LATEST NEWS
My travel guide "The Complete Ruhrgebiet" (Klartext Verlag, Essen), came onto the market in April 2018. You can buy it from any online shop or direct from me with a dedication, if you send me an email.

"Stronger than Superman" enjoyed a very successful Greek premiere in Athens in October 2018 and is proving such a box office hit that its run will be extended until April 2020. This means it will be in the repertoire on the 40th anniversary of its world premiere at the GRIPS Theater in Berlin on March 7th 2020.
The Greek production has also been invited to play a guest show in GRIPS Podewil Theatre in Berlin on June 14th 2019 (with a German translation).

WELCOME!
This website will introduce you to some of the activities I am involved in as a writer and translator. I have been working in theatre since 1968 when I left Drama Centre London, where I trained as an actor. Before that I read French and Italian at the University of Wales, during which time I spent a year as a teacher in St.Etienne in the Massif Central, where I wrote a BA thesis on "Jacques Copeau, Jean Daste et La Comedie de St.Etienne". I moved to Berlin from London in 1981 after my play Stronger than Superman had opened at the GRIPS theatre.
I now live in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, on which I have written three travel guides, "The Wupper Valley", "Dusseldorf, Aachen and the Lower Rhine" and "Tour the Ruhr", now updated and retitled as "The Complete Ruhrgebiet". My other activities include a one-man cabaret show in German on the area, talks, lectures, theatre criticism and workshops, and in 2010 I curated an exhibition of major living European poets for the RUHR.2010 cultural capital of Europe celebrations, entitled "Europe...a poem". A German/English book was published by Klartext Verlag to accompany the exhibition which was revived in Castrop-Rauxel in 2014 as part of the town's anniversary celebrations. The book gives facsimiles of the original handwritten poems, German and English translations of all the poems, along with essays, photos and biographical details.
And to finish where I began - the theatre.
I have just completed a new tragi-comedy entitled "The Clearing". It needs a single setting - a clearing in a forest - and three actors (1 M around 50-60 years old, 2 F, one of whom around 60 years old or older: or 2 M, 1 F) but can also have more actors if needed by the director or the company. Although the action of the play is realistic there are superficial illogical irritations that allow me to explore a transcendent mythical reality. Digital technology and effects would help immensely. Reader requests from innovative theatre-makers welcome by email: roy.kift@t-online.de.