Noises Off, the classic farce by the Tony Award--winning author of Copenhagen, is not one play but two: simultaneously a traditional sex farce, Nothing On, and the backstage "drama" that develops during Nothing On's final rehearsal and tour. The two begin to interlock as the characters make their exits from Nothing On only to find themselves making entrances into the even worse nightmare going on backstage. In the end, at the disastrous final performance, the two plots can be kept separate no longer, and coalesce into a single collective nervous breakdown.From the Trade Paperback edition.

Uncumber lives at a time in the distant future when 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 a 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 ...

The whole world at the touch of your finger - why ever leave the imaginary realm of your mobile phone? But this book is even better. Anything but analogue, Magic Mobile is the latest offering of comic genius from Michael Frayn, the author of Matchbox Theatre and Pocket Playhouse. 'Michael Frayn is the most philosophical comic writer - and the most comic philosophical writer - of our time.' Daily Mail

'An unknown place.' This was what Michael Frayn's children called the shadowy landscape of the past from which their family had emerged. In this book he sets out to rediscover that lost land before all trace of it finally disappears beyond recall. As he tries to see it through the eyes his parents and the others who shaped his life, he comes to realise how little he ever knew or understood about them. This is above all the story of his father, the quick-witted boy from a poor and struggling family, who overcame so many disadvantages and shouldered so many burdens to make a go of his life; who found happiness, had it snatched away from him in a single instant, and in the end, after many difficulties, perhaps found it again. Father and son were in some odd ways ridiculously alike, in others ridiculously different; and the journey back down the corridors of time is sometimes comic, sometimes painful, as Michael Frayn comes to see how much he has inherited from his father - and makes one...

The Tony Award--winning play that soars at the intersection of science and art, Copenhagen is an explosive re-imagining of the mysterious wartime meeting between two Nobel laureates to discuss the atomic bomb.In 1941 the German physicist Werner Heisenberg made a clandestine trip to Copenhagen to see his Danish counterpart and friend Niels Bohr. Their work together on quantum mechanics and the uncertainty principle had revolutionized atomic physics. But now the world had changed and the two men were on opposite sides in a world war. Why Heisenberg went to Copenhagen and what he wanted to say to Bohr are questions that have vexed historians ever since. In Michael Frayn's ambitious, fiercely intelligent, and daring new play Heisenberg and Bohr meet once again to discuss the intricacies of physics and to ponder the metaphysical--the very essence of human motivation.From the Trade Paperback edition.

Michael Frayn's third novel is set in the crossword and nature notes department of an obscure national newspaper during the declining years of Fleet Street, where John Dyson dreams wistfully of fame and the gentlemanly life – until one day his great chance of glory at last arrives. Regarded by many as the best novel ever written about journalists, the brilliantly funny Towards the End of the Morning (1967) is celebrated as a classic in Great Britain but has long been unavailable in America. This new edition features an introduction by the author.

'A love affair through an interpreter,' said Raya. 'That's a very cultured prospect.'Raya is a mercurial Moscow blonde who speaks no English, and the affair she is embarking upon is with Gordon Proctor-Gould, a visiting British businessman who speaks no Russian. They need an interpreter; which is how Paul Manning is diverted from writing his thesis at Moscow university to become involved in all the deceptions of love and East-West relations.

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.

Martin Clay, a young would-be art historian, suddenly sees opening in front of him the chance of a lifetime: the opportunity to perform a great public service, and at the same time to make his professional reputation - perhaps even rather a lot of money as well. Thus he finds himself drawn step by step into a moral and intellectual labyrinth.

In a brilliant coda to the play Copenhagen, Michael Frayn receives mysterious letters that take him back to the theme of his bestselling novel, Headlong -- human folly, this time his own.Michael Frayn's Copenhagen has established itself as one of the finest pieces of drama to grace the stage in recent years. The subject of the Tony-winning play is the strange visit the German nuclear physicist Werner Heisenberg made to his former mentor, scientist Niels Bohr, in Nazi-occupied Copenhagen and the quarrel that ensued. Heisenberg's intentions on that visit, for good or for evil, have long intrigued and baffled historians and scientists. One day, during the British run of Copenhagen, Frayn received a curious package from a suburban housewife, which contained a few faded pages of barely legible German writings. These pages, which she claimed to have found concealed beneath her floorboards, seemed to cast a remarkable new light on the mystery at the heart of...