One Act Comedy
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"Therapy" Straying partner comedy by Dick Curran 2f & 2m ISBN: 978-1-910028-34-6 £4.00 each Royalties £25 per performance
Simon is a driving instructor and his wife has learnt that he had been with another woman. She reluctantly agrees to "try again" if he goes for one to one therapy with a counsellor but can Simon cope with it and will the therapy work ... for either of them?
Therapy was performed at Live Theatre in Newcastle upon Tyne in 2010. In 2003 it won the Drama Association of Wales Short Play and the Arundel Festival Drip Action Best Play.
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"Everybody's At It !" Works comedy by Richard Adams for 8f & 5m ISBN: 978-1-910028-33.9 £4.00 each Royalties £25 per performance
Horace Dooley, the CEO of Dooley’s Desserts is siphoning the profits into a private bank account and playing away from home with Melanie Parker. Doris his secretary knows this and is not averse to blackmail while carrying on with Maurice from accounts who is cooking the books to his own advantage. Meanwhile Boris Norris is transferring quantities of yoghurt from the factory to his Saturday morning market stall. Clarice the cleaner has a religious bent, and believes that such wickedness, sooner or later, has its comeuppance.
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"The Necklace" short comedy by Canadian, Keith Taylor, for 2m & 1f ISBN: 978-1-920028-32-2 £3.00 each Royalties £20 per performance
Two hapless con men practice how they will dupe an old lady out of selling a recently-bought expensive necklace at a knock-down price. They run through their routine, one being brighter than the other and then they knock on the old lady's door ... to find that the reality isnt quite as they had imagined.
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"Revenge of the Shrew" Wife-tamer comedy by David Pemberton for 5f & 5m ISBN: 978-1-910028-21-6 £4.00 each Royalties £25 per performance
One year after their marriage, Katharina and Petruchio are celebrating their first wedding anniversary but how have they fared since we last saw them? Is Petruchio still the eccentric wife-tamer and Katharina still his obedient shrew? Join the party guests for an evening of shocks and surprises when Shakespeare’s favourite fighting couple dust off their boxing gloves and the shrew gets her ultimate revenge.
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"My Best Trifle Dish" farmhouse comedy by Colin Barrow for 4f & 4m ISBN: 978-1-910028-19-3 £4.00 each Royalties £25 per performance
Set in the dining area of a farmhouse, we find a husband and three siblings taking for granted comforts of the wife and mother in the home. For the first time in married life, husband Martin, after a days work on the farm, finds his wife Emma leaving for an evening out with some of her friends without him. After Emma’s departure, the three siblings arrive from their occupations, hungry and eager to depart for their usual Friday night revelry in the local town. This creates an evening of mayhem, as Martin decides to join his neighbour and friend, whose wife has also gone out with Emma, and leave the three siblings to fend for themselves to discover there’s no food prepared or clothes washed, ironed or mended.
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"Percy" a prize-winning comedy about a budgie's view of life by Jef Pirie for 1f & 1m ISBN:978-1-910028-09-4 £4.00 each Royalties £25 per performance
Percy is a budgie living in a cage in a flat occupied by a man and his girlfriend. At the time the play opens, Percy is afraid that he is going mad, so he invents an angel to talk to. It is during these conversations that we learn of Percy’s insights into the world of humans. A girl budgie, Sparkie, is introduced into the cage, with mixed results. Funny, poignant, and thought-provoking.
(Overall Winner of Somerset One-Act Play Drama Festival; Best New Play; Best Actor; Best Actress; Overall Winner of Exmouth One-Act Play Drama Festival; Best New Script;Best Actor; Best Actress; Overall Winner of Teignmouth One-Act Play Drama Festival; Best Supporting Actress)
Download first part of "Percy" (Also viewable on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mNCRwlkCf4 as "I'd like to believe in angels")
"The Accidental Adjudicator" comedy by Tony Breeze for whole group ISBN: 978-1-872758-35-0 £4.00 each Royalties £25 per performance
The local drama group are about to put on their first Shakespeare with "Macbeth" and the new thrusting director has decided to enter the play into the county "Play of The Year Competition." As they make their final preparations they await the arrival of the adjudicator who is reputed to be a retired drama lecturer with a drink problem. The stagehands come in with the alcohol for the Christmas party and are told to put it into the nearby drama store and lock the door. They do the first but not the second. The adjudicator arrives, speaks to a deaf FOH person who tells him to wait in the drama store. The director returns and, of course, locks the store. Meanwhile a taxi driver arrives with a clipboard that the adjudicator's left in the car, he's mistaken for the adjudicator, feted like a lord, the play begins and the driver is treated as the missing adjudicator for the rest of the evening - including the final somewhat down-to-earth adjudication!
