Thon Man Molière (NHB Modern Plays)

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, ingénues and, of course, their leading man, author of their dramas and cause of all their troubles... thon man Molière. Under constant threat of debtors' prison, in big bother with church and state and - worst of all - disastrously in love, Molière 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 Molière 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 Molière 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

Liz Lochhead was born in Lanarkshire in 1947 and educated at Glasgow School of Art. Her collections of poetry include Dreaming Frankenstein, The Colour of Black & White and True Confessions, a collection of monologues and theatre lyrics. Her original stage plays include Blood and Ice, Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off, Perfect Days and Good Things. Her many stage adaptations include Dracula, Molière's Tartuffe, Miseryguts (based on Le Misanthrope) and Educating Agnes (based on L'École 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). All of these plays are published by Nick Hern Books.