Jack Maggs

You're a dead man if they find you. Enigmatic ex-convict Jack Maggs returns from Australia to the murky streets of nineteenth-century London and embarks on a quest to find his 'son' Henry Phipps, who has mysteriously disappeared. Disguised as a footman, he joins the peculiar household of Phipps's neighbour, Percy Buckle, where he meets Tobias Oates, a young novelist and amateur mesmerist searching for inspiration. Striking a dangerous deal with Oates, Maggs becomes ensnared in a dazzling, distorted world of ambition, secrets and unexpected alliances. Samuel Adamson's ingenious, wildly entertaining adaptation of Peter Carey's bestselling novel opened in November 2024, in a production by State Theatre Company South Australia.

Samuel Adamson's plays include: The Ballad of Hattie and James, Wife (both Kiln Theatre), Some Kind of Bliss (Trafalgar Studios), All About My Mother (from Almodóvar; Old Vic), Gabriel (Shakespeare's Globe), Fish and Company (Soho Theatre/National Youth Theatre), Southwark Fair (National Theatre), Drink, Dance, Laugh and Lie (Bush Theatre/Channel 4), Grace Note (Peter Hall Company/Old Vic), Clocks and Whistles (Bush Theatre), Frank & Ferdinand (National Theatre Connections); as well as contributions to the 24 Hour Plays (Old Vic), Hoard (New Vic, Stoke), A Chain Play (Almeida Theatre), Decade (Headlong Theatre) and Urban Scrawl (TheatreVoice/Theatre 503). Adaptations include: Ibsen's Pillars of the Community and Mrs Affleck, from Ibsen's Little Eyolf, (both at the National Theatre) A Doll's House (Southwark Playhouse); Chekhov's Uncle Vanya (Leeds Playhouse), The Cherry Orchard (Oxford Stage Company/Riverside Studios) and Three Sisters (OSC/Whitehall Theatre); Running Wild, based on the novel by Michael Morpurgo (Chichester Festival Theatre/Regent's Park Open Air Theatre); Schnitzler's Professor Bernhardi (Dumbfounded Theatre/Arcola Theatre/Radio 3); Bernhard Studlar's Vienna Dreaming (National Theatre Studio); a musical based on George MacDonald's The Light Princess, with Tori Amos (National Theatre); Ostrovsky's Larisa and the Merchants (Arcola Theatre); and Jack Maggs, from Peter Carey's novel (State Theatre Company of South Australia). Radio includes: Tomorrow Week (Radio 3). Film includes Running for River (Directional Studios/Krug). He was Pearson Writer in Residence at the Bush in 1997-8.