Peter John Cooper Plays Written 1972 – 2023
For Peter’s plays available from Lazy Bee Scripts click here or on the links in the table below
Escaping the Storm — 2018 — AsOne Theatre Co –Southern UK Tour– Not Available for other productions
Life and Death and Everything in Between — 2018 –Spyway Projects –BEAF –Not Available
Anning’s Fossil Depot (Two hander version) — 2018 — AsOne Theatre Co — South West Schools — Not Available
On Farley Mount — 2017 — Spyway Projects — Available from Spyway
Jess’s Odyssey — 2016 — AsOne Theatre Co — South West Schools — Available
The Fisherman’s Daughter — 2016 — AsOne Theatre Co — South West Schools — Available
Bones of the Land — 2015 — Spyway Projects — Available
Rancid — 2015 — Written for Simon Jay
He’s Dead — 2013 — Spyway Projects — Published by Lazybee Scripts
A Brief Encounter with MURDER — 2012 — Spyway Projects — Lazybee Scripts
Pig Unit — 2012 — Spyway Projects — Available
What Would Jane Say? — 2012 — Trisha Lewis Company — Southern England Tour — Available
Anning’s Fossil Depot (solo version) — 2011 — AsOne Theatre Co — Schools and Libraries — Not available
The Cabinet Maker’s Daughter — 2011 — AsOne Theatre Co — South West UK Tour — Available
Rebecca Legrand, Jane McKell — AsOne Theatre Co — The Cabinet Makers’ Daughter
Everyone Wants to be Somewhere Else — 2011 — Cake Productions (Cornwall) — Fal River Festival — Available
Mrs Adapta Iago’s Knitting Circle — 2011 — Spyway Projects — Lighthouse Poole — Lazybee Scripts
She Opened the Door — 2011 — AsOne Theatre Co — World Premiere at the 19th International Thomas Hardy Festival, The Corn Exchange, Dorchester. And South West Tour — Published in Paperback by Roving Press
Eve of War — 2009 — Spyway Projects — Reworking of “Little Arthur” for Radio and then Artsreach tour of Dorset — Not Available
Welcome to the Future — 2007 — Hope FM Radio
Chelsea and Baz (with Tara Dominic) — 2007 — Hope FM Radio
The Lady of Shallott — 2007 — Hope FM Radio
Conversations at the Sorrento — 2007 — Hope FM Radio
The Townhall Fish — 2007 — Hope FM Radio
Dead Air — 2007 — Hope FM Radio
The Time Machine — 2002 — Spyway Projects
We Call it Home — 1999 — Commissioned for 50th Anniversary of Langton Matravers Scout and Guide HQ
Dick Whittington and his Crazee Cat — 1994 — Ici D’Arte Theatre Co
Captain Pugwash and the Monster of Green Island — 1992 — Spyway Projects — South Coast summer seasons and UK tour. Officially sanctioned by John Ryan.
Sharazad (with the company) — 1988 — Oxfordshire Touring Theatre —
The Trumpet Major — 1987 — Oxfordshire Touring Theatre — Available from Lazybee Scripts
Hiawatha — 1986 — Oxfordshire Touring Theatre
Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Vanishing Author — 1986 — Oxfordshire Touring Theatre — Available from Lazybee Scripts
The Runaway Train (With Jem Barnes) — 1985 — Oxfordshire Touring Theatre — Commissioned for the Oxford Playhouse
The Runaway Train - Oxfordshre Touring Theatre at The Oxford Playhouse
Little Arthur’s History of England – 1984 — Oxfordshire Touring Theatre — Commissioned for the Oxford Festival (Later rewritten as “Eve of War”)
The Mayor of Casterbridge — 1983 — Oxfordshire Touring Theatre
Jane Eyre (with Helen Palmer) — 1982 — Oxfordshire Touring Theatre
Painting the Clouds with Sunshine — 1981 — Theatr Clwyd Touring — North Wales Tour
Robinson Crusoe — 1980 — Horseshoe Theatre Touring
Little Red Riding Hood — 1979 — Horseshoe Theatre Touring
I Want to Fly — 1979 — Horseshoe Theatre Touring
Krondos (with Jem Barnes) — 1978 — Horseshoe Theatre Touring
The Jolly Farmer — 1976 — Horseshoe Theatre Touring
A Grave Matter (with Jem Barnes) — 1975 — Horseshoe Theatre Touring
Mummers’ Play — 1974 — Attic Theatre
A Christmas Carol (with Jem Barnes) — 1974 — Horseshoe Theatre Co
Whistling — 1972 — The oldest extant script I have.
