Martin Sherman
Bent

Max is gay and sent to Dachau concentration camp. He denies he is gay and gets the Jews’ yellow label instead of the pink one given to gays. In camp he falls in love with his fellow prisoner Horst, who wears his pink triangle with pride. The subject matter of Bent - the persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany - is highly charged and controversial. But, as Nicholas de Jongh wrote in The Guardian, “it is ... a play of importance, power and pathos which should concern us all.” In its subtle characterisation and powerful analysis of human dignity under extreme duress, it is a play that transcends the boundaries of its ostensible theme. (Cast 11+m)

Bent took London by storm when it was first seen at the Royal Court Theatre, London, starring Ian McKellen and Tom Bell. It transferred via the Criterion Theatre to Broadway, where it received a Tony nomination for Best Play and won The Dramatists’ Guild Hull-Warriner Award. In 1990 Sean Mathias directed a National Theatre revival of the play, followed by a film version starring Mick Jagger, Jude Law, Ian McKellen and Clive Owen. 2006 saw a new West End production by Daniel Kramer, starring Alan Cumming and Chris New. The play has now been performed in more than 50 countries.

“A heroic myth ... It has the laughter which Yeats asserted lay at the heart of tragedy.”
~ John Elsom, The Listener

“Fascinating ... a work of considerable dignity and passion”
~ Michael Billington, The Guardian

“Undeniably powerful”
~ Sunday Express

“Sherman’s truthful and shattering love story”
~ Time Out

“Sherman dramatises the journey to oblivion of Max, a young gay German, from the morning after a hedonistic night of sex and cocaine in 1934 to Dachau ... Bent looks now [in 1999] like a tremendous post-war theatre classic.”
~ Nicholas de Jongh, Evening Standard

Martin Sherman
A Madhouse in Goa

A web of personal, political, sexual, social and artistic deceptions set in the indigo nights and bright days of the Greek islands. A Madhouse in Goa was staged at the Apollo Theatre in London’s West End in 1989, starring Vanessa Redgrave. (Cast 4+m, 2f)

“The best new play of the London year... Sherman’s sprawling, ambitious piece has any number of themes, most powerfully the idea that art comforts us by letting us focus on microcosmic disasters so that we can ignore the global ones.”
~ Time Magazine

"A Madhouse in Goa has guts... intellectual playfulness, humor and tenderness.”
~ New York Times

“Martin Sherman’s brave new play presents a wry vision of apocalypse ... Human, passionate, serious theatre.”
~ Catherine Wearing, What’s On

“[He] is a writer never afraid to bare his soul, take the outside chance and trust his audience to share his vision.”
~ Jack Tinker, Daily Mail

" Unlike the bludgeoning Bent for which Sherman is famous, this is a play with subtleties to send you chattering into the night...”
~ Tim Robinson, City Limits

Martin Sherman
Some Sunny Day

Cairo, 1942. As war rages in the desert, cultures collide in the city and six individuals struggle to come to terms with love, lust and fate in an alien country. In a melange of Mozart, Carmen Miranda, Vera Lynn, Dixieland and cries from the minarets as the muezzins call the men to prayer, this witty and audacious play inhabits a world where everyone has something to hide and anyone may be a spy. Some Sunny Day was first presented at the Hampstead Theatre, London, in 1996, with Rupert Everett and Corin Redgrave. (Cast 4m, 2f)

"...one of the most entertaining and unexpected plays of the year."
~ Charles Spencer, The Daily Telegraph

“Martin Sherman’s bizarre comedy of sexual manners and morals - a whimsical fantasy set in Cairo, 1942, with Germans poised to take Egypt, maintains a mood of nervy satirical jokiness...”
~ Nicholas de Jongh, Evening Standard

“...this quaint, diverting play ... left me in an accepting, upbeat mood...”
~ Benedict Nightingale, The Times

“The best magician’s leave you rubbing your eyes in disbelief ... Some Sunny Day, Martin Sherman’s surprising dramatic comedy, reveals him as a splendidly cunning conjurer.”
~ David Benedict, The Independent

“Some Sunny Day ... is thoroughly disarming in it’s scatty way; I enjoyed every minute of it...”
~ David Murray, The Financial Times

Martin Sherman
When She Danced

When She Danced was first presented at the King’s Head, Islington, in 1988. It opened in the West End in 1991 and earned Vanessa Redgrave the Evening Standard award for best Actress. (Cast 5f, 3m)

“The play offers a portrait, both touching and funny, of Isadora Duncan in 1923 Paris when she was broke, homeless, noisily married to the Russian revolutionary poet Yessenine, but still filled with the idea she could teach mankind beauty through dance.”
~ Michael Billington, The Guardian

“...Martin Sherman’s fascinating, funny play... creates a vigorous, often hilarious impression of this Bohemian household and, without a trace of solemnity, his sprightly dialogue illuminates a wide variety of subjects...”
~ Charles Spencer, The Daily Telegraph

“Much of the humour derives from the troubles communicating experienced by characters speaking in six languages and from the arrival of a translator. Isadora’s instincts that language is highly overrated - “We never had it in America” - prove prophetic, as communication provokes discord and chaos, as well as hilarious misunderstandings.”
~ Tish Dace, Contemporary Dramatists

“Martin Sherman’s great service both to her and to us is to distill all her confusions and contradictions into one compelling piece of drama.”
~ Jack Tinker, Daily mail