King Charles III (NHB Modern Plays) - Softcover

Mike Bartlett

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1848424418 ISBN 13: 9781848424418

Publisher: Nick Hern Books, 2014

Synopsis

NOW A MAJOR BBC FILM

Winner: Best New Play - Critics' Circle Theatre Awards. Winner: Best New Play - Olivier Awards. South Bank Sky Arts Theatre Award - 2015.

The Queen is dead: after a lifetime of waiting, the prince ascends the throne. A future of power. But how to rule?

Directed by the Almeida Theatre's artistic director Rupert Goold, this 'bracingly provocative and outrageously entertaining new play' (The Independent) explores the people underneath the crowns, the unwritten rules of our democracy, and the conscience of Britain's most famous family.

Following its world premiere at the Almeida Theatre, Mike Bartlett's hugely acclaimed drama transferred to Wyndham's Theatre in London's West End in September 2014, to Broadway in 2015, and was made into a 2017 film by the BBC.

About this title

Review

Flat out brilliant... dazzlingly presumptuous... takes all manner of audacious license, poetic and otherwise... an intellectually and emotionally gripping study of the strangely enduring anachronism that is the British monarchy and of the contemporary, star-struck world that can still find room for its royals... This splendid, high-reaching and utterly unexpected play. --The New York Times on the Broadway premiere.

It looks like a nifty little joke - a mock-Shakespearean history play, written almost entirely in blank verse, looking ahead to the heir apparent's ascension but it turns out to be much, much more. It turns out to be a takedown of the entire British establishment: monarchy, parliament, aristocracy, armed forces, media. In fact, it turns out to be the best British play since Jez Butterworth's Jerusalem. -- Matt Trueman

The most spectacular, gripping and wickedly entertaining piece of lèse-majesté that British theatre has ever seen... Blessed with wit, clarity and moments of deeper feeling. Outstanding and provocative... There is barely a moment when the fizz goes out of the writing and the narrative keeps springing surprises.... Tremendous. --Telegraph

Bold, brilliant and unstoppably entertaining... all the intrigue and forward momentum of a real history play. The grandeur too... King Charles III makes us care, makes us laugh, and no doubt will make us argue too. Theatre doesn't get much better than this. --The Times

A meaty, hilarious, dizzyingly audacious state of the nation political thriller... Elevates the tawdriness of the Royal soap opera into something sublime and serious... A thrilling working through of ideas about modern Britain. --Time Out

Pitch-perfect... Bracingly provocative and outrageously entertaining. --Financial Times

Brilliantly ambitious... deliciously smart... [the] script is a witty amalgam of Shakespearean rhythms and sharp modern colloquialisms threaded with light allusions to some of the Bard's greatest hits... Bartlett has found the perfect form for grappling with some of the doubts clouding our immediate national horizon... it's a compelling start to a fresh national conversation about monarchy, democracy and that most elusive and problematic of qualities - Britishness. --Exeunt Magazine

About the Author

Mike Bartlett is one of the UK's most exciting and inventive young writers. His original plays have been performed at the National Theatre, the Royal Court, and around the UK, and include Earthquakes in London, 13, My Child, Cock (also in New York) and Love, Love, Love. His latest plays, Bull and An Intervention, are published by NHB. He has written adaptations of Chariots of Fire (Hampstead and West End) and Medea (Headlong), and his drama series The Town was broadcast on ITV1 in 2012.

About this edition

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1848424418
• ISBN 13: 9781848424418
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 96