Magnificence by Howard Brenton

Magnificence by Howard Brenton

I loathe us, I loathe our stupid puerile view of the world . That we have only to do it, that we have only to go puff, and the monster buildings will go splat .

London, the early 70s. Poverty, homelessness, rising inequality, unemployment, industrial disputes. Five young activists squat a disused building and try to make a stand against it all.

Fired up by left-wing idealism, but short on pragmatism, they discover that the revolution may be a long time coming and when the protest leads to tragedy, some of them are driven to more violent methods. Meanwhile, two Tory MPs meet for a quiet chat to pass over the reins of power.

Both epic and intimate, Howard Brenton's 1973 play Magnificence takes us from the grubby barracks of the revolutionary struggle to the heart of centre-right Tory politicking, creating a panoramic vision of Britain at a pivotal moment in history. Many of its themes remain burning issues today - police brutality, drug abuse, the deceptions of professional politicians, the social housing crisis and whether violence can ever be justified for political ends.

Magnificence originally premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in June 1973, directed by Max Stafford-Clark and with a cast that included Pete Postlethwaite, Kenneth Cranham, Michael Kitchen and Robert Eddison. This edition was published to coincide with the first professional London revival in over 40 years at the Finborough Theatre in October 2016.

Howard Brenton was born in Portsmouth in 1942. His many plays include Christie in Love (Portable Theatre, 1969); Revenge (Theatre Upstairs, 1969); Magnificence (Royal Court Theatre,1973); The Churchill Play (Nottingham Playhouse, 1974, and twice revived by the RSC, 1978 and 1988); Bloody Poetry (FocoNovo, 1984, and Royal Court Theatre, 1987); Weapons of Happiness (National Theatre, Evening Standard Award, 1976); Epsom Downs (Joint Stock Theatre, 1977); Sore Throats (RSC,1978); The Romans in Britain (National Theatre, 1980, revived at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, 2006); Thirteenth Night (RSC,1981); The Genius (1983), Greenland (1988) and Berlin Bertie (1992), all presented by the Royal Court; Kit's Play (RADA Jerwood Theatre, 2000); Paul (National Theatre, 2005); In Extremis (Shakespeare's Globe, 2006 and 2007); Never So Good (National Theatre, 2008); The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists adapted from the novel by Robert Tressell (Liverpool Everyman and Chichester Festival Theatre, 2010); Anne Boleyn (Shakespeare's Globe, 2010 and 2011); 55 Days (Hampstead Theatre, 2012); #aiww: The Arrest of Ai Weiwei (Hampstead Theatre, 2013); The Guffin (NT Connections, 2013); Drawing the Line (Hampstead Theatre, 2013); Doctor Scroggy's War (Shakespeare's Globe, 2014); Lawrence After Arabia (Hampstead Theatre, 2016) and The Blinding Light (Jermyn Street Theatre, 2017).

Collaborations with other writers include Brassneck (with David Hare, Nottingham Playhouse, 1972); Pravda (with David Hare, National Theatre, Evening Standard Award, 1985) and Moscow Gold (with Tariq Ali, RSC, 1990).

Versions of classics include The Life of Galileo (1980) and Danton's Death (1982), both for the National Theatre; Goethe's Faust (1995/6) for the RSC; a new version of Danton's Death for the National Theatre (2010); Dances of Death (Gate Theatre, 2013) and Miss Julie (Theatre by the Lake, Keswick, 2017). He wrote thirteen episodes of the BBC1 drama series Spooks (2001-05, BAFTA Best Drama Series, 2003).

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780413467508
ISBN 10	0413467503
Title	Magnificence
Author	Howard Brenton
Series	Modern Plays
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Methuen Publishing Ltd
Year published	1980-09-25
Number of pages	80
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.