'Why do folk not, ever, catch on to themselves?... Ach, gies you another interesting nutter to play.'

Welcome to Paris at the time of Louis XIV. Come backstage and meet the King's theatre company - a troupe of grandes dames, old hams, ingenues and, of course, their leading man, author of their dramas and cause of all their troubles... thon man Moliere.

Under constant threat of debtors' prison, in big bother with church and state and - worst of all - disastrously in love, Moliere writes brilliant, scurrilous comedies inspired by a desperate life. But telling the truth is a dangerous business and his latest drama could be the death of him...

Liz Lochhead's play Thon Man Moliere was first performed at the Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh in 2016, in a production starring Jimmy Chisholm and Siobhan Redmond.

'I was so moved by this play, which surprised me, as I had expected a knockabout comedy. Don't get me wrong, it was funny. But I hadn't expected the tenderness and emotional complexity. The bond - eternal, exasperated, essential - between Moliere and Madeleine is the core of the piece, but all of these characters seem every bit as human and deep and strange and needy as theatre people always are.' David Greig, Artistic Director of the Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh

About the Author
Liz Lochhead is a poet, playwright, performer and broadcaster. Her original stage plays include Thon Man Moliere, Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off, Blood and Ice, Good Things and Perfect Days. Her many stage adaptations include Dracula, Moliere's Tartuffe, Miseryguts (based on Le Misanthrope) and Educating Agnes (based on L'Ecole des Femmes); as well as versions of Medea by Euripides (for which she won the Scottish Book of the Year Award in 2001), and Thebans (adapted mainly from Sophocles' Oedipus and Antigone). Her collections of poetry include Dreaming Frankenstein, The Colour of Black & White, A Choosing (Selected Poems), Fugitive Colours and True Confessions, a collection of monologues and theatre lyrics. She served a five-year term as Scotland's Makar, or National Poet, from 2011 till 2016, and was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry, 2015. She won the Sunday Herald Scottish Culture Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017, and the 2023 Saltire Society Lifetime Achievement Award for her contribution to Scottish literature.

Reviews

'Scandalous affairs and royal tiffs abound in this Scots-tinted take on the brilliant but self-destructive French playwright'

* Guardian *

'Complex, hilarious and masterfully executed'

* The Stage *



Book Information
ISBN 9781848426573
Author Liz Lochhead
Format Paperback
Page Count 112
Imprint Nick Hern Books
Publisher Nick Hern Books