'A murderously funny mix of Wodehouse and Hitchcock, a sort of What Ho! Psycho…. The ingenious deceptions of After Pilkington, exploding in a shower of exhilarating complications, make you whistle…. The moral of this highly immoral tale is that, if you fall in love, you will get it in the neck, possibly with a pair of pinking scissors...' Nancy Banks-Smith in The Guardian.Read more
After Pilkington was first broadcast by BBC Television on 25th January 1987. It won the Prix Italia in 1987.
'After Pilkington (BBC 2)… this highly entertaining transgression of genres, expectations and good taste… is about pace, timing, twist and plot, the whole schizophrenia of storytelling… To this end, Miranda Richardson and Bob Peck have supplied a kind of hyper-realism which seals the box tight, if not the coffin. The whole mad machine works like a dream… The film holds hilarious humour and considerable excitement in unusual tandem.' Hugo Williams in the New Statesman. READ MORE
'A hilariously mischievous black comedy. Built upon a richly witty Simon Gray screenplay italicised by director Christopher Morahan with Hitchcockian deftness, it offered four stunning performances… Bob Peck, Barry Foster and Gary Wildhorn, as three permittedly crackpot Oxford academics, and Miranda Richardson as the barking-mad murderess linking and shaping their fates, acted out their nightmare farce as if this were normal behaviour in a normal world, and it was just this disparity between what they did and how they did it which brought laughter welling to the throat.' Mail on Sunday
'Simon Gray’s Screen Two play After Pilkington (BBC 2) was an exercise in chronic and helpless mendacity that exploited every farcical twist engendered by that vice while gradually darkening into infantilism, murder and madness… Director Christopher Morahan varied the pace from a breathless dash to a dead-slow, deliberate prowl round dangerous corners… Bob Peck expressed equal parts of tenderness and panic as an ordinary man filled with a passion unmatched since he was 10. Miranda Richardson was beautiful, bruised and imperious as though Violet Elizabeth Bott had grown into Lady Macbeth… Drama of this excellence deserves a BFI grant and a showing on big screens.' The Independent
PUBLISHING INFORMATION
After Pilkington is being published as a Faber Contemporary Classic in Simon Gray: Plays 4 on July 7th 2010. To order a copy on special offer at 25% discount (using code GRAYPLAYS) please contact Faber.
After Pilkington is also published in the following editions:
Quartermaine's Terms opens in Stockholm
The Swedish production, Frammande sprak, opened on 20th April at the Royal Dramatic Theatre.
Congratulations to Clare Duffy!
For winning this year's Simon Gray award at the Bush Theatre, London, for her play 'Money: The Game Show'
Quartermaine's Terms to be published in new single edition
Faber and Faber will publish the new edition to coincide with the new West End production starring Rowan Atkinson
Congratulations to Tom Wells!
For being shortlisted for the Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright
Further cast announced for Quartermaine's Terms in the West End in January 2013
Rowan Atkinson will be joined by Conleth Hill, Will Keen, Felicity Montagu and Malcolm Sinclair
Simon Ward
The Simon Gray website mourns the actor, a dear friend and collaborator, who died on 12th July 2012.
Rowan Atkinson to star in Quartermaine's Terms in the West End in January 2013!
The legendary comic actor will take on the lead role in Simon Gray's classic play at the Wyndham's Theatre, directed by Richard Eyre.
The Common Pursuit in New York: an interview with the director
Moises Kaufman talks about the production at the Roundabout Theatre, plus photos of the cast
Otherwise Engaged: new production on Radio 4
James Purefoy will lead the cast in Simon Gray's classic comedy, to be broadcast on 24th March at 2:30pm.
Simon Callow's new website!
A new website devoted to the wonderful actor, writer and director has now been launched.
FABER NEW EDITIONS - SPECIAL OFFER
Get 25% off The Early Diaries (RRP 14.99) and each individual volume of Simon Gray: PLAYS 1-5 (RRP 16.99) including free P&P.
Critical Quarterly: Simon Gray special edition
An issue of the literary magazine dedicated to Simon Gray's work, edited by Colin MacCabe, came out in April 2010.
THE SMOKING DIARIES AUDIO BOOKS SPECIAL OFFER
Buy the audio books of all three volumes of The Smoking Diaries and Coda, all read by the author, for GBP40 or get 20% off each individual CD volume.
