Douglas Maxwell: 16 books

This collection of energetic, fun and emotionally honest, tragi-comic plays explore the turbulent journey from childhood through adolescence towards eventual adulthood. DECKY DOES A BRONCO‘One of the finest plays to emerge from a Scottish working-class story in the last ten years...the sheer...

Mancub is the beautiful and absurd story of a boy who seems to be turning into animals. Paul faces the usual struggles of growing up. Struggles for understanding with his father, struggles to work out what girls are about. But he also faces a more pressing problem. Reality seems to be shifting as...

Ladies and gentlemen! Let us present the romantic tenor, the couthy comedian, the speciality act and the equilibrist - a real Concert Party! In its halycon days variety theatre was part of the social life blood of the country. But in the shadow of the enemy - the technological wonder of the talkies...

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...

Teachers' Notes by Anthony Banks Sensation Nation is a vocal group founded and led by the unstoppable DD. Her grand plan is for the group to storm next year’s Britain’s Got Talent. But first they need a gig, and more importantly a heartbreaking backstory that will win them votes later...

Given her disreputable past, retired teacher Maggie Brodie knows she was a last minute choice for supply cover. Being patronised by the idiotic young headmaster is an indignity she can just about endure. But her frustrations increase when a silent Somalian child in her class, whom Maggie is inexplicably...

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...

“Can this be right? Is he really going to do this?” Chick is lost. Lost in drink and lost in life, broken, beaten and down on his luck. But he’s the barer of a beautiful soul. Heading back to Scotland for a reunion with his old mates Gary and Jackson, Chick arrives to discover...

"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....

Holding on to your virginity, getting a ring for your pains and something to believe in, that’s what Dawn, Chubb and Fawziya want. Ozzy, their loser PE teacher needs to believe in something too. It will all be fi ne when the Miracle Man gets here. Won’t it?

A father and son wait in a new 'self-harming unit'. As the clock ticks by, the father begins to pour out his guilt, anger and concern to his son. This short play was first staged at the Tron Theatre, in 2006.

High summer in Glasgow’s Southside and a heatwave bears down on the residents of Govanhill, driving them off the streets. Tensions are running high and fantasy and reality are becoming blurred. Fighting to reclaim their neighbourhood, the lives of a sleep-deprived new parent and his civic-minded...

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...

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. She’s already eaten their fish and chip shop into bankruptcy and now she’s working her way through their kitchen cupboards, pushing the Russo family to desperate...