Brian Clark
Can You Hear Me at the Back?

Brian Clark has earned a reputation for sharp social comment and in his play Can You Hear Me at the Back? he examines the world of architects and town planners who, instead of designing buildings that fit the human scale, seem to succeed only in creating a succession of ‘people filing cabinets’. His central character, Philip Turner, Chief Architect of Feltonly New Town, comments wryly: “You can stack flats one on top of the other, and the pre-stressed concrete can stand the pressure. But until someone discovers a way of pre-stressing people, the strain breaks them down.” Originally starred Peter Barkworth and Hannah Gordon.
(Cast 3m, 2f)

“I got a distinct charge from Mr Clark’s proselytising fervour about urban blight ... the issue of buildings produces some splendid out-front editorialising.”
~ (Michael Billington, The Guardian)

“Brian Clark peppers this old-fashioned social problem play with some bright aphorisms and telling asides ... a complex earnest play...”
~ (Milton Shulman, Evening Standard)

Brian Clark
In Pursuit of Eve

This is the tale of a sexual predator who is forced to face his problem and the damage he has done in the past when he falls in love with a sensitive and intelligent woman. Can he change? Brian Clark's In Pursuit of Eve deals with these difficult issues head-on and, though shocking in some scenes, it emerges as a profoundly moral piece. As far as the author is aware, this play is unique in that it is written entirely in sonnet form. (Cast 1m)

“It’s hardly a new tale — insatiable singleton finds new love — but playwright and performer Brian Clark tells it in a series of sonnets ... The writing is, at times, extremely clever and droll...”
~ Madeleine North, Time Out

“...inspired by [Clark’s] intriguing desire to explore the sonnet as a means of telling a love story. Working within such a strict framework ensures that these reminiscences are honed with precision.”
~ Philip Chapman, What’s On

“...Clark has chosen to deliver his confessional monologue in sonnet form. This certainly gives the piece a disciplined shape and structure and Clark offers some droll observations.”
~ Ian Johns, The Times

Brian Clark
The Petition

‘Everyone agrees that the world could, and should, be a safer and better place. But people have always disagreed over how we should achieve this. Now, at last, there's an approach to the problem that brings all reasonable people together. The Petition says, simply, enough is enough. Peace can and will break out - but only when enough voices are raised to demand it. Think about it. Then put your name down for a safer future.’ Originally starred Sir John Mills and Rosemary Harris at the National Theatre. (Cast 1m, 1f)

“A dialogue in which the husband, a retired General, simultaneously discovers that his wife has three months to live and that she has joined the campaign against nuclear warfare. The Petition combines the marital and military battlefields.”
~ Irving Wardle, The Times

“...touching, moving, poignant. Sometimes funny...”
~ Oracle

“...unquestionabley funny ... bound to be a success...”
~ LBC

“...an occasion for laughter and tears...”
~ Spectator

Brian Clark
Post Mortem
(in Three One-Act Plays)

Helen Ansty, personal assistant to a business tycoon, arrives for work one morning unaware that her boss is dead. She takes over the running of the office for the day with remarkable results. (Cast 3f, 2m) — Also in this volume:-

Jim Hawkins
Too Hot to Handle

One day Suzanne discovers a horde of pornographic magazines in her husband’s wardrobe. When he comes home from work that evening she confronts him with the evidence.
(Cast 2f, 1m)

Rosemary Mason
Sunbeams

Set in London’s bed-sit land. Social worker Frances meets Louise, who runs a call-girl service from the flat upstairs. They begin to examine each other’s role and function in society and realise that they are perhaps not so different after all. (Cast 2f, 1m)

Brian Clark
Whose Life is it Anyway?

In the 1970s it took Brian Clark six years to find a West-End theatre management brave enough to risk presenting a play in which the central character is a tetraplegic faced with a future of total dependence on a life-support machine. But it was a smash hit both here and on Broadway winning several awards, and a film version followed. The dilemma posed of a medical profession committed to save life on the one hand, and an individual claiming the right to make their own decisions about their life on the other, is one that has struck a chord deep in the public imagination and is as real today as it was 25 years ago. For a major 2005 revival in the West End Brian Clark revised his play, changing the central role from male to female. It starred Kim Cattrall (Samantha in TV's Sex and the City). (Cast 9m, 4f)

"Whose Life is it Anyway?, tweaked to make the lead role female, is a great gut-thumper of a play."
~ Quentin Letts, Daily Mail

"What happened to Claire could happen to anyone. The questions raised by the play are if anything even more urgent today than they were when it was first produced in 1978."
~ John Gross, Sunday Telegraph

"I admire Clark for dramatising a momentous issue. And by making the protagonist a woman rather than a man, as in the original, he turns the play into an intriguing battle against a medical patriarchy."
~ Michael Billington, The Guardian

"References to stem-cell research, Stephen Hawking and Christopher Reeve add to the sense that this is a play for 2005, and an intelligent, compassionate one."
~ Benedict Nightingale, The Times

"Clark's strength is the humour and elegance with which he sets out the arguments..."
~ John Nathan, Jewish Chronicle

"It's rare to see comedy and tragedy combined with so much TLC."
~ Roger Foss, What's On

"It is still intriguingly subversive in what it says about the rights of patients over those of hospitals, and the ethical issues that it raises are as topical now as ever they were. When it comes to pricking the pomposity of doctors, Clark is right up there with Moliere and Bernard Shaw."
~ Sheridan Morley, Express

Please note: This play is available in two editions - the original version (male lead) and the new version (female lead).