Poliakoff Plays: 1

This collection of Poliakoff's plays from the 1970s includes his first major success, "Clever Soldiers", and "Hitting Town", "City Sugar", "Shout Across the River", "American Days" and "Strawberry Fields".

Stephen Poliakoff 'has been one of our sharpest and least predictable writers for the past twenty years' (Daily Telegraph) Clever Soldiers: "is a thoughtful play about violence" (Times) which attacks the mythology of Oxbridge against the background of war; Hitting Town, a powerful play about incest is "a riveting piece of theatre...a stupendous achievement" (Sunday Telegraph); City Sugar: "A savage dissection of that pristine slagheap of Our Times - mass culture" (Time Out); Shout Across the River: "traces the progress of a passionate and extraordinary relationship between a young mother and her teenage daughter played against the background of a vast suburb of south London." (Guardian); American Days: "Into the escapist limbo of a top record company executive's office tumble three teenagers, spotted by an insecure talent scout and now given a hit or miss chance to impress...Poliakoff has the dramatic ability to make you care very much...a completely enjoyable play" (Financial Times); Strawberry Fields is about three young members of the 'lost generation' of the sixties: "Imaginative and controversial...a sort of Pinteresque fantasy with thriller overtones." (Plays and Players)