Product Description

This play, by Dunfermline playwright Gregory Burke, is a cruel, funny first play about a human heist gone horribly wrong.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #343758 in Books
• Published on: 2001-08-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 96 pages

The Guardian
blistering, brilliant, crazily confident first play; a ton of theatrical dynamite.

Financial Times
Fizzes with intelligence, insight and mordant wit...every firework in the script goes off with the requisite bang.

Customer Reviews

Gagarin Way - As Seen
It is often difficult to imagine when reading any play how it would appear on stage and thus is also quite hard to remain objective about the flow of dialogue between the characters, without, perhaps, first seeing it performed. I have been very fortunate in the respect that as well as reading Gagarin Way I have also witnessed the original reading of the play, the changes that have been made as the play evolved and the final production.
In conclusion I think this is an excellent play and a quite astounding debut for the author - This play has now been translated into 18 langauges and is being performed world wide. The play is sharp and witty, with snappy dialogue. When performed in the original Fife dialect the play is often hilariously funny in places and blisteringly shocking in others. I would definitely recommend it.
You should also remember that frustrated and unsuccessful writers often make the worst critics.

flawed, but generally funny
I cannot relate to the general reviews of it, it is not a brilliant work of genius but a reasonable effort in parts. I got the impression it was nothing but pretentious garbage from listening to the BBC production on the radio because it was played straight as a menacing situation, and I think now that large parts of it would work ok if they were played as broad, obvious dialogic comedy. I get the impression the critics would think it should be played as it was on the radio, and perhaps the stagings of the play have been like that (I've not seen the play on the stage, just heard it on the radio and read the script). I enjoyed what I did in imagining it played like Punch and Judy.

It is structurally flawed in a damaging way in three or four places, that is, the dialogue that takes off at some places grates unconvincingly. The content is a patchwork of allusions to modern sociopolitical themes, casting no light on them, mainly bringing up issues of how low paid, low status workers count for nothing and the world is ruled by the multinationals who themselves are pursuing pointless things, and the intellectuals are throwing in their absurd twopennyworth. The play brings these things up as a light critical newspaper article might.

Given a bit more work, it could be a mildly entertaining piece, sort of satirizing aspects of (American) business dominated western society.

Possibly it seems specially good to the critics because practically everything else is abysmal. You just need to sample a few plays produced these days.

'in yer face' but quite gentle with it.
Its 'in yer face' according to my lecturer, yes the language and the morality is pretty bad but to be honest i don't find it that appauling or uncomfortable to read, perhaps its because it's all done in a quite funny way, and the violence isn't very graphic. Definatly worth a read.