Plays

Most of the following plays are unpublished but available for readings or production as required and requests should be sent via email. A Cerlox bound reading copy as shown could be forwarded @ $30 each plus shipping and handling. Any later production royalties could be negotiated.

Robin Hood and The Story of Joe Christ, have both had full performance runs on stage.  The one-act plays have had many stage appearances and been recorded in-studio as radio dramas and for audio-cassette. One Clear Star was later produced for TV, The Sobbing Stone was adapted and released as a movie, now on DVD (2007)

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Miss Pebbles Retreat An Isolated country house on the edge of the moors is where the elderly Miss Pebble runs her ‘Retreat’ with her extremely wealthy but somewhat eccentric father. It appears her father has recently passed away leaving his fortune in cash in a safe somewhere in the house.  Miss Pebble knows where, but needs help to get it.  So she has invited four clergymen to her Retreat to help. However, it seems the genuine clergy have been waylaid and their identities assumed by others. Miss Pebble finds herself unwittingly entertaining four criminal imposters whose intent is to find the safe and empty it. Not to arouse Miss Pebble’s suspicions, an ecclesiastical pretence is adopted throughout. This rapidly develops into a hilarious situation comedy. 5 men, 3 women

The Man in Tower Five An Easter Play in two Acts. The action takes place in a watch-tower on the very edge of Heaven, somewhere over Palestine and the time is the first Easter. The Man is a Watchman in Tower 5, and the events of the first Easter are unfolding below him, on his watch, and matters are getting out of hand.  He appeals to the Light of God for help to halt what is happening below so he, the Watchman, can sort it all out, or perhaps discover who is responsible, and stop it. He asks for time to hold his own court and to bring those involved to himself for questioning. He asks for time to stop, for a frozen hour of God. And he gets it, bringing to his court the Easter Story participants, with unexpected drama and conclusion.  4 men, 3 women

The Story of Joe Christ A two-act play in twenty scenes. Monologue, dialogue, prose and poetry, it tells of Joe Blaydon, an lad born of ordinary parents thirty years ago in dockland among the common people. He works in the shipyards as a carpenter, but leaves saying his Father in Heaven has given him a message for the world. Remarkably six of his friends go with him. He performs miracles, preaches a simple philosophy and gather crowds. People say he is the long awaited Christ, as the play assumes the world has never had a Christ before.  But there are religious Patriarchs who plot to remove him. First run in Nairobi in 1973 to generous reviews. Scenes enacted separately since and the play used in a NS Drama League workshop reading in 1980.  8 men, 5 women

Robin Hood An up to date tale of long ago in three Acts!  Performed by a cast of 20 players (mostly late teens) plus extras for the crowds, and the script is all in rhyme (rhyming verse always easier to remember when learning lines). Rather in the fashion of a three act skit but roughly following the story of Robin Hood, his approximate band of men (Friar Pan, Sir Humphrey Littlejohn, Allen A’ Dale, and Sidney ‘Will Scarlet’ Williams), with Maid Marion, the Mayor of Greenwood Dell and, of course, the wicked Sheriff of Nottingham and his equally devious servant Percy Pumpkin. Lots of fun, good lines, and an unexpected twist at the end. First performed over three nights in the UK in 1969. 10 men, 10 women

Bladderwrack The play is set in a single roomed annex to a lighthouse, somewhere on the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia, but not totally out of touch with Civilization. Since lighthouses are now up for sale, one has been bought by Isobel Stott from Toronto. sight unseen, and purchased by her on behalf of her husband. Henry, who has been transferred to the Maritimes and being too busy to attend to such matters as house buying, has left this to her. A comedy developing into a farce with the arrival of Victoria (a more than attractive botanist), Henry’s Mother-in-law (Heronia MacGaskill), and Henry’s boss (Mr Hockelridge) bring the plot to an entertaining boil.  Bladderwrack, of course, is a variety of seaweed. 3 men, 3 women

One Act Dramas

One Clear Star

(owned by Christian Publishers LLC)
customerservice@christianpub.com

One Christmas Eve, when the snow is falling, carol singers call at an expensive bungalow in suburbia and are shouted away by the annoyed house owner, who later falls asleep by his fire. He is awakened by a late caller who says she is the Star of Bethlehem and needs a ladder to get on his roof. One by one the Christmas story characters arrive leading to a dramatic climax.

The Sobbing Stone

(owned by Christian Publishers LLC)
customerservice@christianpub.com

A mysterious and ancient stone which occasionally and eerily emits sounds; running, clinking, sobbing. A special team of scientists are gathered to investigate the stone and are brought to a conclusion none of them could have imagined, nor ever forget. Powerful ending An adaptation of The Sobbing Stone was released as a movie in 2007 and available on DVD. (See below)

The Glasses of Mervin Sarwenski
(Unpublished. Available from the author)

Mervin is a quiet boy in an angry household, his father being especially abusive, with never any encouragement or approval of anything Mervin does. But Mervin never appears bothered as he has a mysterious friend called ‘George’, whom no one, apart from Mervin, has ever seen, and who appears to be some imaginary friend. His father discovers that Mervin only sees George when he is wearing his glasses, and attempts to destroy them, with unexpected consequences.

One Act Comedies
Sherlock Holmes Comedy Sketches
30 minute theatre

Movie Adaptations

The Sobbing Stone: By the Riverside Films: Released 2007