Book description
Polar Bears is a captivating tale by award-winning writer Mark Haddon.
Balancing humour and pathos, it tells of one man's struggle to love,
support and live with someone suffering from a psychological condition.
With an elliptical structure and teasing timeline, the play handles the
subject sensitively, with vivid, sympathetically-drawn characters and
nicely-balanced dialectics. Polar Bears is thought-provoking and
intelligent, with echoes of Nietszchean philosophy, and it refuses to
offer any easy answers for those embroiled in mental instability. The
plot is as follows: John has never met anyone like Kay. When the moon is
in the right phase, she is magnetic and amazingly alive. But when the
darkness closes in, she is lost to another world, a world in which John
does not belong. Mark Haddon is a hugely celebrated writer who is best
known for his 2003 novel The Curious Incident of The Dog in the
Night-Time, which won a string of prestigious awards, including the
Whitbread Book of the Year. It quickly became an international
bestseller, was printed in 32 countries and translated into 15
languages. Polar Bears is his first work for the theatre and will enjoy
a high profile premiere at the Donmar Warehouse 1 April - 22 May,
directed by Jamie Lloyd and starring Jodhi May and Richard Coyle. The
Culture has just named Polar Bears one of top 100 hottest tickets for
2010. Polar Bears is screenwriter and author Mark Haddon's first work
for the theatre. As an author his work includes A Spot of Bother and The
Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (Whitbread prize, Guardian
children's fiction prize, The British Book Awards - Children's Book of
the Year & Literary Fiction Award, Book Trust Teenage Fiction
Award), The Real Porky Philips, Agent Z and Titch Johnson - Almost World
Champion. His work for television includes Coming Down the Mountain,
Fungus the Bogeyman and Microsoap.
