New Releases by Michael Frayn

It''s the other people around you, says Michael Frayn, who make you what you are. So he would like to say a brief word, looking back on life from his ninetieth year, about a few of the people who have formed his own particular world. Some were friends; some not; some more than friends. Some have had a profound effect; some only a passing one. Some you may know yourself; some you certainly won''t. Some he now wonders if he ever really knew himself. The last of his subjects in this selection, and the longest and closest acquaintance of all, is his own body, a companion on life''s road at least as idiosyncratic and puzzling as everyone and everything around it. Among Others is a patchwork memoir of a lifetime''s encounters. Truthful and loving, sometimes elegiac, sometimes comic, it is a celebration of the endlessly intriguing otherness of others.

A mobile phone is something that gives you the whole world at the touch of your finger - but this book is even better. Magic Mobile is a collection of thirty ''pre-loaded'' new text files in a no-fuss, non-digital entertainment system. In a volume that succeeds Matchbox Theatre and Pocket Playhouse, each of these short comic masterpieces displays Michael Frayn''s unique genius in forever capturing life''s latest absurdities. Tune in to the BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Magic Mobile 13 May, 20 May, 27 May, 3 June. Michael Frayn''s eleven novels include Towards the End of the Morning, Headlong, Spies and Skios. His seventeen plays range from Noises Off to Copenhagen.

Pocket Playhouse is Michael Frayn''s latest imaginative offering that brings the stage to the page. In thirty-six comic sketches, he provides a tour de force of theatrical imagination and satire. Each sketch reveals the author''s infectious delight in writing between the lines of theatre, fiction and comedy. Charmingly packaged and published with flair, Pocket Playhouse is the perfect gift for all theatre and comedy writers.

"Michael Frayn has the rare ability to construct farcical comedy around philosophical principles and the laughs and the ideas effortlessly intermesh" (Guardian) Four old friends sit down for a quiet evening together. But they are harassed by various bells, sirens, buzzers, warblers, beepers and cheepers, all trying to warn them of something. What are these electronic voices trying to tell them? Can they understand the mysterious disasters before disaster strikes? It''s a race against time - because there are seven more plays and twenty more characters still to come before the evening is through, plus a lot more strange noises - and increasingly desperate calls from eleven separate pay phones...

The new collection from the author of the Booker-shortlisted novel Headlong and the internationally acclaimed play Copenhagen Here: "about time, space and life...A touching, brilliant construction. It''s both deeply thought and deeply felt'' (Sunday Times); Now You Know: "Frayn''s light but serious, marvellous new play, about official and unofficial secrets, about idle curiosity and investigative purpose" (Observer); La Belle Vivette: "Frayn''s elegant libretto... Michael Frayn has made an Offenbach opera a farce to be reckoned with...a razor-sharp reworking" (Mail on Sunday) Michael Frayn was born in 1933 in the suburbs of London and began his career as a reporter on the Guardian, before becoming a columnist. His novels include The Tin Men, The Russian Interpreter, Towards the End of Morning and The Trick of It. He has written a number of plays for television and the stage, including translations of Chekhov and smash hits such as his screenplay Clockwise and his plays Donkeys'' Years, Noises Off, Alarms and Excursions and Copenhagen. Deborah Levy "does not deal with realism, she does not deal with magic realism, rather she draws out a new territory, and if we follow we will find ourselves suspended over views we have not seen before" Jeanette Winterson, Observer

"One of theatre''s subtlest, most sophisticated minds" (The Times) Now You Know: "Frayn''s light but serious, marvellous play, about official and unofficial secrets, about idle curiosity and investigative purpose" (Observer)

In this absurdist comedy two lovers - a playwright and his lead actress - escape to a discreet and charming Parisian hotel, conjured from a desert landscape. As the walls, door and crimson curtains of Room 322 materialise around them, a fumbling of fastenings ensues. But they soon discover they''re not the only couple intent on escaping from reality. . . The Crimson Hotel has its world premiere at the Donmar Warehouse Theatre, London, on 25 July 2007. The volume also features the one-act play, Audience, a delightful send-up which holds up a mirror to the outlandish behaviour and comedy inherent in every theatre audience.

