purveyor of these short, surreal, razor-sharp explorations of human foibles, sex, politics, manners, and the events of the day. This volume brings together 110 of his finest and funniest pieces from over the years, selected and introduced by Michael Frayn himself, and is an unmissable treat for the many fans of his unique comic voice, as well as a revelation for fans of the award-winning literary novels and plays of his later career.

The Crimson Hotel is a hilarious absurdist comedy by one of Britain's greatest living playwrights. The play has its world premiere at the Donmar Warehouse Theatre, London, on 25 July 2007. The volume also features the 1991 one-act play, Audience.

Michael Frayn is one of the great playwrights of our time, enjoying international acclaim and prestige. This anthology contains three of Michael Frayn's best-known titles: Copenhagen, Democracy and Afterlife, as well as an introduction by the author and a chronology of his work.

A collection of four one-act comic vaudevilles and four short stories adapted for the stage by Michael Frayn.

Published to tie in with major new production at the Royal National Theatre directed by Michael Blakemore, the play won numerous awards.

This zany, hilarious farce was a London hit and won the West End Theatre Best Comedy Award of the year. At a reunion dinner at a "lesser college" of an "older university" are a number of graduates now in their early forties and mostly in responsible, influential positions. All starts smoothly with conventional greetings and old boy reminiscences. As the evening goes on, the facade falls away...|1 woman, 8 men

Each sketch reveals the author's infectious delight in writing between the lines of theatre, fiction and comedy.Charmingly packaged and published with flair, Pocket Playhouse is the perfect gift for all theatre and comedy writers.

Uncumber lives in a dystopian world where all humanity is divided in two - the Insiders and the Outsiders. The Insiders are privileged, with their every need catered to by somatic drugs, three-dimensional holovision and prolonged life. Uncumber lives in this luxurious world and is told that she must never go out into the dust and disease of the real world. Uncumber, however, is haunted by a restless and inquisitive spirit. When she falls in love with an Outsider, she decides to go exploring. . . Michael Frayn is the award-winning author of Headlong, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Spies, which won the Whitbread Best Novel Award, and Skios, which was longlisted for the Booker Prize. 'A fairy tale of the future. . . Frayn handles his observations and inventions brilliantly' Guardian

Heaven, reported St John in Revelation, was a cubical city 12,000 furlongs high made of 'pure gold, like unto clear glass'. That was 1,900 years ago, and Heaven as it is today has changed out of all recognition. Sweet Dreams is the account of a recent journey to the metropolis at the nerve-centre of the universe. The journey was undertaken not by a mystical reporter like St John, but by Howard Baker, an observer of much more modern outlook. He finds a city which offers rich opportunities for leisure and enjoyment - but one which also presents a moral and intellectual challenge. In short, a city which is highly adapted to the requirements of modest, responsible, likeable, educated men of liberal views and genuine social concern called Howard Baker.Michael Frayn is the celebrated author of plays such as Copenhagen and Afterlife. His bestselling novels include Headlong, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Spies, which won the Whitbread Best Novel Award and his latest novel Skios, which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize.'May go down in history as one of England's special contributions to the twentieth century.' Times Literary'Lucid, intelligent, delightful, stylish, extremely funny . . . I recommend it wholeheartedly.' New York Times