I Dreamt I Dwelt In Marble Halls
"It’s impossible to be less than charmed or moved" The Daily Telegraph
Enniskillen, Northern Ireland. 'Mad' Madelyn Ingram is alone with her memories in her ramshackle cottage, a boy runs up the hill for some buttermilk and listens, enchanted, to her stories, and forty years later that same boy returns from his life as a musician, one of the 'London Irish' to attend her funeral. He meets the only other mourner, a Londonderry man with a tragic secret and a bottle of whisky. Past and present meld and fuse in this epic story of enduring love, of growing religious conflict and of a young woman torn between the two men in her life. Based on the short story by Bryan Gallagher.
This play is available for performance via Samuel French
A video recording of the second Watermill Theatre production of the play, directed by Ade Morris, is available on YouTube at this link.
The Story Of A Great Lady /
The Boadicea Of Brittania Street
"...one of the warmest, funniest and most touching explorations of the female psyche that you could wish to see." The Henley Standard
A hilarious and sassy look at life, death and love through the eyes of three women. Francesca is a struggling journalist, a little cranky, close to retirement. Following the death of her husband she starts a new writers group - to try to do something more creative for a change. She meets the eccentric Annie and mysterious Stef, and the three of them decide to write a play, perhaps unwisely, about Boadicea. As they get to know each other the women discover that they have much in common in relation to men and to each other, but none could have suspected how greatly their lives world connect, or how profoundly they might change during the mad, magic rehearsals for The Story of a Great Lady. The play was revived as a four hander and re-titled ' The Boadicea Of Brittania Street by Ade for the Edinburgh Festival , and is available in this version from Samuel French
Four characters, all female.
Micky Salberg's Crystal Ballroom Dance Band
"Playwright Ade Morris has created a gem of a time capsule in this new actor/musician production."
The Stage
It’s the early 1950’s and the world is changing fast, the Cold War meets warm hearts as jazz makes way for rock n’ roll in the era where ‘you’ve never had it so good’ was sometimes true, sometimes not. British conscription comes to an end and The Crystal Ballroom Dance Band plays, inspired by their charismatic leader Micky Salberg. But how long will the old music last, and what will the new tunes sound like?
A soulful, new musical comedy exploring the moment when an era turns, then twists, on the dance floors of Britain.
Three characters, 2 m/ 1f. Script and rights available from Samuel French
A video recording of the first Watermill Theatre production of the play, directed by Guy Retallack, is available on You Tube via this link:
Gigolo
'Consistently laugh out loud funny', Charles Spencer , Daily Telegraph
'humour and lovingly jaundiced nostalgia for Stoke- on-Trent' Jeremy Kingston, The Times
Two unemployed men in Stoke On Trent decide to turn themselves into Gigolos, -but they don't reckon with the complications....or the interventions of Sherry, an NHS nurse on a mission.
Three characters 2m/1f. This script is available from Ade on request.
A video of the Watermill production, directed by Ade, is available on YouTube via this link:
The Garden OfLlangoed
'Vibrant and entrancing -a poignant Welsh romance' The Stage
WW2 is over and in North Wales life begins to return to some kind of normal at Lllangoed, - near Beaumaris on Anglessey.
Kit Sayers (Andy Crabb) returns to Llangoed and his childhood friend Jane Mortimer (Katarina Olsson) with whom romance had begun to blossom before he joined the RAF. But Kit has been long away and is haunted by the memory of those he has killed; the relationship both are desperate to re-establish seems unachievable. One thing Kit can do for Jane is to find her a gardener, one William Adams (Christopher Hampson), a fellow flier and man of Harlech, who has been a father figure to the younger man, knowing his weaknesses and helping him through them.
So the blunt Welshman comes to restore Jane’s garden; both he and Jane are tellers of tales and he listens to her story of a previous owner, Eve, whose husband and lover fought a duel over her, and who is said to haunt Llangoed.
Against a backcloth of grey sea and distant cliffs the three characters find themselves caught in the web of their time , the golden damaged Kit, who loves flying and has stayed to test captured planes in which he feels ‘like a falling angel’ ; Bill, archetypally Welsh, his conversation spiked with glorious digs at the English, and the vibrant Jane, torn by emotions and the contrast between the two men now in her life.