"One of theatre''s subtlest, most sophisticated minds" (The Times) One spring morning a quiet, shy man in his sixties sets out from Land''s End to walk the length of his native land. He has never walked more than a dozen miles in his life before, his health is uncertain, his boots are new, and he is too diffident to talk to anyone he meets along the way. His slow, solitary progress up the spine of Britain is watched by an unseen audience - his family and friends at home. How far will he get before he is forced to give up? Is he being heroic or merely selfish? As the days of his absence go by the old alliances and quarrels inside the family shift and alter. What emerges is a story about the arbitrariness of human endeavour and about the tenacious complexity of human relationships; about one man''s glimpse of the country he lives in; about courage and about love. First and Last was directed by Alan Dossor in a production for BBC television, with Joss Ackland as the walker.

Afterlife is Michael Frayn''s first new play for the National Theatre since Democracy, which premiered at the National in 2003 before West End and Broadway transfers. Afterlife opens in the NT Lyttelton in June. Investigating the life of the Austrian impresario and founder of the Salzburg Festival, Max Reinhardt, Afterlife is a grand epic and a highly theatrical work that will be directed by Frayn''s long-term collaborator Michael Blakemore. With his morality play ''Everyman'', Reinhardt captivated first the Prince Archbishop of Salzburg, and then the city itself, with the play opening the Salzburg festival each year from 1920 until the accession of the Nazis in 1938. As Reinhardt and his company are forced into exile, ''Everyman'' is taken to America until life imitates art and Death comes for first Reinhardt''s master of ceremonies and chief associate, Kommer, and then for Reinhardt himself.

Michael Frayn''s ''gorgeous farce'' about a university reunion premiered thirty years ago at the Globe Theatre, London. Returning to the West End in a sparkling new production, it remains a classic comedy. Twenty years after graduation, six former students return to their university college for a reunion dinner. Whilst their lives may have had varying degrees of success, all are connected by a common past. Once locked in college for the night, the graduates begin to relive their youth, and old friendships, feuds - and the much-desired but absurdly proper Master''s wife - come tumbling back into the present . . . ''The show reaches that plateau of comic bliss when it becomes physically impossible to stop laughing'' Daily Telegraph ''The West End''s summer gets off to an exhilarating start with the hilarious return of Michael Frayn''s comedy Donkeys'' Years'' Sunday Express ''All the confidence of a serious comic masterpiece. Masterclass performances. This is one of the best revivals in the West End for years. Unmissable!'' Sunday Times

Comprising four one-act comic vaudevilles and four short stories adapted for the stage by Michael Frayn, The Sneeze introduces readers to a less familiar selection of work by one of the greatest precursors of modern drama. First published in 1989, this reissue includes The Sneeze; The Alien Corn; The Bear; The Evils of Tobacco; The Inspector-General; Swan Song; The Prospect, and Plots. Michael Frayn''s translations of Chekhov''s work marry the expertise of the translator with the innate understanding of a master dramatist and are widely regarded as the truest, most authentic renderings of Chekhov''s work: ''His keen imaginative sympathy with the great Russian dramatist extends beyond translation . . . But translation is an art at which he excels.'' Spectator

Winner of the Evening Standard Best Comedy Award after its long run at the Hampstead Theatre and on the West End in 1975, Alphabetical Order is set in the library of a provincial newspaper where battle is joined between the forces of order and chaos, between arid organisation in the person of the new library assistant, Leslie, and humane confusion in the person of Lucy, the much-loved resident librarian. Drawing on his experience as a journalist, Frayn draws his gallery of characters with the hilarious accuracy which can only come from first-hand experience. This edition features the author''s revised version of the script presented at the Hampstead Theatre in April 2009.

One of the funniest writers of his generation, Michael Frayn has been writing humorous newspaper columns since 1959, principally for the "Guardian" and "Observer", and originally came to prominence as the thrice weekly purveyor of these short, surreal, razor-sharp explorations of human foibles, sex, politics, manners, and the events of the day. This volume brings together 110 of his finest and funniest pieces from over the years, selected and introduced by Michael Frayn himself, and is an unmissable treat for the many fans of his unique comic voice, as well as a revelation for fans of the award-winning literary novels and plays of his later career.

