Michael Burrell
Borrowing Time

Borrowing Time is a play about family life and relationships - between husband and wife, father and daughter, brother and sister. As history moves on, each generation is faced with new challenges and new perceptions of the truth. First toured in Morocco under the auspices of the British Council, Borrowing Time was presented in London at the Latchmere Theatre, Battersea, in 1990. (Cast 1m, 1f)

“This three act elegy to home counties sensibility ... charts several crossroads in the lives of father and daughter, via middle age and amnesia back to the first flush of youth. From semi-detached adultery to nostalgic senility, each commuter-belt crisis is etched out with considerable care. In a conscientious and compassionate script, affectionate yet authentic dialogue distinguishes playwright and players alike.”
~ William Cook, City Limits

“...marvellous, touching vignettes of interaction between two players...”
~ Carol Sarler, Sunday Times

“Full of wit , charm and ‘true truths’... a script full of eloquent observations about ‘love, death, marriage and the certainties of youth’ ... a wonderful play that has both moments of irresistible pleasure and pain. An utterly uplifting evening.”
~ Rick Jones, Time Out

Michael Burrell
Hess

Rudolf Hess, close friend and deputy to Hitler as leader of the Nazi Party, flew to Scotland in 1941, at the height of the war, on a self-appointed mission of peace. He was immediately imprisoned and was later convicted at Nuremberg on charges of ‘Conspiracy for war’ and ‘Crimes against peace’. He was given a life sentence. In this dramatic monologue Hess supposes what he might say, given the opportunity, about himself and the world as he sees it after nearly 40 years of imprisonment in Spandau gaol. First presented at the Young Vic Theatre in 1978. (Cast 1m)

“In Burrell’s ingenious script Hess is many things, all provocative: a memoir of a madman, a study of political fanaticism, a treatise on justice, a portrait of old age, an analysis of penal confinement, a decent into hell.”
~ New York Post

“It is an act of prestidigitation on his part that in this disturbing play he is able to invest so unwholesome and troubling a figure with so much sympathy.”
~ New York Times

“Burrell’s play is a fascinating insight into the mind of the last remaining relic of the Reich.”
~ Daily Express

“Brilliantly conceived and written.”
~ London Evening News

Michael Burrell
The Man Who Lost America / My Sister Next Door

The Man Who Lost America: Following the defeat of the British at Saratoga in the State of New York in 1777, two soldiers are in hiding. The officer is urbane and witty, the young ranker tough but warm-hearted, with an instinct for survival. At the outset each man is suspicious of the other but the barriers of class and authority are gradually broken down as they draw on their common experience of war. (Cast 2+m)

“[The Man Who Lost America] masquerades as a defence of the General who lost the battle of Saratoga in 1777 ... By the end of this well-written playlet, however, something else has been achieved. In its delicate tracing of a mutually beneficial relationship between two soldiers from opposite extremes of society, both reduced to living off their wits, it shows how people come to terms with defeat, both national and personal .”
~ Georgina Brown, The Independent)

"[This] is high calibre stufff ... As an historian Michael Burrell obviously knows his onions, and the play should be required viewing for anyone studying the American War of Independence. As a playwright he is a gifted wordsmith, taking particular delight in references to Anglo-American relations that still hold good today after more than two hundred years.”
~ David McGillivray, What’s On

My Sister Next Door: Two sisters are sharing the family home after the death of their father. Gwen is the stay-at-home daughter, with a safe job as a building society clerk. Anthea is the wild one, now back in England after chasing fame and fortune as a dancer in the sleazy night-clubs of Morocco and the Lebanon. In spite of their different attitudes to life the sisterly resonances filter through. (Cast 1f)

“Michael Burrell’s one-woman play is built on an interesting foundation ... [it features] two very different sisters who have drifted together in middle age and are living in adjacent rooms in their family house ... Burrell inserts enough sharp observation to keep it moving swiftly ... Quiet fun.”
~ Suzi Feay, Time Out

“The comedy of dowdiness is a peculiarly British institution, and My Sister Next Door represents the genre at its cruellest.”
~ Sam Willetts, What’s On