Burning Coal Theatre Company

The fall of the Berlin Wall on 9th November 1989 was a momentous event for people all over Europe, and a particular inspiration for playwright David Edgar, who sat down the next day to write what would become the Iron Curtain Trilogy.

Written over nine years, David Edgar’s three Cold War plays, The Shape of the Table, which was first produced at the National Theatre in 1990, Pentecost and The Prisoner’s Dilemma (both written for the Royal Shakespeare Company), explore how the revolution happened and its consequences for eastern Europe and the world. Now for the first time in London, all three will be performed in repertory, opening the week of the 25th anniversary of the reunification of Berlin.

The Iron Curtain Trilogy opens with 'The Shape Of The Table' which centres on the transition from communism to democracy. In Pentecost, which won the 1995 Evening Standard Best New Play of the Year award, the discovery of a fresco in a small church in the Balkans has the potential to change the history of European art and The Prisoner’s Dilemma explores the delicate process of negotiating peace between a newly-independent post-Soviet government and an oppressed and militant Muslim minority. The three plays deal with revolution, migration, and cultural and ethnic conflict, all subjects that remain relevant today.

British playwright and writer David Edgar has had more than sixty of his plays published and performed worldwide, making him one of Britain’s most prolific playwrights of the post 1960s generation.

The three plays are separate and can be seen on their own. A package deal for all three shows is available at £40.00