Theatre

Dramatizing ‘a mystery that has come to us in echoes and whispers from over three thousand years ago’, Armitage’s play follows on from the account of the Greeks’ wooden horse in Homer’s Odyssey to tell the story of the Trojan War to its bitter end. Set in present-day Hisarlik, the site of ancient Troy, with a cast of gods and mortals, the play explores an ancient conflict that rages to this day.

From Night Watches by Allan Monkhouse, published in 1916, to Abigail Docherty's Sea and Land and Sky (2010), this collection of seven plays shows how the war has been represented through the 'traditions, forms and economies of the theatre' over the last century. The other works are Alice Dunbar-Nelson's Mine Eyes Have Seen (1918); Tunnel Trench (1924) by Hubert Griffith; Noël Coward's Post Mortem (1930); Oh What a Lovely War! (1963) by Theatre Workshop; and The Accrington Pals (1981) by Peter Whelan.

Bill Tarmey (1941–2012) played the lovable rogue Jack Duckworth in Coronation Street for 31 years until his character was killed off during the show's 50th anniversary in 2010. His story of growing up in post-war Manchester, singing in working men's clubs, and then finding his niche playing a rascal whose life uncannily mirrored his own will be cherished by all fans of Britain's longest-running soap.

One of three ‘jocular dramas’ which Mozart created with librettist Da Ponte, Cosí fan tutte used to be considered implausible and scandalous, since two sisters marry strangers who are really their disguised fiancés – but its unsettling paradoxes now make it feel a very modern comedy.

The third volume of Nicholson's magisterial survey focuses on the 1950s, a crucial decade during which writers such as John Osborne pushed the boundaries of accepted taste.

Four deserters bring the body of a dead soldier back to his home town, a northern mining community. The group's leader, Serjeant Musgrave, plans to hold the townsfolk at gunpoint, present them with the dead body and make them face the reality of war. First performed in 1959, Arden's play is now regarded as a modern classic. With commentary and notes by Glenda Leeming.