doollee banner
The Playwrights Database
contact doollee


James Yarker

JAMES YARKER

  
Nationality:    British
email:    n/a     Website:    n/a

Literary Agent:    n/a

James Yarker's plays including biography, theatres, agent, synopses, cast sizes, production and published dates

Buy Plays with Doollee

Each page of doollee.com has links to play/book outlets, either directly to the Publisher, through Stageplays.com and Amazon to the second hand and 1st editions of AbeBooks. These links will automatically take you to the relevant area obviating the need for further search.
AbeBooks.co.uk   AbeBooks.com   Stageplays.com   amazon.com   amazon.co.uk   amazon.ca
whether you are a Playwright who wishes to make their entry definitive, an unlisted Playwright or a User with a tale to tell - we want to hear from you.
download WORD submission template

below is a list of James Yarker's plays - click on a Play Title for more information

         Be Proud Of Me         Home Of the Wriggler         Just Price Of Flowers, The         Make Like You Believe         Odyssey Steps         Of All the People In All the World         Translation Of Shadows, A

Be Proud Of Me

Synopsis:
The mysterious Mr Nowicki. A sister (he misses), a woman (the chemist - his lover), a hotel he's sure he's already checked into, a plane he's destined never to catch, a briefing room where he's made to rehearse small talk, a doctor who sells a dangerous kind of health insurance, a necklace glinting in the moonlight. Something bad has happened, but a crumbling memory makes recall evasive. Be Proud of Me switches between slickly improvised banter and an hallucinatory text scripted from tourist phrase books, a dark thriller viewed from the warped perspective of a failing mind.

Notes:
Devised by Amanda Hadingue, Craig Stephens, James Yarker

1st Produced:

Organisations:
Stan's Cafe

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Devised Piece

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Home Of the Wriggler

Synopsis:
Imagine living in a very differnet age from our own gas-guzzlinfg era. Perhaps a time after some eco-catastrophe? How could someone explain to you what the West Midlands was like from the late late 1950s onwards? Stan's Cafe has a go with this strange, compelling show, powered by the stories of those who have lived in Birmingham and worked in the motor industry - and also by cycling (which is generated by the cast's often exaustive peddling.
- Lyn Gardner, Guardian.

Notes:
devised by Heather Burton, Amanda Hadingue, Bernadette Russell, Craig Stephens And james Yarker. Text by James Yarker

1st Produced:
Birmingham, A E Harris Factory    2009

Organisations:
Stan's Cafe Theatre Company

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Just Price Of Flowers, The

Synopsis:
A play about the 2008 financial collapse, set in 17th Century Netherlands, looking like a Rembrandt, featuring origami and paying homage to the great theatre maker Bertolt Brecht.Tulips were imported into Europe in the early 17th Century at a time when merchants were generating wealth through trade. Collecting exotic items was a fashion. A passion developed for tulips, their price rose rapidly and created the possibility of making profit through speculative buying. For a brief time certain tulip bulbs were sold for prices equivalent to those of a house, or three years of a craftsmans wage. In 1637 this financial bubble burst. Using Tulipmania as its inspiration, the Just Price of Flowers finds the Van Leasings buying a tulip from Van Eek, using money borrowed from Van Hire. It follows them as they chase their dream of wealth through the growing complexities of futures trading, credit ratings, sub-primes, credit default swaps, and the horror of short selling. This is a simple, playful production, which explains the complexities of high finance with great humour, in a remarkably straightforward way, whilst steadily setting you up for the inevitable heartbreaking finale. there are also two songs and an origami peacock.

Notes:
an off site production by Birmingham Rep. the play is written And directed by James Yarker, with lyrics by Craig Stephens And music And origami by Brian Duffy.

1st Produced:

Organisations:
Stan's Cafe

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Make Like You Believe

Synopsis:
Twenty-five lost souls try summoning up some kind of ultimate answer from one of the twentieth century's most popular and widely exploited works of art. It's loud, messy and confused. There are excellent gags. There's running around and, if you squint, it might just be strangely moving.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Phoenix Arts, Leicester    26 May 1999

Organisations:
Stan's Cafe and Department of Performing Arts De Montfort University

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Piece

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Odyssey Steps

Synopsis:
This is described on this Birmingham-based company's website as "the latest in a series of 'not quite theatre' shows that have brought Stan's Cafe international acclaim". Not quite theatre? I agree, for this is not an interaction between actor and performer but a piece where the audience member becomes performer, following a 'script' laid out as vinyl images placed on floor, walls and other surfaces to lead them on a journey theoretically enabling them to act out the incidents of the story. the concept is described as inspired by teach-yourself-to-dance floor mats and presumably you are intended to place your feet - and perhaps hands too - directly on the positions marked out by vinyl stickers.
- Howard Loxton, British theatre Guide

Notes:
Devised by Simon Ford And James Yarker, with Denise Stanton And Jack Trow

1st Produced:
Clocktower, Croydon    2009

Organisations:
Stan's Cafe

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Piece

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Of All the People In All the World

Synopsis:
a large-scale installation measuring humanity in rice. What does the population of Coventry look like measured out in rice? A team of enigmatic auditors arrive at Warwick Arts Centre with 674kg of rice, a grain for everyone in the country. Over four days they will carefully weigh out a huge series of provocative statistics: everyone born today, all the millionaires in the country, everyone who is HIV positive, all the coal miners in Britain, all the doctors in the world. . .

Notes:
by James Yarker

1st Produced:

Organisations:
Stan's Cafe

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
installation

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Translation Of Shadows, A

Synopsis:
Have you ever fallen in love someone in a film? It's easily done. When silent film first arrived in Japan, a narrator called a Benshi was employed to explain the movie and you would fall in love with them. They were the stars and they guided you through their interpretation of the screen images. Though once mighty and numerous, the dominance of the Benshi was short-lived. 'The talkies' eventually killed them off. But now the Benshi is back, in all his glory! Stan's Cafe have been to Tokyo with film-maker Oliver Clark and shot Shadows, a beautiful and mysterious silent movie about a young couple in love, all that remains is for the Benshi to tell us what every shot and symbol means, who the actors are, why he loves them, why the director is terrible, when and why we should cry and laugh, what will happen in the end, why he is the greatest, most indispensable Benshi in history and why we should fall in love with him. If only it was as simple as that. . .

Notes:
written by Craig Stephens and james Yarker

1st Produced:

Organisations:
Stan's Cafe

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
piece 60 min

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  2            Other:  including film cast

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page