The Tony Award—winning play that soars at the intersection of science and art, Copenhagen is an explosive re-imagining of the mysterious wartime meeting between two Nobel laureates to discuss the atomic bomb.
In 1941 the German physicist Werner Heisenberg made a clandestine trip to Copenhagen to see his Danish counterpart and friend Niels Bohr. Their work together on quantum mechanics and the uncertainty principle had revolutionized atomic physics. But now the world had changed and the two men were on opposite sides in a world war. Why Heisenberg went to Copenhagen and what he wanted to say to Bohr are questions that have vexed historians ever since. In Michael Frayn’s ambitious, fiercely intelligent, and daring new play Heisenberg and Bohr meet once again to discuss the intricacies of physics and to ponder the metaphysical—the very essence of human motivation.

'Michael Frayn's tremendous play is a piece of history, an intellectual thriller, a psychological investigation and a moral tribunal in full session' Sunday Times 'A profound and haunting meditation on the mysteries of human motivation' Independent 'Frayn has seized on a ral-life historical and scientific mystery. In 1941 the physicist Werner Heisenberg, who formulated the famous Uncertainty Principle about the movement of particles, and was at that time leading the Nazi's nuclear programme, went to visit his old boss and mentor, Niels Bohr, in Copenhagen. What was the purpose of his visit to Nazi-occupied Denmark? What did the two old friends say to each other, particularly bearing in mind that Bohr was both half-Jewish and a Danish patriot?...Frayn argues that just as it is impossible to be certain of the precise location of an electron, so it is impossible to be certain about the workings of the human mind...What is certain is that Frayn makes ideas zing and sing in this play' Daily Telegraph

Afterlife is Michael Frayn's first new play for the National Theatre since Democracy, which premiered at the National in 2003 before West End and Broadway transfers. Afterlife opens in the NT Lyttelton in June.
Investigating the life of the Austrian impresario and founder of the Salzburg Festival, Max Reinhardt, Afterlife is a grand epic and a highly theatrical work that will be directed by Frayn's long-term collaborator Michael Blakemore.
With his morality play 'Everyman', Reinhardt captivated first the Prince Archbishop of Salzburg, and then the city itself, with the play opening the Salzburg festival each year from 1920 until the accession of the Nazis in 1938. As Reinhardt and his company are forced into exile, 'Everyman' is taken to America until life imitates art and Death comes for first Reinhardt's master of ceremonies and chief associate, Kommer, and then for Reinhardt himself.

A unique memoir of a lifetime’s relationships – from one of Britain's most beloved literary companions.
It's the other people around you, says Michael Frayn, who make you what you are. So he would like to say a brief word, looking back on life from his ninetieth year, about a few of the people who have formed his own particular world.
Some were friends; some not; some more than friends. Some have had a profound effect; some only a passing one. Some you may know yourself; some you certainly won't. Some he now wonders if he ever really knew himself. The last of his subjects in this selection, and the longest and closest acquaintance of all, is his own body, a companion on life's road at least as idiosyncratic and puzzling as everyone and everything around it.
Among Others is a patchwork memoir of a lifetime's encounters. Truthful and loving, sometimes elegiac, sometimes comic, it is a celebration of the endlessly intriguing otherness of others.

The William Morris Institute of Automation Research is working hard to simplify our lives by programming computers to carry out life’s routine tasks. Whether it’s resolving ethical dilemmas, writing pornographic novels, saying prayers, or watching sports, these automation experts are developing machines to handle it all, enabling us to enjoy more free time. And when it’s announced that the Queen will be paying a royal visit and the Institute’s madcap bunch of researchers decide to program the computers to receive her, what could possibly go wrong?

Winner of the Somerset Maugham Award, The Tin Men (1965) is the brilliantly comic first novel from Michael Frayn, author of the Booker Prize-nominated Headlong , Spies , and Skios , and Noises Off , ‘the funniest farce ever written’ (NY Times). This 50th anniversary reissue features a new introduction by the author.

WHAT CRITICS ARE SAYING

‘Continuously funny . . . The fun of The Tin Men is outrageous because it is so serious.’ – Anthony Burgess, Guardian

‘A fast swooping performance by one of our very serious satirists . . . This is a very funny book and delightful to read.’ – William Trevor, The Listener

‘Dazzlingly funny . . . perfect pieces of comedy.’ – Observer

"A man sits in his car at the traffic-lights, waiting for them to go green." This may sound like a calm opening to a novel, but readers can be absolutely assured that the minute this man's distracted foot hits the accelerator, they will be off on a voyage of such imagination, a trip of such tart hilarity, a solipsistic sojourn of such universality that they will not draw breath until the man, Howard Baker, returns, so to speak, to earth at journey's end.

Howard finds himself checking into a great metropolis at the nerve center of the universe, where anything is possible. He can do anything he likes, from expressing himself in any language -- and being understood -- to flying and changing his age at will. It is a city of vast enjoyment, but one which also presents a real moral and intellectual challenge, and offers deeply satisfying possibilities for self-development and self-realization. In short, it is a city which is highly adapted to the requirements of a modest, responsible, likable, educated man of liberal views and genuine social concern called Howard Baker. It is the best holiday he has ever had, and it may turn out to be just he kind of place the reader is looking for himself.

After all, who among us has not tried to order the universe in his mind, right up to and including our very own God? Thanks to Michael Frayn's immeasurable powers of imagination, Howard Baker gets a chance that will be a landmark in celestial satire.

Relax and let Frayn-Baker be your Virgil to a world wildly conceived yet devastatingly recognizable -- splendid, human, silly, and sad, where everyone will laugh at your jokes and your dress is always perfect and yet man's shoelaces turn out to be tied together after all.