Elizabeth I is tottering at death's door. Conspirators are everywhere. Lucius Bodkin, an Elizabethan stand-up comedian, becomes unwillingly involved in the political skullduggery and jiggery-pokery surrounding the ailing queen.

The story of the mythical Greek king of Thebes, the archetypal tragic hero who accidentally fulfills a prophecy that he will end up killing his father and marrying his mother, thereby bringing disaster down upon his city and family.

It is foretold that Prince Sigismund will become a tyrant. Alarmed, his father, the king, imprisons him. When he is released for a day as an experiment he proves the omens only too right, and, as a result, is incarcerated once more. Sigismund persuades himself that all that has passed is a dream and emerges to rule wisely and justly.

Three powerful political plays in one volume - with a substantial introduction by Ariel Dorman.

Two plays from playwright Gary Mitchell, known for his powerful explorations of the conflicts troubling Northern Ireland.

Arkadina, a famous actress, and her lover, a famous novelist, are spending the summer on her country estate, but their glamorous presence proves fatally disruptive to the lives of all those present, especially her son, Konstantin and Nina, the girl he loves.

Set in Sicily, Moliere's play retells the famous myth of Don Juan, the womaniser with no morals and a scorn for religion. It charts his relationship with his servant Sganarelle, his romantic philandering, his false conversion and his ultimate punishment.

The six Khan children, entangled in arranged marriages and bell-bottoms, are trying to find their way growing up in 1970s Salford. They are all caught between their Pakistani father's insistence on Asian traditions, their English mother's laissez-faire attitude, and their own wish to become citizens of the modern world.

A classic Restoration-era comedy about the sexual exploits of two officers, the womanising Plume and the cowardly Brazen, as they go about their task of recruiting soldiers in the town of Shrewsbury.

A classic satire of provincial bureaucracy, which only saw the stage after the personal intervention of Tsar Nicholas I. A small, corrupt Russian town receives a letter informing them of the imminent visit of a government inspector travelling incognito. When a passing civil servant is mistaken for the inspector, panic soon sets in.