Three characters 2m/1f. This script is available from Ade on request.
A video of the original production at the Watermill theatre, also directed by Ade, is available on YouTube via the following link:
The Oldest Man In Catford
'...dramatic, surprising and utterly absorbing'
British Theatre Guide
The gently comic and terrible secrets of Reg Thorn, 106 - the oldest man in Catford. Reg depends on his Great Great Granddaugter Julie, she brings him cake, conversation and sympathy, but when Julie walks out on her cheating boyfriend and needs somewhere else to live she turns to old Reg for help; so the two embark on an uneasy partnership and a touching adventure into Reg's murky past. As the mismatched pair confront the prospect of accidental fame, longevity, and mutual heartache, Julie learns more than she ever thought possible, about Reg, herself, and about still being alive.
The play was premiered at the Edinburgh Festival in 2014 to five star reviews.
Two characters, 1F 1M. The script is available from Ade.
A DVD of the original Quidem Productions show, recorded at the Edinburgh Festival, can be found at the following YouTube link:
DUST
Dust was premiered to great reviews at the New Town Theatre during the Edinburgh Festival 2011 and went on a subsequent tour of theatres and miners' social clubs in the north of England and Scotland. Set on the morning (then fictional) of Margaret Thatcher's death the play explores the complex legacy of Arthur Scargill, leader of the National Union of Mineworkers during the 1984 strike.
During the early years of the Cameron/ Clegg government, when austerity began to bite, an older Arthur and his publicist Barbara are visited in Arthur's Barbican flat by one of the striking miners from the time. This miner has a son and daughter-in-law still struggling to cope with the repercussions of Thatcherism and the decimation of old style heavy industry. Dark secrets emerge as the three old warriors battle it out, shot through with glimpses of the son's life in modern Britain, his redundancy due to public sector cuts, and flashbacks to the firebrand speeches of Arthur's namesake and mentor, Arthur Cook, during the similar industrial conflicts of the 1920's. Personal and political worlds collide in this gripping, sometimes darkly funny, ultimately moving and tragic play for our times.
Five characters, 2F 3M. (or four with doubling) The script is available from Ade.
A DVD of the original Quidem Productions show, recorded at the Edinburgh Festival, can be found at the following YouTube link:
Lone Flyer
The last flight of Amy Johnson
Amy Johnson is a British hero whose stock continues to rise as her remarkable achievements are recognised more fully. The first woman to fly solo to Australia she also became one of the biggest early celebrities of the modern age; through her many record setting flights, her place in popular culture, and her troubled marriage to another glamorous flyer, Jim Mollison. The play is set onboard the training plane piloted by Amy on her last flight for the ATS during the foggy night in 1941 when she was forced to ditch in the Thames Estuary miles off course and out of fuel.
Amy's story flashes back to her birth in Hull, her rebellious childhood and first unhappy romance, then her struggle to escape the constraints of being born an ambitious woman in a male world, - and finally her triumph with the Australia flight and in becoming a successful working pilot. Funny, moving, inspiring, the play was a great success when first presented at the Watermill Theatre and on tour. The play also had a long run at the Croydon Warehouse Theatre.
In October 2020 a revised version of the play is due to be revived by the Watermill.
Two characters, 1F 1M. (M. playing multiple characters) The script is available from Ade.
TheDREAMER
The Dreamer tells the story of Martin Luther King as he evolves his unique brand of non-violent pretest and travels towards his untimely and tragic death at the hands of James Earl Ray. Framed from the perspective of a young black woman in modern Britain struggling to reconcile the death by stabbing of her own partner outside a nightclub, the play explores the enduring resonance of King's message in a world still too slow to change.
The story of Luther King';s life, his meeting with and romance with his wife Coretta, his inspiration, commitment and friendships, and some of the most significant events of the civil rights movement are interwoven with the present, and spiked by the ominous approach of Earl Ray as he plans the assassination.
The play was premiered at the Watermill Theatre before embarking on two national tours and a run at the Croydon Warehouse Theatre.
Three characters, 2M 1f, all in multiple roles. The script is available from Ade.
A video of the original production can be found at the following link: https://youtu.be/FXQFdnYgsng