Trevor Griffiths

Spokesman Books | Trevor Griffiths

Trevor Griffiths' Theatre, Television and Screenplays

Trevor Griffiths was born and educated in Manchester and has been writing for theatre, television and cinema since the late 1960s. Here you can view and purchase the plays and screenplays byTrevor Griffiths published by Spokesman Books.

March Time, an original television screenplay written between 1987 and 1994, was published in the November 2012 edition of The Spokesman.



<span style='font-size: 14px;'>Bill Brand</span>Bill Brand
by Trevor Griffiths

This latest volume in the Trevor Griffiths series contains all eleven episodes of the celebrated 1976 Thames TV series Bill Brand, which was the fictional account of a young left-wing Labour MP entering Parliament for the first time and attempting to influence the policies of his largely right-wing Labour government.

The series was conceived on election night in 1974, written and produced over the following two years and transmitted in 1976. This was a time of great political and industrial unrest in Britain; it produced the first minority government (under Harold Wilson) since 1931, and Bill Brand was watched with extreme interest by both the political classes and the wider population. At times it seemed almost uncannily prophetic; and many of the issues it dealt with remain of great contemporary relevance.

The series starred Jack Shepherd as Bill Brand, Arthur Lowe as the Prime Minister, Alan Badel, Peter Howell, Lynne Farleigh, Cherie Lunghi and many other distinguished actors.

Bill Brand has never been shown again, nor is it at present available commercially on dvd. This book is therefore a unique record of a unique television event.

' ... tells us more about Parliament, constituency politics and the Labour Party than the combined writings of most of the Westminster drama critics who masquerade as political commentators.'
New Statesman

'The most remarkable serial ever seen on the box.'
Sunday Times

Reviews
Bill Brand; It is the People who Create ... - lipstick socialist

Trevor Griffiths, Bill Brand and Political Television Drama - Tony Williams in The November 3rd Club

A representative of the People - Romy Clark in
Red Pepper, Feb 2010

Working Class Hero - John Wyver

Tribune - Keith Richmond

Price: £18.00

ISBN: 978 0 85124 7632
300 pages | Paperback


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<span style='font-size: 14px;'>These Are The Times</span>These Are The Times
A Life of Thomas Paine
Screenplay by Trevor Griffiths

Trevor Griffiths' thrilling screenplay follows Tom Paine from persecution in England, to the American War of Independence, to Revolutionary France. It mixes politics, love and war.

It has been adapted for theatre and A New World made its premiere at Shakespeare's Globe (29th August - 9th October).

David Horspool reviews A New World in the TLS - PDF

Putting the World to Rights - An interview with Trevor Griffiths by Robert Chalmers, in the Independent on Sunday 9th August 2009.

'These Are The Times reads like the greatest of novels and is the most thrilling read I’ve had in years!'
Kurt Vonnegut

These Are The Times Episodes from a Life of Thomas Paine featured in Vertigo Magazine Volume 4, Number 3, Summer 2009.

Revolutionising Tom Paine - Whilst recording These Are The Times for radio, Trevor Griffiths discovered the true revolutionary spirit of Tom Paine.

Trevor Griffiths's screenplay broadcast on Radio 4 on Saturday 26th July and Saturday 2nd August 2008. Read the discussions about it on their Message Boards.

Ann Talbot's recent review of These Are The Times and interview with Trevor Griffiths can be found on the
World Socialist Web Site:
Review
Interview

Read reviews by:
Phil Turner
Ray Brown
Sheila Rowbotham
Jeremy Pikser
Matthew Robbins
Mike Nichols
Rob Ritchie
Prof. Ted Braun
Terry Eagleton
Tim Robbins
Tom Stoppard
Troy Kennedy Martin
Walter Bernstein
Kurt Vonnegut


Price: £15.00

208 pages | ISBN: 978 0 85124 6956
110mm (w) x 180mm (h) | Paperback


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<span style='font-size: 14px;'>Theatre Plays One</span>Theatre Plays One
by Trevor Griffiths

1 - The Wages of Thin | Occupations | Sam Sam | Apricots | Thermidor | The Party | Comedians | The Cherry Orchard

The Wages of Thin is running at the Old Red Lion Theatre, St John Street, London EC1V 4NJ (Angel Tube), until May 15th 2010.

