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1966. London. Money is there for the making - but the white heat of the technological revolution has not yet reached Chapel and Sons, an ailing family business specialising in billiard tables. In the dilapidated workshop, three generations conspire against each other for control of a firm which might yet be turned into a goldmine. First staged at the Hampstead Theatre, A Going Concern is at once a detailed naturalistic study, a lament for a passing industrial age and a reenactment of the ancient mythic struggle between fathers and sons. Though lovingly recreating the sixties, the play offers some ironic sidelights on the recessionary nineties.
About the author
Stephen Jeffreys (1950-2018) was a British playwright and a key figure at the Royal Court Theatre, London, where he was Literary Associate for eleven years, then a member of its Council. His celebrated playwriting workshops have influenced many writers, and are distilled in his book, Playwriting: Structure, Character, How and What to Write, published posthumously in 2019.
Jeffreys' plays include The Libertine and I Just Stopped By to See the Man (Royal Court); Valued Friends and A Going Concern (Hampstead); Bugles at the Gates of Jalalabad (part of the Tricycle Theatre’s Great Game season about Afghanistan); The Convicts’ Opera (Out of Joint); Lost Land (starring John Malkovich, Steppenwolf, Chicago); The Art of War (Sydney Theatre Company) and A Jovial Crew (RSC). His adaptation of Dickens’ Hard Times has been performed all over the world.
He wrote the films The Libertine (starring Johnny Depp) and Diana (starring Naomi Watts). He co-authored the Beatles musical Backbeat which opened at the Citizens Theatre and went on to seasons in London’s West End, Toronto and Los Angeles. He translated The Magic Flute for English National Opera in Simon McBurney’s production.
His plays are published by Nick Hern Books.
Summary
A play about a washed-up family business, from the author of The Libertine.
