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.
