John Crowley
If you could live your life time and again, would you ever get it right? Ursula dies and is reborn, living through turbulent times - but what is it she needs to stay alive for?
A boy in New York is taken in by a wealthy family after his mother is killed in a bombing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In a rush of panic, he steals 'The Goldfinch', a painting that eventually draws him into a world of crime.
A terrorist attack in London results in the capture of suspect, and the attorney general appoints Claudia Simmons-Howe as special advocate on his defence team. On the eve of the trial, the accused's attorney dies and a new one, Martin Rose, steps in. Martin and Claudia are former lovers—a fact which must remain hidden—and, as Martin assembles his case, he uncovers a sinister conspiracy that places him and Claudia in danger.
A young boy who lives in an old folks' home strikes up a friendship with a retired magician.
Freed after a lengthy term in a juvenile detention center, convicted child killer Jack Burridge (Andrew Garfield) finds work as a deliveryman and begins dating co-worker Michelle (Katie Lyons). While out on the road one day, the young Englishman notices a distressed child, and, after reuniting the girl with her family, becomes a local celebrity. But, when a local newspaper unearths his past, Jack must cope with the anger of citizens who fear for the safety of their children.
All the action takes place in a swish London restaurant where two coarse-grained strategy consultants are dining with their respective wives. At an adjacent table a banker and his wife banter over his recently discovered affair. But while Pinter gets a lot of laughs out of these gold-plated philistines, he also suggests they are displaced people. Shorn of any inherited values, they live in an eternal present of sex, food and conspicuous consumption. - Michael Billington, Guardian
A raucous story of the interweaving lives and loves of small-town delinquents, shady cops, pretty good girls and very bad boys. With Irish guts and grit, lives collide, preconceptions shatter and romance is tested to the extreme. An ill-timed and poorly executed couple's break-up sets off a chain of events affecting everyone in town.
Written in English in 1965, this piece has only 121 words in all. Beckett's note to the text is almost twice as long. Three women meet in a softly lit place. Seated on a bench facing the audience, they reminisce about old school days. Each woman leaves the stage briefly, and during each absence an appalling secret is whispered about the third – which the audience doesn't hear. At the end the three hold hands with the cryptic comment 'I can feel the rings', though Beckett specifies that none are apparent.
