My Night with Reg: Plays One: NHB Modern Plays

Kevin Elyot’s Olivier and Evening Standard Award-winning comedy, My Night with Reg, defined a moment in the lives of gay men and became an instant classic on its premiere at the Royal Court and in the West End.

At Guy’s London flat, friends old and new gather to party through the night. This is the summer of 1985, and for Guy and his circle the world is about to change forever. Deliciously funny and bittersweet, Kevin Elyot’s play captures the fragility of friendship, happiness and life itself.

My Night With Reg first premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in 1994, and went on to win the Evening Standard and Olivier Awards for Best Comedy. This new edition was published alongside the first major revival of the play at the Donmar Warehouse, London, in 2014, directed by Robert Hastie. It includes introductions by Hastie, Roger Michell, who directed the premiere, and the Booker Prize-winning novelist Alan Hollinghurst.

Kevin Elyot was born in Birmingham in 1951. He was an actor before becoming a writer. His plays include Coming Clean, My Night with Reg, The Day I Stood Still, Mouth to Mouth and Forty Winks. All of these are published by NHB. He also wrote a successful adaptation of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None for the West End. His writing for television includes Clapham Junction and Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky. He was a senior writer on ITV’s Poirot and Marple. Kevin Elyot died in May 2014, a few months before the revival of his greatest play, My Night with Reg.

'a modern classic… wickedly funny as well as deeply affecting' - Telegraph

'a play of genius... sublimely moving, genuinely funny and exquisitely observed' - Daily Mail

'beautifully funny and achingly sad… what keeps the play from feeling like a period piece, irrespective of the advances in our understanding of HIV/AIDS, is its enduring grasp of human nature' - Time Out

'an instant classic… a lovely, touching play about old friendships and sudden liaisons' - WhatsOnStage

'sad, funny… a beautifully observant study of friendship, longing and betrayal' - Evening Standard

'often desperately sad, it always glows with compassion and is brimming with effervescent humour' - The Arts Desk

'laughter with a killer punchline' - The Times