RESULTS

Four old friends sit down for a quiet evening together. But they are harassed by various bells, sirens, buzzers, warblers, beepers and cheepers, all trying to warn them of something. What are these electronic voices trying to tell them? Can they understand the mysterious disasters before disaster strikes? It's a race against time - because there are seven more plays and twenty more characters still to come before the evening is through, plus a lot more strange noises - and increasingly desperate calls from eleven separate pay phones...

Benefactors conjures the world of the suburbs observed through the lens of post-imperialism.

Martin Clay, a young, would-be art historian, sees a chance of a lifetime: to perform a great public service when he identifies a lost Bruegel in a tumbledown country home. He decides to secure the painting for the nation, and a fortune for himself, without letting the owner discover its true value. There follows much double-dealing, bamboozling and suppressed hysteria as Martin and the owner try to outwit each other. At the heart of the novel is Martin's search for the meaning of the painting that has become his fate. He moves from gallery to museum to library delivering an extended history lesson on iconography, iconology, landscape and the ever elusive story in the Bruegel.

Management Teaching use: While this novel is essentially about one man's obsession, it illustrates the lengths to which individuals will go to prove their own point. It acts as a metaphor for the half-truths and downright lies, which a committed member of an organisation will involve himself or herself and their immediate colleagues in because they have a goal. The class discussion could centre on how much one individual is entitled to involve their organisation in dubious activities if they genuinely believe the end result is worth it.

This play opens with a touring company dress-rehearsing Nothing On, a conventional farce. Mixing mockery and homage, Frayn heaps into this play a stock of characters and situations.

Management Teaching use: The tensions between members of a team who are forced into close proximity surface in this text. It is essentially about group dynamics and the way that in many instances the successful end to a project (in this case the performance of a play) is as much down to good luck and coincidence as much as proper planning. The performance element of the text can be used as a metaphor for the way that an organisation/group often present a united front while there are hidden agendas which only appear out of 'public' view.

There is very little evidence of the war where Keith and Stephen live. But the two friends suspect the inhabitants of the close aren't what they seem. As Keith informs his trusting friend, the district is riddled with secret passages and underground labs.

Frayn's 1967 novel about Fleet Street portrays a newspaper world long since gone. Stuck in a sleepy newspaper department, covering nature notes and crosswords, Dyson dreams of liberation and recognition. When a chance occurs to appear on TV, he eagerly prepares to greet the celebrity life.