Keith Waterhouse is one of Britain's most popular writers in nearly every field. This collection brings together for the first time his most celebrated plays from a career spanning more than forty years. Our Song is a warm, tender, romantic drama, infused with moments of great humour. Pulling himself out of the rut of his middle-aged executive lifestyle, Roger Piper stumbles into a sixteen-month tempestuous affair. Billy Liar tells the story of a funeral parlour worker with a humdrum life, who spends most of his time dreaming of ways to escape his drab existence in Yorkshire. Adapted from his celebrated novel. Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell Gambler, journalist, fervent alcoholic, four-times married Jeffrey Bernard writes the 'Low Life' column for the Spectator magazine. Locked in The Coach and Horses in Soho overnight, he has time to reflect on a dissolute life. Good Grief is a sensitive, wryly humorous study of a middle-aged widow, coming to terms with bereavement, who finds the courage to break with the past. Mr and Mrs Nobody is an adaptation of George and Weedon Grossmith's comic novel The Diary Of A Nobody and Mrs Pooter's Diary. A respectable Victorian clerk has lofty social aspirations

What I meant was, what does the company do? What is British Albion in aid of? It was a very good question. Granted that British Albion was a very comfortable billet for Clement Gryce, but it had to be admitted that it was a rather peculiar company to work for. Even Gryce — a lifelong clerk with an almost total lack of ambition — can't help wondering why the telephones never ring. Soon he finds that some of his colleagues share his curiosity about the true purpose of the company that employs them — Pam Fawce in particular (introduced to him along with Mr Graph-paper and Mr Beastly, as 'Miss Divorce'). She also turns out to be the membership secretary of the Albion Players: a very exclusive amateur dramatics club… Office Life is both a comic satire on the British disease (or diseases) and an intriguing mystery story set in a horribly familiar nine-to-five world

Since this is a work of fiction, I have permitted myself certain inexactitudes. For example, the Soho Waiters’ Race does not immediately precede the Soho Ball. The setting is obviously real, as are most of the streets, although some are not. Most of the locations are made up; real ones appear only when they have an innocuous role to play. Most of the characters are fictitious and bear the usual non-resemblance to any person living — I will not necessarily add to any person dead. Where real personages appear they have only walk-on parts. K.W

Между двумя книгами известного английского сатирика существует глубокая идейная связь. Билли-враль — молодой человек, мелкий клерк в похоронном бюро, живущий в мире собственных фантазий и грез. Клемент Грайс, герой романа «Конторские будни», — это как бы постаревший Билли: он уже много лет работает в разных фирмах и давно ни к чему не стремится. Автор рисует гротескно-символическую картину, высмеивающую современную бюрократию

Между двумя книгами известного английского сатирика существует глубокая идейная связь. Билли-враль — молодой человек, мелкий клерк в похоронном бюро, живущий в мире собственных фантазий и грез. Клемент Грайс, герой романа «Конторские будни», — это как бы постаревший Билли: он уже много лет работает в разных фирмах и давно ни к чему не стремится. Автор рисует гротескно-символическую картину, высмеивающую современную бюрократию