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Robert Holman

ROBERT HOLMAN

  (1952 - )
Nationality:    British
email:    n/a     Website:    n/a

Literary Agent:    Casarotto Ramsay and Associates Ltd  

Robert Holman's plays include Making Noise Quietly, Bad Weather and Holes in the Skin. He has worked as resident Dramatist at the National Theatre and RSC.

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

         Across Oka         Bad Weather         Being Friends         Breakfast Of Eels, A         Coal         Emigres         Estuary, The         German Skerries         Grave Lovers, The         Holes In the Skin         Jonah And Otto         Liberation of Colette Simple, The         Lost         Making Noise Quietly         Mud         Natural Cause, The         Other Worlds         Outside the Whale         Overgrown Path, The         Progress In Unity         Rafts And Dreams         Rooting         Thousand Stars Explode In the Sky, A         Today

Across Oka

Synopsis:
an epic journey of a young boy and his grandmother from the North of england to the depths of Siberia to return a set of rare eggs into the wild.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Stratford-On-Avon     1988

Organisations:
-

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

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Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Bad Weather

Bad Weather
Following a fight at a local Chinese in Middlesborough in which a man is badly injured, one man is sent to prison. the other man involved goes free, but it is a freedom full of burden. Out of the blue, a figure from the family past arrives and another kind of escape is on offer. the emotional fluidity of Bad Weather's characters, their capacity for surprising - almost shocking - changes of direction, and their literacy in discussing how they feel, makes this sincere, absorbing play as contemporary as anything by the new nihilists.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Nick Hern Books, London, 1998   978-1854593245

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

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Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Being Friends

Being Friends
WWII, Oliver is sunbathing in a field when he is joined by the very out and frank Eric (based on Denton Welch ??)

Notes:
the first of the three plays that make up the trilogy Making Noise Quietly

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in Making Noise Quietly: Three Plays. Nick Hern Books, London   978-1854594525

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 One act. - - Gay, one act

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Breakfast Of Eels, A

Breakfast Of Eels, A
In the haze of a late summer in a London garden, the apples have all fallen to the ground. It is the day of Daddy's funeral, and two orphans find themselves suddenly alone, with nobody to cling to but each other. . .

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Nick Hern Books, London, 2015   978-1848424777

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:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Coal

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
London     1973

Organisations:
-

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:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Emigres

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
Original Playwright - Slawomir Mrozek

1st Produced:
London     1978

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "New Review", London, 1979   -

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:
adaptation

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Estuary, The

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

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:
-

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German Skerries

German Skerries
It's the hot, humid, sticky summer of 1977. At a popular birdwatching spot jutting out into the North Sea at the mouth of the Tees, Martin, Jack, Michael and Carol are staring out into the future, their lives intertwined. A friendship, a marriage, a holiday, and a death - the gatherings and departures that make us human. Robert Holman's richly resonant play is an uplifting portrait of human hope and vulnerability. German Skerries was first performed at the Bush Theatre, London, and won the George Devine Award in the year that it is set. It was revived in 2016 at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, in a co-production with the award-winning Up in Arms Theatre Company, followed by a tour around the UK.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Bush Theatre, London >>>     25 Jan 1977

Organisations:
-

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:  3            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Grave Lovers, The

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Edinburgh     1972

Organisations:
-

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:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Holes In the Skin

Holes In the Skin
15-year-old Kerry and her mum have moved to a council estate. Kerry hates it. She hates her mum's new man too. But when she meets a boy in the playground and asks him to do something about it, she finds herself adrift in a landscape of physical brutality, drugs - and, eventually, love

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Nick Hern Books, London, 2003   978-0854599742

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:  5            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Jonah And Otto

Jonah And Otto
a humane, funny and ultimately haunting exploration of what it is to be male and to be quintessentially english. a fleeting moment of connection between two very different men. Jonah, 26, has a chance encounter with Otto, 62, in a walled garden near the south coast of england on a warm summer's evening. the moon is full. On parting, neither will ever feel quite the same again.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Nick Hern Books, London >>>, 2008   978-1854595546

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:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Liberation of Colette Simple, The

Synopsis:
Meet Colette. Seemingly content in her simple life, in her small twee town with only her canary for company, Colette tends to her petunias. Through a heady mix of musical theatre, absurd comedy and live music, Colette's story of liberation is brought to life. In a magical world where canaries transform into cops and strange visitors cough up petunia petals, small town life is never what it seems.