''A man sits in his car at the traffic lights, waiting for them to go green...'' Heaven, the Book of Revelation tells us, is a city of pure gold, 1,500 miles high, and decorated in sapphire, amethyst, and emerald. According to the Koran, it is peopled with immortal youths and bashful virgins, and there are jeweled couches on which to recline and enjoy food and drink. But wouldn''t most of us feel a little out of our element in such a place? What about a Heaven for ordinary, modern people? Howard Baker is waiting at a traffic light when suddenly he finds himself in a strange and wondrous city where he can fly, speak any language, and even design the Matterhorn. As we accompany him on his tour of Heaven, we discover a place with limitless possibilities for leisure and enjoyment but one which also presents moral and intellectual challenges and possibilities for personal growth - the perfect heaven for a decent, respectable, professional man like Howard Baker ... Long regarded as a classic in Great Britain, Michael Frayn''s brilliantly funny fantasy Sweet Dreams (1973) returns to print in the U.S. for the first time in decades in this edition, which features a new introduction by the author. "Frayn is an impeccable writer ... his novel is a kind of Candide - a vividly contemporary Candide - full of the most serious high comedy and the most enormous belly laughs." - New Yorker "Frayn has a most unusual talent. His books seem so deceptively simple, but they linger in the mind for years, and can be re-read with the greatest pleasure. Sweet Dreams is no exception." - Margaret Drabble, New York Times Book Review "May go down in history as one of England''s special contributions to the twentieth century." - Times Literary Supplement

''Manning''s old friend Proctor-Gould was in Moscow and anxious to get in touch with him. Or so Manning was informed. He looked forward to the meeting. He had few friends in Moscow, none of them old friends, and no friends at all, old or new, in Moscow or anywhere else, called Proctor-Gould . . .'' Paul Manning, a young Englishman working on his thesis in Soviet-era Moscow, takes on a part-time job as interpreter for the enigmatic Gordon Proctor-Gould, ostensibly an honest businessman, but possibly involved in more clandestine activities. When Proctor-Gould falls for the mercurial blonde Raya, Manning finds himself in the awkward position of acting as interpreter in their love affair, a situation made even more awkward by Manning''s own feelings for her. And when it begins to appear Raya may be a police spy, Manning realizes he may have gotten himself into more than he bargained for ... Featuring an unusual blend of humor and suspense, Michael Frayn''s second novel, "The Russian Interpreter" (1966), was inspired in part by the author''s own experiences in Communist Russia and won the Hawthornden Prize as the best work of imaginative fiction published that year. This edition includes a new introduction by the author. ''Altogether a notable book ... Frayn is now our best equipped younger prose-writer as well as being a very sane and very funny one.'' - "Times Literary Supplement" ''Imaginative and delightful - zany characters who stick in the memory and have a genuine life of their own. Frayn juxtaposes the humorous and the frankly sinister into a satisfying and witty picture.'' - "Sunday Telegraph" ''Full of quirky, quixotic surprises ... will catch your curiosity and convert it into admiration.'' - "Kirkus Reviews" (starred review)

Matchbox Theatre presents a sketch show in miniature: thirty short entertainments by Michael Frayn, author of Skios and Noises Off, ''the funniest farce ever written'' (New York Times).These tiny plays are offered here for performance in the smallest theatre in the world: the theatre of your own imagination. The scripts are provided. Everything else -- casting, set design, ice-cream sales -- is up to you . . .

"Martin Jarvis and producer Pete Atkin have got together with BBC Radio 4 to record a wonderful series of hilarious pieces originally written by Michael Frayn. Martin Jarvis performs 99 different roles!"--Publisher''s description.

First published in 1974 and republished following the success of Frayn''s masterly work of philosophy, The Human Touch, Constructions is a dazzling, thought-provoking and fascinating book which explores some of the great problems in philosophy and of everyday life.

Eine schwindelerregende Verwechslungskomödie: Auf einer Ferieninsel in Griechenland bereiten sich die Gäste einer amerikanischen Stiftung auf die Ankunft des diesjährigen Gastredners vor. Dr. Norman Wilfred, Autorität auf dem Gebiet der Szientometrie, erweist sich als erstaunlich jung und gutaussehend und ist alles andere als ein verknöcherter Gelehrter. Das findet insbesondere Nikki, die attraktive rechte Hand von Mrs. Toppler, der Mäzenin. Als Nikkis leichtsinnige Freundin Georgie auf einem anderen Teil der Insel auf einen kahlen, missmutigen und orientierungslosen Mann namens Dr. Norman Wilfred trifft, bricht der nackte Wahnsinn aus.

