Trying It On (NHB Modern Plays)

It's 1968. David is twenty. It is the height of the worldwide student revolt. The Vietnam war rages. Enoch Powell delivers his 'Rivers of Blood' speech. Martin Luther King is assassinated. These events will define David's politics and give focus to his writing. It's fifty years on. The seventy-year-old is confronted by the twenty-year old. Do they share the same beliefs? If not, is it the world that's changed, or him? David Edgar's Trying It On is an autobiographical monologue, written to be performed by its author. It was first presented by Warwick Arts Centre and China Plate, touring the UK in 2018, including performances at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, the Midlands Arts Centre and at the Royal Court Theatre, London - as well as at the Royal Shakespeare Company, alongside the RSC's revival of Edgar's landmark play Maydays. 'Witty, but never cynical... as charming as it is challenging' - The Times

David Edgar was born into a theatre family and took up writing full time in 1972. In 1989, he founded Britain's first graduate playwriting course, at the University of Birmingham, of which he was director for ten years. His stage adaptations include Albie Sachs's Jail Diary, Charles Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby (both for the Royal Shakespeare Company), Gitta Sereny's biography of Albert Speer (National Theatre) and Julian Barnes's Arthur & George (Birmingham Repertory Theatre), as well as a version of Henrik Ibsen's The Master Builder (Chichester Festival Theatre). He has written two community plays for Dorchester: Entertaining Strangers and A Time to Keep (with Stephanie Dale). His original plays for the RSC include Destiny, Maydays, Pentecost, The Prisoner's Dilemma and Written on the Heart. Other plays include Daughters of the Revolution and Mothers Against (Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Berkeley Repertory Theatre), Playing with Fire (National Theatre) and Testing the Echo (Out of Joint). He is the author of How Plays Work.