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"Guess Who's Coming To Tea" comedy for 4f & 1m by Lyndon House ISBN: 978-1-910028-01-8 £4.00 each Royalties £25 per performance
Geraldine and Marcia are "mature ladies" whose sister, Gloria, is sixty-four years of age. They are taken aback when Gloria reports that she's found a boyfriend, Greg, who's only thirty and that they're coming to tea that afternoon. Could Greg be a con man who's after Gloria's money? Perhaps and then again perhaps not.
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"Zoo" Human Safari Park Comedy by Tony Breeze 7f & 6m & Children ISBN 978-1-872758-17-6 £4.00 each Royalties £25 per performance
A trip to the zoo in reverse - this time it's the behaviour of the humans which is being observed by a group of futuristic monkeys who were the ones who won the evolutionary race. (First performed by Whitley Chapel Young Farmers Club, Hexham and after winning several rounds of the National YFC Drama Competition reached the final in Blackpool).
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"Ludo" a one-act comedy for 3m by Chris Joby ISBN: 978-1-873130-86-5 £4.00 each Royalties £25 per performance
A man is shipwrecked on a desert island and finds there is already one other man living there but all is not sweetness and light ... the first man, Ludo, has decided that he is in charge of the island and what he says goes ... even down to which language is spoken on which day of the week. A tightly written prize-winning one-act comedy, if ever we saw one (with deeper meanings).
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"Looking After Norman" Invisible Cat Comedy by Stewart Brown 4f & 2m ISBN 978-1-873130-34-6 £4.00 each Royalties £25 purr purrformance!
Six-year-old Georgia’s dearest friend is Mrs Scott (Scottie) who lives nearby with her beloved cat, Norman. Georgia has given a solemn promise that if anything were to happen to the old lady, Georgia would take care of Norman. Fine, you might think. No, not fine. Not at all fine! Not when Dad can’t stand cats… not when they make his eyes water, his chest wheeze and his nose block. And certainly not fine when one day a social worker arrives at the front door to say that Mrs Scott has had an accident and there, clutched in his hand, is a cat basket containing the irrepressible Norman. As adenoidal Dad himself would say (and did), “Oh, dear be!”
N.B.: A 40-minute piece for young children using humour, pathos, music, mime and audience partication. It has had four Theatre In Education (TIE) productions in Scotland and one in Ohio, USA (US version available on request) and won 2014 Edinburgh Festival’s Most Outstanding Production at the American High School Drama Festival against 50 other productions.
Download first part of "Looking After Norman"
“The Happiness Tree” Social Commentary Comedy by Tony Breeze 5f & 5m (doubling) or 38 single ISBN 978-1-872758-19-0 £4.00 each Royalties £25 per performance
An allegorical comedy about people in a far-off land who, though living in poverty, are willing to put up with their lowly humdrum existence until one day a tree is discovered that bears fruit which will change their lives. The fruit of The Happiness Tree makes everyone extremely happy but all is not well as the happiness begins to spread, eventually affecting the work ethic and the stability of society as people begin to forget their place. What does the establishment do? They ban it, of course, making its possession illegal, but when all attempts at controlling it fail, they are eventually forced to do what any civilized society will do with such a problem – they tax it!
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"Mirror Image" Comedy about modern art by Dr. Chris Joby 3m & 1f ISBN:978-1-873130-59-9 £4.00 each Royalties £25 per performance
Well-paid bankers have been in the news recently and this particular banker has spent a large amount of money on what he believes to be a "one-off" piece of modern art that reflects everything about modern society ... in fact it is so reflective that it is actually a mirror displayed in a special artistic frame. Has he spent his money wisely or has he been conned? ... Are we being conned?
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" Affairs of State" Comedy about political intrigue in high places by Peter D'Aguilar 2f & 2m ISBN 978-1-873130-50-6 £4.00 each Royalties £25 per performance
A high ranking female politician has a husband who is a "loose cannon." She is advised by her leader that it will cost her future promotion unless she "gets rid of him" in some way. She decides to seperate and to see him only in secret but the pair of them are then tailed by a nosey-parker newspaper reporter which produces the weirdest comic results.
