London's Grand Guignol and the Theatre of Horror

London's Grand Guignol and the Theatre of Horror
Author: Richard J. Hand
Publisher:
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2007
Genre: Drama
ISBN:

London's Grand Guignol--a macabre theatre of naturalistic horror--was established in the early 1920s at the Little Theatre in the West End. Taking its cue from Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol in Paris, this high-profile venture enjoyed as much critical controversy as popular success. On its side were some of the finest actors of the English stage, such as Sybil Thorndike and Lewis Casson, as well as a team of extremely able writers, including the legendary Noël Coward. London's Grand Guignol and the Theatre of Horror considers the importance and influence of the Grand Guignol within its social, cultural, and historical contexts, while presenting a selection of ten remarkable Grand Guignol plays, several of which were banned by the Lord Chamberlain, the censor of the day, and have never been publicly performed--including a previously unpublished work by Coward. The companion volume to Grand-Guignol: The French Theatre of Horror, already in its third edition, this book is an essential addition to any gore-loving student of drama and the twentieth-century theatre of horror.

Grand-Guignol

Grand-Guignol
Author: Prof. Richard J. Hand
Publisher: University of Exeter Press
Total Pages: 399
Release: 2019-07-17
Genre: History
ISBN: 1905816359

The Théâtre du Grand-Guignol in Paris (1897 - 1962) achieved a legendary reputation as the 'Theatre of Horror' a venue displaying such explicit violence and blood-curdling terror that a resident doctor was employed to treat the numerous spectators who fainted each night. Indeed, the phrase 'grand guignol' has entered the language to describe any display of sensational horror. Since the theatre closed its doors forty years ago, the genre has been overlooked by critics and theatre historians. This book reconsiders the importance and influence of the Grand-Guignol within its social, cultural and historical contexts, and is the first attempt at a major evaluation of the genre as performance. It gives full consideration to practical applications and to the challenges presented to the actor and director. The book also includes outstanding new translations by the authors of ten Grand-Guignol plays, none of which have been previously available in English. The presentation of these plays in English for the first time is an implicit demand for a total reappraisal of the grand-guignol genre, not least for the unexpected inclusion of two very funny comedies.

London's Grand Guignol and the Theatre of Horror

London's Grand Guignol and the Theatre of Horror
Author: Richard J. Hand
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2015
Genre:
ISBN:

A companion to UEP's Grand-Guignol: The French Theatre of Horror (now in its third reprint). London's Grand Guignol was established in the early 1920s at the Little Theatre in the West End. It was a high-profile venture that enjoyed popular success as much as critical controversy.

Grand Guignol

Grand Guignol
Author: Carl Grose
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 110
Release: 2009-11-01
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1849438234

1903. In the back streets of Montmartre, the Theatre du Grand Guignol opens its doors to an unsuspecting public. The plays performed, rife with madness and murder, are sold out every night. A psychiatrist obsessed with the playwright’s gruesome dramas ingratiates his way into the company. But when he starts to unpick the author’s mind, the boundaries between theatre and truth begin to blur... Delighting in this lost theatrical form, Carl Grose’s demented new play works fast and loose with convention. A black comedy, a psychological thriller and an unrepentant splatterfest, Grand Guignol is a head-spinning, genre-bending phantasmagoria guaranteed to keep you guessing (and wincing) to the very last horror show...

The Grand Guignol

The Grand Guignol
Author: Mel Gordon
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Total Pages: 196
Release: 1997-08-21
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN:

The Theatre of the Grand Guignol, which began in turn-of-the-century Paris, celebrated horror and fear. Innocent victims, mangled beauty, insanity, mutilation, depravity and guilt were its primary themes. This text examines its history, themes and methods and summarizes its plots.

Performing Grand-Guignol

Performing Grand-Guignol
Author: Prof. Richard J. Hand
Publisher: University of Exeter Press
Total Pages: 311
Release: 2019-07-31
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0859891135

From the authors of the successful Grand-Guignol and London’s Grand Guignol - also published by UEP – this book includes translations of a further eleven plays, adding significantly to the repertoire of Grand-Guignol plays available in the English language. The emphasis in the translation and adaptation of these plays is once again to foreground the performability of the scripts within a modern context – making Performing Grand-Guignol an ideal acting guide. Hand and Wilson have acquired extremely rare acting copies of plays which have never been published and scripts that were published in the early years of the twentieth century but have not been published since – even in French. Includes plays written by, or adapted from, such notable writers as Octave Mirbeau, Gaston Leroux and St John Ervine as well as examples by Grand-Guignol stalwarts René Berton and André de Lorde. Also included is the 1920s London translation of Blind Man’s Buff written by Charles Hellem and Pol d’Estoc and banned by the Lord Chamberlain. A brief history of the Parisian theatre is also included, for the benefit of readers who have not read the previous books.

British Theatre and the Red Peril

British Theatre and the Red Peril
Author: Steve Nicholson
Publisher:
Total Pages: 228
Release: 1999
Genre: Communism and culture
ISBN:

This book examines how communism was portrayed in plays in the British theatre between 1917 and 1945, and how the theatre played a significant part in communicating and manipulating political propaganda in order to influence orders.

The Grinning Man

The Grinning Man
Author: Carl Grose
Publisher: Samuel French Limited
Total Pages: 116
Release: 2021-05-05
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 9780573132209

A strange new act has arrived at Trafalgar Fair's freakshow. Who is Grinpayne and how did he get his hideous smile? With the help of an old puppeteer, his pet wolf and a blind girl, Grinpayne's tale is told. When word spreads across the capital, everything changes. Desperate to know the terrible secrets of his mysterious past, Grinpayne leaves his true love behind and embarks on a journey into an even crueller world - the aristocracy. The Grinning Man is a fairy tale love story streaked with pitch-black humour, lashings of Gothic horror and swashbuckling adventure. It opened at Bristol Old Vic in 2016 to great acclaim and transferred to the West End's Trafalgar Studios in 2017 where it achieved cult status and rave reviews. "Defies theatrical convention by keeping its hand on its heart and its tongue in its cheek." - The Guardian "Blackly comic brilliance." - The Telegraph "The best British score in years" - WhatsOnStage

Theatres of the Troubles

Theatres of the Troubles
Author: Bill McDonnell
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2008
Genre: Community theater
ISBN: 9780859897945

This is the first study of the role of working class Republican and Loyalist popular theatres during the Troubles in Ireland. Some of the texts and performances documented were created by cultural archivists, others by Republican prisoners of war, Loyalist paramilitaries, or by priests and nuns. Based on primary sources, many of them made available for the first time, this book tells the history of one of the most important periods of political theatre in post-war Europe. -- Publisher description.

Mindgame

Mindgame
Author: Anthony Horowitz
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 130
Release: 2006-08-01
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 1849436517

When Mark Styler, a writer of glossy ‘true crime’ paperbacks, tries to get an interview with Easterman, a notorious serial killer, he has no idea what he’s walking into. First he has to get past Dr Farquhar, the quixotic head of Fairfields – the asylum where Easterman is kept. But soon he discovers that nothing is what it seems. Who is the mysterious Borson? Where did he get the meat in the fridge? And why isn’t the skeleton in the closet? Mindgame is a puzzle-box of a play. A dazzling thriller and a jet black comedy that twists its way towards a shocking conclusion. Reading the text is the only way to uncover all the clues.