Reviews of The Wages of Thin:
Vera Liber (2010), British Theatre Guide
Theo Bosanquet, What's on Stage, 2010


Comedians was on at the Lyric Hammersmith, in late 2009.
The director was Sean Holmes and the cast was Keith Allen, Mark Benton, Billy Carter, David Dawson, Michael Dylan, Kulvinder Ghir, Matthew Kelly, Simon Kunz, Paul Rider and Reece Shearsmith.

Here are some reviews of Comedians:
Telegraph
Times
Guardian
What's On Stage
Tribune


Trevor Griffiths was born and educated in Manchester and has been writing for theatre, television and cinema since the late 1960s.

The first volume of his collected theatre plays covers the period 1969 to 1980.

Volume two contains the plays written between 1981 and 2001.

His extensive work for the screen includes three major television series - Bill Brand, Sons and Lovers, and The Last Place on Earth; numerous single plays including All Good Men and Through the Night, and television films Country and Food for Ravens. Many of his stage plays have also been produced on television.

For his film Reds, written with Warren Beatty, he received the Writers Guild of America Best Screenplay award and an Oscar nomination. Other films have included Country, directed by Richard Eyre, and Fatherland, directed by Ken Loach.

From the 1980s onwards he has also directed his own work both in theatre and on film. Food for Ravens, which he wrote and directed for BBC Wales, won both a Royal Television Society award and a Welsh BAFTA.

In 1982 Trevor Griffiths was given the BAFTA Writers Award.

Price: £15.00

ISBN: 978 0 85124 7205


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<span style='font-size: 14px;'>Theatre Plays Two</span>Theatre Plays Two
by Trevor Griffiths

2 - Oi for England | Real Dreams | Piano | The Gulf between Us | Thatcher’s Children | Who Shall Be Happy? | Camel Station

Read reviews of both volumes by:
Ray Brown
Romy Clark
Sam Porter
Randall Stevenson
Acclaim



Price: £15.00

ISBN: 978 0 85124 7212


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<span style='font-size: 14px;'>Sons and Lovers</span>Sons and Lovers
Trevor Griffiths' screenplay of the novel by
D.H. Lawrence


In May 2013, it's the centenary of the first publication of Sons and Lovers. To mark this anniversary Spokesman are reprinting Trevor Griffiths’ highly acclaimed screenplay of the novel.

"Sons and Lovers is a work of autobiographical fiction that charts, with extraordinary fidelity, the events, circumstances and social relations of Lawrence's early life. Written between 1910 and 1912, it covers the period 1875-1910 through the lives of a mining family in Bestwood (Eastwood) in Nottinghamshire, and especially through the emerging moral consciousness of Paul Morel, the novel's central figure, whose life differs in few important details from Lawrence's own. I choose to do this work because, ... there is, in this Lawrence, and vibrantly so, a powerful and radical celebration of dignity in resistance within working-class culture in industrial class-societies ..."
Trevor Griffiths in his Introduction

Nottingham author, Joy James, recalls her part in the celebrated BBC adaptation of Sons and Lovers


Price: £15.99

318 pages | Paperback
ISBN: 978 0 85124 334 4


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<span style='font-size: 14px;'>The Narrative of Peace</span>The Narrative of Peace
Spokesman 118
Edited by Tony Simpson

Tony Simpson - Coalition Politics
John Gittings - The Narrative of Peace
Ban Ki-moon - Opportunities Lost
Sergio Duarte - Assembly Line for Disarmament
Trevor Griffiths - March Time
Ruth Lister - Social Security
Dexter Whitfield - Care and Health

Reviews
Dossier - Hiroshima



Price: £6.00

156 pages | A5 size
ISBN: 978 0 85124 8202


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<span style='font-size: 14px;'>Trident - Nuclear Proliferation</span>Trident - Nuclear Proliferation
the British Way
Spokesman 98
Edited by Ken Coates

Ken Coates - Editorial
Maj Britt Theorin
Is a Nuclear-Weapons-Free World Achievable?
Mayors for Peace - Nuclear Disarmament: Still Waiting
Jacqueline Cabasso - The Cost of Nukes
Alexis Lykiard - Conversion Currency
An Original Screenplay by Trevor Griffiths
Willie and Maud

Reviews

Price: £5.00

104 pages | A5 size
ISBN: 978 0 85124 751 9


Spokesman Books | Trevor Griffiths