Oberon Books: 1362 books

Sam Mendes and Simon Russell Beale have forged one of the most successful working partnerships in contemporary theatre history. Across twenty years and eight productions their collaboration has evolved, matured and keeps thriving through their work on stage; six Shakespeare and two Chekhov plays form...

Blonde Poison is based on the true story of a Jewish woman during World War II who betrayed up to 3,000 fellow Jews. Gail Louw’s powerful play examines the motivation of evil. Stella Goldschlag was living illegally in war-torn Berlin when she herself was betrayed and tortured. When offered the chance...

“I have never, ever wanted to write an autobiography. The number of times I have been approached and every time I said no, no, it’s a wank” Miriam Karlin is that rare creature: a pillar of the British acting establishment who is at the same time a thoroughgoing maverick. During sixty...

Richard Bean’s fast and furious new play is an narchic and foulmouthed satire about the press, the police and the political establishment. Paige Britain is the ambitious young news editor of The Free Press, a tabloid newspaper locked in a never-ending battle for more readers.

Using examples from plays and playwrights the reader has most likely encountered, The Well Read Play is structured to teach the reader how to identify context, structure, significance, and character. Its principle aim is to help the reader develop abilities to understand and enjoy reading plays.

Nicholas Dromgoole tells the story of performance from a fresh and unusual point of view, describing the development - from ancient Greece to contemporary stages and film - of western Europe's surprising and largely unknown variety of acting styles. Using the idea of a culture's shared 'language of...

‘Do you sometimes think that you might wish that you were a national treasure, like Alan Bennett?’ ‘I’m rather glad I’m not. I’m quite pleased to be what I think I am, which is a sort of national liability.’ Over the course of seven decades, Jonathan Miller has been...

Apprenticeship is Peter Gill's potent recollection of the changing theatrical landscape of the 1960s. Part history, part memoir, part polemic, it puts into context his recently discovered diary of 1962 in which he vividly recalls his experiences as a young actor in Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk Circle...

‘I try to follow the rule laid down by perhaps the greatest translator of all, John Dryden, who maintained that a translator should – and I paraphrase – make the version as entertaining as possible, while at the same time remaining as faithful as possible to the spirit of the original’ –...

Anne Elliot fell deeply in love with a handsome young naval officer, Frederick Wentworth, at the age of nineteen. But because he had neither fortune nor rank to recommend him, Anne’s mentor and friend, Lady Russell, persuaded her to break off the engagement. Eight years later, Anne has lived to...

‘I hope I shan’t meet you one day in Piccadilly with a painted face, just because you must have linen sheets’ A beautiful young man is forced to choose between the love of his fiancée and the lifestyle of his male admirer.

The Emperor tells the story of the downfall of Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia and with it the end of a threethousand- year-old monarchy that traced its origins back to King Solomon. Based on the extraordinary book by legendary Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuściński, it is told from the unique...

What is King Lear really thinking? What has made his daughters what they are? What does his mysterious Fool dream about? What really lies behind the familiar lines of Shakespeare’s great tragedy? Michael Pennington appeared triumphantly as King Lear in New York in 2014 and repeats the part...

R C Sherriff’s Journey’s End is a syllabus text and the most famous play about World War One. First staged in 1928, this book tells the story of what went into the making of this extraordinary and powerful trench drama. It outlines Sherriff’s career from humble insurance clerk to infantry officer...