Simon Gray Four Plays : The Pig Trade, Japes, In the Vale of Health, The Holy Terror

The Pig Trade, Japes Too, Michael, The Holy Terror

The Pig Trade is set in 1937 in the Villa of I Tatti outsider Florence where, under the menacing shadow of Mussolini, a famous art historian and a notorious art dealer have an explosive final encounter.

Japes Too and Michael are companion plays, in which the love of two brothers for one woman both highlights and obscures their dependency on each other but where fate and tragedy strike differently.

Simon Gray''s play Melon, which follows a publisher into his nervous breakdown and out again, enjoyed great success in the West End but, dissatisfied with the work, Gray revised it so thoroughly that a new play with the same central character emerged, entitled The Holy Terror.

This volume also contains a brief chronicle by the author on the gestation of his work and the impossibility of writing.

''Simon Gray is actually one of the most accessible, elegant and tender of contemporary writers. He is also, both on stage and on the printed page, laugh-out-loud funny.'' Charles Spencer, Daily Telegraph

''Gray''s plays, funny and sad, have a savage honesty at their heart.'' Mail on Sunday