Today (NHB Modern Plays)

'I came here for the future. If you can't see a future, what can yer see? Nothing.' From the lawns of King's College, Cambridge, where two shy young men from opposing backgrounds confront the reality of their attraction to each other, to the battlefields of the Spanish Civil War, where courage, idealism and solidarity are tested in the furnace of conflict, Robert Holman's play Today is a panoramic study of life, desire and the search for a fundamental self in the midst of a shifting, uncertain world. Written for an ensemble of Royal Shakespeare Company actors, Today was first performed at The Other Place, Stratford-upon-Avon, in October 1984. Also included is the music used in the original production.

Robert Holman is a renowned and celebrated playwright in British Theatre. His plays include: Mud (Royal Court Theatre, 1974); German Skerries (Bush Theatre, 1977, and revived at the Orange Tree Theatre, 2016); Rooting (Traverse Theatre, 1979); Other Worlds (Royal Court Theatre, 1980); Today (Royal Shakespeare Company, 1984); The Overgrown Path (Royal Court Theatre, 1985); Making Noise Quietly (Bush Theatre, 1987, and revived at the Donmar Warehouse, 2012); Across Oka (Royal Shakespeare Company, 1988); Rafts and Dreams (Royal Court Theatre, 1990); Bad Weather (Royal Shakespeare Company, 1998); Holes in the Skin (Chichester Festival Theatre, 2003); Jonah and Otto (Royal Exchange Theatre, 2008, and revived at the Park Theatre, 2014); A Thousand Stars Explode in the Sky, co-written with David Eldridge and Simon Stephens (Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, 2010); and A Breakfast of Eels (Print Room at the Coronet, 2015). He has also written a novel, The Amish Landscape.