Escaping the Storm
The controversial sex campaigner Marie Stopes buys the old lighthouse on the remote Isle of Portland as a bolt-hole to escape the storm raging following a series of high profile court cases about her methods and beliefs. But on Portland there are other issues to deal with surrounding her family and the legacy she leaves to the Islanders in the form of a museum of her paleontological discoveries.
“Absorbing, informative, captivating and thought provoking”
“AsOne productions are vibrant and take us to places we haven’t been before –Escaping the Storm was really exceptional – I loved the way the play and cast captured Portland and the unflinching but affectionate warts and all exploration of Marie Stopes”
Escaping the storm by AsOne Theatre Company. Jane McKell, Eltjo DeVries, Sorcha Martin and Phoebe Sharman
She Opened The Door
Lighthouse, Poole
20th February 2011
By Jeremy Miles
FACT and fiction interweave in Peter John Cooper’s powerful study of the tensions that may have taken Thomas Hardy’s first marriage close to breaking point.Using a mixture of recorded facts, Hardy’s novels and a fertile but logical leap or two of the imagination, the local playwright imagines a meeting in the garden at Max Gate, the Hardys’ Dorchester home,that lays bare the anxieties of Emma, the writer’s troubled wife.
Award winning AsOne Theatre Company originally staged this searching new play – subtitled The Wife, the Mother, the Other Woman and the Ruined Maid – at the International Thomas Hardy Festival last summer. It was deservedly a huge success.
On Friday, a packed house at the Lighthouse Studio Theatre discovered why. It opens in the late summer of 1885 as Emma (Jane McKell), horrified by the direction that her husband’s work is taking, is about to burn the manuscript of his latest novel Jude the Obscure. There are forces at work, however, that prevent her. Hardy’s mother (Mary Lou Delaplanque), the maid (Dani Bright) and Hardy’s close friend Mrs Florence Henniker (Trisha Lewis) seem to favour such different values But are they really there or are they characters from the novels? Confused and confounded, Emma watches with mounting paranoia as her hopes and aspirations (and possibly her marriage) gradually disintegrate.
Fine acting, superbly crafted dialogue, an excellent musical score from Ronald Skeaping and intelligent direction from Peter John Cooper himself make this a play to treasure.
SHE OPENED THE DOOR
Corn Exchange, Dorchester
by MARION COX - Dorset Echo
Opening Up a Theatrical Treasure
THE Thomas Hardy story takes.on a fresh twist with this new play by Peter J Cooper, which was commissioned and performed by the Dorset-based As One Theatre Company
Four women weave fact with fiction and mix real people with characters from Hardy's novels in a fascinating insight into the troubled relationship between the author and his first wife, Emma.
The drama takes place over a single day, when Hardy's mother Jemima, the free-thinking feminist Florence Henniker and housemaid Amelia are confronted by Emma's mental instability and her paranoia about her husband's apparent infidelity
Jane McKell is in tremendous form as the obsessional Emma, adding a real emotional depth to her role.
Trish Lewis, Mary Lou Delaplanque and Dani Bright complete the fine cast in a tale that blends beautifully some of Hardy's own words into the largely fictional story and includes a neat sub-plot in which the original script of the writer's final novel, Jude the Obscure, teeters on the brink of extinction as it is tossed around between all four women.
There are further performances at Bournemouth and Swanage of a play that is almost certain to become a theatrical treasure in the future.
She Opened the Door
By Jeremy Miles - Bournemouth Echo
FACT and fiction interweave in Peter John Cooper’s powerful study of the tensions that may have taken Thomas Hardy’s first marriage close to breaking point.
It was deservedly a huge success.
Fine acting, superbly crafted dialogue, an excellent musical score from Ronald Skeaping and intelligent direction from Peter John Cooper himself make this a play to treasure.