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“Cathy’s Kitchen” Bakery Comedy Drama by Lynn Howes 3 females ISBN 978-1-873130-23-0 £4.00 Royalties £25 per performance
Set in the present in the back kitchen of a village bakery, we are introduced via witty dialogue to the lives of three women – a young one who works there, another who used to but is now heavily pregnant and Cathy herself who is the owner and who reveals to the other two something about her that they never knew.
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"The New Recruit" a one-act comedy for 6f & 4m by Charles Stott ISBN: 978-1-873130-87-2 £4.00 each Royalties £25 per performance
The setting is a small provincial theatre in the Spanish village of Hasta la Vista on the Costa Packet. The local English theatrical group are struggling with falling audiences, an ageing cast, and what play to put on in June when they are joined by a new member of the expat community.
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"Home Win" a comedy for 5f & 3m mature actors by Peter Bridge ISBN:978-1-873130-80-3 £4.00each Royalties £25 per performance
Tom is an irascible, independent man, just past the sixty mark. Due to recurring alarming incidents involving his state of health, he has been persuaded by his family to relinquish his detached home in the country and to invest in a sheltered accommodation where his health and welfare can be regularly assessed. Despite the obvious advantages of this system, Tom is reluctant to easily relinquish his cosy independent life style. Upon entry to the purpose built block, he meets very obvious challenges in his early exchanges with staff and co-residents on a scale that he could not possibly have anticipated, particularly so, when one resident turns out to be none other than his ex-wife.
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"The Bananas Way" Comedy for 2f & 2m by Roger Pinkham ISBN: 978-1-873130-68-1 £4.00 each Royalties £25 per performance
‘Frocks’ model agency is in a mess. Cassie has forged the tax returns and Robert, her business partner, has found himself in prison for it. Meanwhile Cassie is reforming the business, has sacked or lost the models with the exception of the ageing Andree who is next to get the chop, which Cassie pins on Stephen. Andree turns up for her last ‘shoot’ which Cassie rubbishes. But Stephen has a soft spot for Andree and takes some photos of her in case she is sacked. Cassie then sacks Andree. While she is weeping over this with Stephen’s arms around her, Robert enters. He has just been released from prison and is keen to sort out Casssie. Also it gets to him slowly that Andree, his wife, is too friendly with Stephen and that needs sorting out.In the end it is Robert, still a partner in the business, who compromises Cassie, forces her to re-employ Andree and re-establishes the agency to cater for the fuller-figured, middle-aged woman.
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"Below Stage" Comedy for 4f & 4m by Christine Woolf ISBN: 978-1-873130-37-7 £4.00 each Royalties £25 per performance
Before a performance of "Pride and Prejudice," the leading actors, Peregrine and Patrice Vandaleur, have a difference of opinion. This escalates both in the dressing room and on stage, made worse by Peregrine's interest in the juvenile lead, Selina Sparrow. The Vandaleurs' dressers, Harry and Betty, dream of the day when they can escape from their employment. The row reaches its climax, resolving various conflicts. (First performed at Luxulyan Village Hall, Cornwall)
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"What Do Eskimos Eat?" A comedy for 3m by Jeffrey A.Lee ISBN: 978-1-873130-63-6 £4.00 each Royalties £25 per performance
The scene is the platform of a suburban railway station at about midday, the off-peak time. The stage is the platform and the line is down stage in the audience. There is a bench upstage upon which Peewee Pierce sits reading 'The Independent'. Bill Frogett carries a copy of 'The Times Educational Supplement' and a rather shabby briefcase. There is a comic station porter. The play lasts for about thirty minutes and was awarded a highly commanded by the Somerset Fellowship of Drama.
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"One Man's Angels" Comedy by Sylvia Lees 2f & 2m ISBN: 978-1-873130-40-7 £4.00 each Royalties £25 per performance.
Collier, a reticent but healthy batchelor and tropical fish fanatic, decides that he is in a rut. Following an evening spent with his landlady's neurotic daughter, he is thankful to return to his rut, which on reflection, he decides, is a safer and more comfortable place to be.
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“ When Robots Discovered Sex” Comedy by Ken Blakemore 2f & 2m & Voices Off ISBN 978-1-873130-49-0 £4.00 Royalties £25 per performance
Hilarious comedy set in the future when robots do everything in the house except what comes naturally to humans ... then things begin to get complicated when the humans are away and the robots discover just what makes the world go round
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"Tea Girl" U.S. Tea Factory Comedy by Christine Rusch 3f & 1m ISBN 978-1-873130-41-4 £4.00 each Royalties £25 per performance
Written by well-known American playwright, Christine Rusch, who was recently featured in "Best American Plays," this story takes place in an American tea-packing factory in the 1960's (before mechanization) where we see two great characters, Millie and Rosie, who are experienced in more than just machine working, as they meet Violet, the new girl, for the first time. They freely offer her lots of advice, especially when she is due to go out on her first date with Hunter, the new boy on the works coffee truck.
