Tim Luscombe
dramatist
Dramatist
Queer plays
Kimalia (2013)
Kimalia is an exploration of race, gender and nationality seen through the experiences of two asylum seekers. Ade from Uganda makes it to London to claim asylum on the grounds of sexuality, but border guard Vincent is unimpressed with his gay credentials. Marion from Nigeria strikes it luckier when she encounters Home Office reformer Yvonne. But no one finds their path home easy.
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The Naked Joke (2009)
Three weary, washed-up gay cabaret performers find themselves beached in an artistic commune in Cumbria, licking their wounds after failing to come up with a follow up to their Off-Broadway hit ‘Naked Men Telling Jokes’. They meet a bunch of equally weary TV actors on location work. A tragi-comic re-imagining of Chekhov’s Three Sisters.
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Bubi Doll (2007)
Late in King Otto’s reign, Gustl saves a young Adolf Hitler from killing himself, but Adi remains determined to do it. He fails to get into art school and tries again. He joins the movement, they make him their leader, and still he wants to kill himself. But no one will let him. So he turns his hatred on Europe instead.
The Death of Gogol and the 1969 Eurovision Song Contest (2005)
In 1969, Lenny Kuhr, an 18-year-old communist, lesbian, virgin, singer-songwriter, prepares to represent the Netherlands in the Eurovision Song Contest. In 2007, Stuart finishes his life’s work on Nikolai Gogol – writer, depressive, obsessed with noses. Exactly how gay was Gogol, and what was his predilection for Cossacks all about? A one-man play with seventeen songs in seventeen languages.
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EuroVision (1994)
Gary persuades best friend Kevin to go to the Eurovision Song Contest in Rome. But there they have a major falling out over the merits of Eurovision. It takes kidnapping the Spanish entry and communing with a few Ancient Roman ghosts for them to find their way back together. Meanwhile, Eurovision TV presenter Katia becomes possessed by the Spirt of Europe. Unions abound in song, politics and love.
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Political plays
Killing Lines (2021)
Post Brexit Cornwall. The farm’s in trouble, and Branok and niece Renza have radically different views for the future. Supported by her mother and grandmother, Renza’s for rewilding. But when the man from Shuanghui Industrial Holdings turns up with a lucrative vision of large-scale, industrial pig farming, it looks like Branok’s commercial vision will win out.
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God’s Daughter (2013)
1870, London. Devout Christian Annie Besant marries a vicar only to discover that he likes hitting her. Losing her faith in marriage, she leaves him and, when her two-year-old daughter faces death from TB, Annie loses her faith in God too. Finding a new one in politics, she sets out to change the world.
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Hungry Ghosts (2010)
Formula One driver Tyler Jones arrives in Shanghai for the annual race. He meets and falls for dissident Pin-de, learning about her struggle for survival in capitalist/communist China. In trying to help her, he’s torn between acting on his new awareness and keeping everything he has.
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The Schuman Plan (2006)
In the wake of World War II, French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman puts his name to a plan for the economic unification of Europe in the hope of facilitating permanent peace. But British PM Clem Attlee has other ideas. He sends a junior civil servant over to Europe to sort it all out…
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Comedies
Don’t Even Joke (2014)
Three ageing actresses decide the time has come to throw off the shackles of a fickle industry. They retreat to Italy to craft a theatrical vehicle for themselves, only for an earthquake to rattle the town, bury half the inhabitants and shake every certainty that had. A comedy about death for three actresses and an old dog.
The Quickest Light (2013)
Fresh from establishing an empire in the New World in the name of Queen Elizabeth, Walter Ralegh marries Bess and, as a result, gets banished from court. King James persecutes him, pushing him into the Tower, where he’s found guilty of treason. Queen Anna offers him hope for an alternative future, but at what price? A story about building empires and images.
Amateur Rites (2005)
What could be more unsurprising than a suburban Am-Dram company staging a Jane Austen adaptation? The ambitions and neuroses of the members of Pogchurch Valley Amateur Dramatic Society come to an uproarious climax in the white heat of the rehearsal process for their production of Northanger Abbey. A fast-paced, comedy of modern manners. Stepping Out for the twenty-first century.
Musical/Opera
Douze Points (2012)
Kevin loves Paul. Kevin loves Anna. Paul loves Anna. Anna used to love Paul. Paul is struggling to establish his career as a singer, but his main obstacle is that he only wants to sing Eurovision songs, and in their original language as well! A Mamma-Mia-style juke-box musical using Eurovision music to tell a love story set in contemporary Europe.
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Adaptations
Emma (2017)
Young, bright and beautiful, Emma Woodhouse has the world at her feet, or at least the small part of Surrey in which she lives. Denied an outlet for her creativity, she employs her social skills in matchmaking. But to her great surprise, the more she tries to manipulate everyone, the less success she has.
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Turn of the Screw (2016)
A new governess must be employed in a country home in Bly. Little Flora and Miles need education, entertainment and love. But, on the governess’s arrival, it seems that the children know more than they’re letting on. In discovering what happened to her predecessor, she uncovers the disturbing truth.
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Silas Marner (2014)
Manchester, 1800. Silas is framed for stealing the church funds. Heading south to the Midlands, he lives as a linen weaver and a recluse, hoarding the gold coins he earns, only to have them stolen. One night, an abandoned child wanders into the house. An examination of the value of wealth and the fragility of community.
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Mansfield Park (2012)
Fanny, a quiet, intelligent young woman, is unceremoniously dumped by her parents into the noisy household of her uncle, where life buffets her from one crisis to the next. One thing remains certain, however – her love for charismatic Edmund. Fanny must battle family duty before she can claim the man of her dreams.
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Persuasion (2011)
At 18, Anne Elliot was persuaded to part from her beloved Captain Frederick Wentworth. At 27, she believes her destiny is to live off the memories of their few short months of happiness. When the war ends, Captain Frederick returns, prized and promoted. He’s back to marry. Will Anne get a second chance?
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Northanger Abbey (2005)
Romantic fiction fan Catherine is taken to Bath where she meets Henry Tilney. But in Northanger Abbey, the Tilney’s country seat, her head remains filled with the gothic fantasies of Mrs Radcliffe’s ‘Mysteries of Udolpho’. Obsessed by fictional romance, she nearly blows her chance of the real thing. Nearly, but not quite.
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