Laura Wade Knihy

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How happily married are the happily married?Home, I'm Darling is a dark comedy about sex, cake and the quest to be the perfect 1950s housewife.Judy has Johnny's slippers waiting for him when he arrives home from work, the kitchen's clean, the rooms are aired...yet this is not the 1950s, but a 21st-century 'arrangement' agreed between the two of them. With clothes, furniture and a (faulty) fridge from the 1950s, Judy and Johnny try to 'live the dream', with specific roles and a perfectly ordered life.

Emma Watson is 19 and new in town. She's been cut off by her rich aunt and dumped back in the family home. Emma and her sisters must marry, fast. If not, they face poverty, spinsterhood, or worse: an eternity with their boorish brother and his awful wife. Luckily there are plenty of potential suitors to dance with, from flirtatious Tom Musgrave to castle-owning Lord Osborne, who's as awkward as he is rich. So far so familiar. But there's a problem: Jane Austen didn't finish the story. Who will write Emma's happy ending now?

THE STORY: Acclaimed playwright Laura Wade explores the lives of the young, wealthy and privileged. In an oak-panelled room in Oxford, ten young bloods with cut-glass vowels and deep pockets are meeting, intent on restoring their right to rule. Mem

"I walked in and she's sat in the coffin. In the middle of the living-room floor and she's - she's watching telly and laughing"Nobody can ignore the fact that Myra is dying but in the meantime life goes on. There are boilers to be fixed, cats to be fed and the perfect funeral to be planned. As a mother researches burial spots and bio-degradable coffins, her family are finally forced to communicate with her, and each other, as they face up to an unpredictable future. Laura Wade's beautifully poised family drama was first performed at Soho Theatre, London.

Amy's found another body in a hotel bedroom. There's a funny smell coming from one of Jim's storage units. And Kate's losing it after spending all day with the police. There's no going back after what they've seen. Breathing Corpses was first performed at the Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Upstairs in February 2005.

'If one of the problems facing new playwrights is the expectation that each of their plays should be similar in style, Wade...proved that you could radically change both form and content... Not every writer delivers on their early promise. As this collection clearly shows, Wade certainly has.' Aleks Sierz, from his IntroductionColder Than Here: 'Laura Wade's play is a 90-minute masterpiece, a jewel, dark bu ttranslucent. It is a play of love, death and grief: the grief that is hardest to bear, because it begins before the loved one dies.' Sunday TimesBreathing Corpses: 'The tension, the emotions and the sense of absurdity and fear are brilliantly handled... A terrifying tour de force.' Sunday TimesOther Hands: 'This is an extraordinary feat - a vicious satire with a heart of gold -wrought with peculiar subtlety and intelligence.' The Spectator