Notes:
Inspired by the early Tennessee Williams play The Case of the Crushed Petunias, scored by Vincent Guibert and with lyrics by writers including playwrights Robert Holman and Amy Rosenthal, lyricist Adam Meggido, cabaret king Desmond O'Connor, actress Honeysuckle Weeks and spoken word artist Charlie Dupre

1st Produced:

Organisations:
Spatfeather Theatre

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:
musical cabaret

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  1            Other:  doubling

Further Reference:

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Lost

Lost
It is 1987. May appleton, whose son is serving in the Falklands, receives the visit that every mother dreads.

Notes:
the second play in the trilogy of short plays, Making Noise Quietly

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in Making Noise Quietly: Three Plays. Nick Hern Books, London   978-1854594525

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 One act. - - Gay, one act

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Making Noise Quietly

Making Noise Quietly
In 1986, in the Black Forest, a German businesswoman takes into her home a fugitive British private and his disturbed stepson.

Notes:
the third in the trilogy of short plays, Also called Making Noise Quietly

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Methuen Drama    978-1854594525

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:
One act. - - Gay, one act

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Mud

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Heinemann, London, 1977   -

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:
-

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Natural Cause, The

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

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:
-

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Other Worlds

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

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:

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Outside the Whale

Outside the Whale
George Orwell in the 1930s. at his publishers, in a hen house, at an essex doss house

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

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:
-

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Overgrown Path, The

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

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:

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Progress In Unity

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Teesside     1972

Organisations:
-

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:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Rafts And Dreams

Rafts And Dreams
Hetty is a nervous compulsive - she has to wash whenever she touches anything and was the things she has touched. In the bathroom of her flat her husband Leo and next door neighbour Neil try to help her. Neil is training to be a doctor and he finally persuades her to touch the cistern by getting her to focus on a nice dream. Some time later Neil is sun bathing on the roof-space and Leo joins him and later Hetty too as she is becoming braver. Neil tells them of how as a teenager he ran away from home and drifted in to making gay porn films. One day the men making one of the films decided to turn it into a snuff movie and they tried to kill Neil. One of the men was traced, arrested and imprisoned. Leo gets Neil to help him remove a tree stump from the garden. as they succeed in doing this water starts bubbling up into the hole. there seems to be no way of stopping it. Soon London and the Home Counties are under water. Leo managed to detach the living room of his flat and using it as a raft the three of them float away. they pick up Jo who turns out to be the wife of the man imprisoned for making the snuff movie. She had been trying to get in touch with Neil to make amends as she had had no idea what her husband had been up to. they drift on. europe is now under water. they see what appears to be part of an iceberg. Neil and Jo row over to it and they find Alex a teenage boy. Jo wants to stay behind but is persuaded to come back and the three of them row of to the raft. they discover what seems to be an island but it is high ground somewhere in Africa and had been a leper colony. Leo and Hetty decide to stay with the one survivor from the colony. Neil, Alex and Jo drift on they come to a much larger "island". they discover a mobile field hospital equipped to perform cataract operations and in the distance they can see lots of people they presume are patients. Alex tries to repair the engine. Neil goes on ahead but shoots himself.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

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. - - Gay, theme/character full length

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Rooting

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

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:
-

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Thousand Stars Explode In the Sky, A

Thousand Stars Explode In the Sky, A
On a farm in the North east of england a family gathers. Five brothers and four generations feature in an epic play about hope, love, fear and the very end of time. a Thousand Stars explode in the Sky is a refreshingly subtle and compassionate vision of the world on the edge of apocalypse. Within a cosmological context, the focus is on a single family, their relations with each other and their unreconciled regrets, soon to become permanent. With an ensemble of strong, engaging characters, there are knotty, realistic family dynamics and a palimpsest of recent family history. the characters and dialogue are naturalistic but the serious themes are elucidated and alleviated with humour and quirky, surreal touches. the play represents a unique collboration between three of the UK's pre-eminent stage writers. the ambition of the partnership is matched by the ambition of the play's sweeping scope. Whilst the three voices collide, they also ring out individually without sacrificing the piece's coherent wholeness, and the play represents a rare, fascinating study in stage collaboration.

Notes:
Written by David eldridge, Robert Holman And Simon Stephens

1st Produced:

Organisations:
Lyric Hammersmith Production

1st Published:
Methuen Drama    978-1408131466

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:  7            Female:  4            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Today

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Stratford-On-Avon     1984

Organisations:

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:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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