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"The Meeting" Comedy drama by Charles Stott for 4f & 4m ISBN: 978-1-873130-71-1 £4.00 each Royalties £25 per performance
An assorted group of villagers come together in the village hall for one of their chaotic committee meetings but the local farmer reports that he has just accidentally sprayed manure all over the garden belonging to the local female chief constable ... and it gets worse.
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"Fresco” Black Comedy by Alan Phillips 3f & 3m ISBN 978-1-873130-43-8 £4.00 each Royalties £25 per performance
Bianca returns from Northern Australia where she has lived with the Yolgnu tribe, studying their customs, their rock paintings and has even joined in their ceremonial dances (naked). Her local church needs a mural for the hall and Bianca plans a fresco inspired by aboriginal art but she comes up against Unity who is a confirmed spinster and whose deceased father raised the money which will pay for the fresco ... friction ensues
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“Undercoats” Weird Welsh Family Comedy by Roger Pinkham 3m & 3f ISBN 978-1-873130-00-1 £4.00 each Royalties £25 per performance
A black comedy of life in a Welsh household - dad's mad on DIY - mum wants to be an opera singer - son's a vandal and daughter's looking for Mr Right. Already performed by Equity South & East, this bizarre view of life and death has many home truths at its centre and will have you laughing all evening
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"A Freudian Slip" Psychiatrist Comedy by Mike Wright 2f & 1m One Act 978-1-873130-11-7 £4.00 each Royalties £25 per performance
Another observant comedy in which a smooth, self-confident, psychiatrist receives a new female patient with a very unusual problem - she can't stop throwing herself at any man that she meets - any man, that is, except for the psychiatrist himself
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"The Game" Football Evening Comedy by Christine Henderson, 6 females ISBN 978-1-873130-25-4 £4.00 each Royalties £25 per performance
We see a group of women gathering in the kitchen of a friend while their partners are watching the big football game on the TV next door and what they reveal has to be heard to be believed
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"The Other Incident" A short comedy for 1f & 1m by Jeffrey A.Lee ISBN: 978-1-873130-65-0 £4.00 each Royalties £25 per performance
As the play opens the woman is seated at a desk or table down stage right. She is trying to read a woman's magazine but is also listening anxiously and obviously expects the man to return. The man enters stage left. He has been to see another man who, it appears, was the woman's previous partner and she wants to know how her ex took the news that she had left him. The playwright has directed this play twice with considerable success and it runs for approximately twenty minutes.
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"The Hen Night" Pre-Marriage Confessional Comedy by Christine Henderson 5 females ISBN 978-1-873130-26-1 £4.00 each Royalties £25 per performance
Debs is getting married and all the girls gather at Sharon’s house. They take much pleasure in telling her what her future partner is really like but in the end it is Debs who has the last laugh.
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"The Door Was Open" Boy Scout Comedy by Virginia Hobart 1f &1 boyscout ISBN 978-1-873130-29-2 £4.00 each Royalties £25 per performance
Charlotte is an ageing hostess who is preparing for a party and remembers the glory days from her past, when she is interrupted by a boy scout who is looking to do his good deed
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" All Done By Magic" Romantic Comedy by Susan Meredith 2f & 3m ISBN: 978-1-873130-551 £4.00 each Royalties £25 per performance
When Alice attempts to find her Great Romance using her uncle Harry’s newly acquired magic powers, he proves to be more of a hindrance than a help. Harry is busy trying to solve his own problems, and they soon find themselves at cross purposes. To make matters worse, Harry’s well-meant remedies consistently misfire leading to chaotic comic situations.
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"Woman in the Park" Short comic drama for 1f & 1m by Jeffrey A.Lee ISBN: 978-1-873130-64-3 £3.00 each Royalties £15 per performance
A sketch for two characters, a middle-aged woman tramp and a younger male clerk. The woman wears somewhat bizarre clothes suggesting eccentricity and the man is dressed in the formal suit of an office worker. The man has a brief case in which he carries his sandwiches.There is a park bench mid-stage slightly right facing the audience . Upstage left there should be a small shrub or a cut-out suggesting a shrub behind which a body might have been concealed. The play is a black comedy and the playwright has directed it twice with considerable success. It lasts approximately twenty minutes.
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