Fry: Plays Three

Includes the playsThe Firstborn, A Phoenix Too Frequent, A Sleep of Prisoners, Thor, With Angels, The Boy With a Cart, Caedmon Construed and A Ringing of Bells
The third volume of Christopher Fry's original stage work brings together his only fully-fledged tragedy - The Firstborn, a vivid, urgent retelling of the Biblical story of Moses and the plagues of Egypt - and his six one-act plays, each revealing Fry's unique blend of humour and humanity. They include A Phoenix Too Frequent, a lively romance set in a Roman tomb, which first gave theatregoers notice of Fry's bravura talents as a verse dramatist; the meditative, resonant A Sleep of Prisoners, which links the Biblically-inspired dreams of four British POWs during World War Two; the Dark Age fable Thor, with Angels, with its characteristic themes of love and sacrifice; and two portraits of Anglo-Saxon churchmen, The Boy with a Cart and Caedmon Construed (also known as One Thing More), written fifty years apart. The collection concludes with Fry's brief 'conversational fantasy' A Ringing of Bells, set on the eve of the millennium and written for his old school, Bedford Modern.

Christopher Fry was born Arthur Hammond Harris in 1907. After a short stint as a teacher, he renamed himself Christopher Fry, and during the 1930s worked in a variety of theatrical jobs. >After the Second World War he began to make a name for himself as a verse dramatist with the one-act play A Phoenix Too Frequent and the full-length drama The Firstborn (both 1946). However, the major success of his career came with The Lady's Not for Burning in 1948, which ran for nine months in the West End and is still frequently revived. He later wrote screenplays for Hollywood, as well as plays, adaptations and essays.