Three Plays: St James's Blues; A Bed for the Knight; Waiting for the Barbarians

Three comedies for the modern age.

St James’s Blues: The gentlemen on the committee of the Mariners’ Club - the Commodores as they are known - are in a quandary. They discover that they are sitting on some valuable freehold assets in St James’s. But if they decide to cash in on their windfall they will have to open their doors to women members. A gentle satire on the notion of political correctness.

A Bed for the Knight: What happens when the wife of the Home Secretary wakes up one morning to find a Knight of the Realm - not her husband - sleeping peacefully beside her? A true farce and pure bedlam.

Waiting for the Barbarians: The action of this play takes place in imperial Rome, but not necessarily in historical time. For we are all gathered in the market-place and the Barbarians are coming today. A witty comedy about social fears and the enemy within.

“St James’s Blues takes a wry amused look at the sleepy enclosed world of ancient clubs of St James’s ... A Bed for the Knight is set in the world of the Westminster mansion block flat of the Home Secretary ... Waiting for the Barbarians ... reads like a superior Carry On script ... So, though there is not a four-letter word in any of these wry comedies, nor a kitchen sink anywhere in sight, you can savour everywhere the old fashioned virtues of well-constructed scenes and cunningly assembled witty dialogue.” ~ (Peter Roberts, Plays International)

About the author:

CARLO ARDITO’s work has been performed on stage and BBC Radio in Britain and throughout the English-speaking world. Professor Brian Moloney’s study of his dramatisation of Italo Svevo’s novel Confessions of Zeno has been published in Writers and Performers From the Time of Dante to Pirandello (Edwin Mellen Press, 1992). His version of Eduardo de Filippo’s Grand Magic, directed by Sir Richard Eyre, was staged by the Royal National Theatre in 1995. In 1999 he produced new translations of four plays by Pirandello (Calder Publications Ltd), and in the same year he was awarded the Gold Plaque of the Rudolf Valentino International Prize for his services to the theatre.

© 2026 Amber Lane Press (E-bog): 9781068467486

Udgivelsesdato

E-bog: 27. februar 2026