The great master of farce turns to an exclusive island retreat for a comedy of mislaid identities, unruly passions, and demented, delicious disorder On the private Greek island of Skios, the high-paying guests of a world-renowned foundation prepare for the annual keynote address, to be given this year by Dr. Norman Wilfred, an eminent authority on the scientific organization of science. He turns out to be surprisingly youthful, handsome, and charming—quite unlike his reputation as dry and intimidating. Everyone is soon eating out of his hands. So, even sooner, is Nikki, the foundation''s attractive and efficient organizer. Meanwhile, in a remote villa at the other end of the island, Nikki''s old friend Georgie has rashly agreed to spend a furtive horizontal weekend with a notorious schemer, who has characteristically failed to turn up. Trapped there with her instead is a pompous, balding individual called Dr. Norman Wilfred, who has lost his whereabouts, his luggage, his temper, and increasingly all sense of reality—indeed, everything he possesses other than the text of a well-traveled lecture on the scientific organization of science. In a spiraling farce about upright academics, gilded captains of industry, ambitious climbers, and dotty philanthropists, Michael Frayn, the farceur "by whom all others must be measured" (CurtainUp), tells a story of personal and professional disintegration, probing his eternal theme of how we know what we know even as he delivers us to the outer limits of hilarity.

For the first time, Michael Frayn, the "master of what is seriously funny,"* turns his humor and narrative genius on his own family''s story, to re-create the world that made him who he is Whether he is deliriously funny or philosophically profound, as a novelist and a playwright Michael Frayn has concerned himself with the ordinary life lived by erring humans, which is always more extraordinary than people think. In My Father''s Fortune, Frayn reveals the original exemplar of the extraordinary-ordinary life: his father, Tom Frayn. A clever lad, a roofing salesman with a winning smile and a racetrack vocabulary, Tom Frayn emerged undaunted from a childhood spent in two rooms with six other people, all of them deaf. And undaunted he stayed, through German rockets, feckless in-laws, and his own increasing deafness; through the setback of a son as bafflingly slow-witted as the father was quick on his feet; through the shockingly sudden tragedy that darkened his life. Tom Frayn left his son little more than three watches and two ink-and-wash prints. But the true fortune he passed on was the great humor and spirit revealed in this beguiling memoir. * Anthony Burgess

Michael Frayn is one of the great playwrights of our time, enjoying international acclaim and prestige. This anthology contains three of Michael Frayn''s best-known titles: Copenhagen, Democracy and Afterlife, as well as an introduction by the author and a chronology of his work.

In the quiet cul-de-sac where Keith and Stephen live the only immediate signs of the Second World War are the blackout at night and a single random bombsite. But the two boys start to suspect that all is not what it seems when one day Keith announces a disconcerting discovery: the Germans have infiltrated his own family. And when the secret underground world they have dreamed up emerges from the shadows they find themselves engulfed in mysteries far deeper and more painful than they had bargained for. ''Bernard Shaw couldn''t do it, Henry James couldn''t do it, but the ingenious English author Michael Frayn does do it: write novels and plays with equal success ... Frayn''s novel excels.'' John updike, New Yorker ''A beautifully accomplished, richly nostalgic novel about supposed second-world-war espionage seen through the eyes of a young boy.'' Sunday Times ''Deeply satisfying . . . Frayn has written nothing better.'' Independent

With wit, charm, and brilliance, this epic work sets out to make sense of our place in the scheme of things. Surveying the spectrum of philosophical concerns from the existence of space and time to relativity and language, Frayn attempts to resolve what he calls "the oldest mystery": the world is what we make of it.

Uncumber lives in a dystopian world where all humanity is divided in two - the Insiders and the Outsiders. The Insiders are privileged, with their every need catered to by somatic drugs, three-dimensional holovision and prolonged life. Uncumber lives in this luxurious world and is told that she must never go out into the dust and disease of the real world. Uncumber, however, is haunted by a restless and inquisitive spirit. When she falls in love with an Outsider, she decides to go exploring. . . Michael Frayn is the award-winning author of Headlong, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Spies, which won the Whitbread Best Novel Award, and Skios, which was longlisted for the Booker Prize. ''A fairy tale of the future. . . Frayn handles his observations and inventions brilliantly'' Guardian