This series aims to offer quality literature which is accessible to young readers in the 11-16 age group. It deals with key issues in a multicultural world and aims to provide stimulating material reflecting male and female interests. It is intended for class use and for GCSE examination and coursework, encouraging pupils to examine the different ways of looking at the text and to express their personal views using supporting evidence from the text. Suggestions for writing are included which give pupils an opportunity to respond to what they have read through imaginative writing, dramatic reconstructions as well as the traditional critical essay. This book contains the texts of four TV plays by Alan Bennett, Jeremy Paul and Alan Gibson, Jane Hollowood and Robin Glendinning and Leonard Kingston. Each is prefaced by an introduction from the authors and the plays focus on quarrels over politics, rebellion against parents, marital conflict and the gulf that separates times past from present.
Alan Bennett is a renowned playwright and essayist, a succession of whose plays have been staged at the Royal National Theatre and whose screenplay for The Madness of King George was nominated for an Academy Award. He made his first stage appearance with Beyond the Fringe and his latest play was The Lady in the Van with Maggie Smith. Episodes from his award-winning Talking Heads series have been shown on PBS. His first novel, The Clothes They Stood Up In, was published in 2000. He lives in London.
