Men’s Business
by Franz Xaver Kroetz
in a new translation by Simon Stephens.
18 March - 12 April 2025
A love story set in the back room of a butcher’s shop with a brutal bastard of a dog howling in the yard next door.
Charlie’s faith in the possibility of love can’t be dimmed. No matter what deranged brutalities life throws at her.
Victor doesn’t take his builder’s boots off for dinner, has a rule to never go to a woman’s flat in case she gets ‘ideas ‘ and doesn’t like secrets…or dogs…
Is he the one she’s been waiting for?
Men’s Business is the world premiere of Tony and Olivier Award winner Simon Stephens’ new version of Franz Xavier Kroetz rarely performed masterpiece Mannersache, and the London debut of acclaimed new company Glass Mask Theatre from Dublin, featuring Rex Ryan (Best Actor nominee 2021 Abbey Theatre from Broadway world. Best Actor nominee at Manchester theatre awards ).
About Playwright Simon Stephens
Multi-award-winning playwright Simon Stephens is one of the UK’s most prolific contemporary playwrights and his work is produced across the world. The author of more than twenty stage plays, he is a former tutor on the Royal Court Young Writers Programme. His many awards include the Pearson Award for Best New Play, 2001, for Port; Olivier Award for Best New Play for On the Shore of the Wide World, 2005; and for Motortown German critics in Theater Heute's annual poll voted him Best Foreign Playwright, 2007. His adaptation of Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time won the 2015 Tony Award for Best Play.
His plays include Bluebird (Royal Court Theatre), Herons (Royal Court), Port (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester), One Minute (Crucible Theatre and Bush Theatre), Christmas (Bush Theatre), Country Music (Royal Court Theatre Upstairs), On the Shore of the Wide World (Royal Exchange Theatre and National Theatre), Motortown (Royal Court Theatre Downstairs), Pornography (Deutsches Schauspielhaus, Hanover, Edinburgh Festival, Birmingham Rep, and Tricycle Theatre), Harper Regan (National Theatre), Sea Wall (Bush Theatre and Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh), Heaven (Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh), Punk Rock (Lyric Hammersmith and Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester), The Trial of Ubu (Essen Schauspielhaus and Toneelgroep Amsterdam), A Thousand Stars Explode in the Sky co-written with David Eldridge and Robert Holman (Lyric Hammersmith), Marine Parade co-written with Mark Eitzel (Brighton International Festival), T5 (Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh), Wastwater (Royal Court Theatre Downstairs), Morning (Lyric Hammersmith), an adaptation of A Doll’s House (Young Vic), an adaptation of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (National Theatre), Blindsided (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester), Birdland (Royal Court Theatre), Carmen Disruption (Deutsches Schauspielhaus and Almeida Theatre), The Funfair (Home Theatre); Heisenberg (Manhatton Theatre Club,), Song From Faraway (Young Vic), The Threepenny Opera (National Theatre) Nuclear War (Royal Court Theatre), Obsession (Barbican), Lightfalls (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester), Morning Sun (Manhattan Theatre Club), Blindness (Donmar Warehouse), Fortune (Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre).
About Playwright Franz Xaver Kroetz
Writer, actor, and film director Franz Xaver Kroetz was born in Munich in 1946. One of Germany’s most popular contemporary dramatists, he rose to fame as a playwright in the early 1970s when the premiere of his plays Heimarbeit (Houseworker) and Hartnäckig (Persistent) was disrupted by neo-fascists. His work has been translated and performed internationally. UK productions include Through The Leaves, performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2001 and at the Southwark Playhouse in 2002, The Nest, staged at The Young Vic in 2016, and Tom Fool, seen at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, in 2022. He is also well known to international audiences for his plays Farmyard (Stallerhof) and Request Concert (Wunschkonzert). In addition to playwriting, Kroetz has written for numerous television series and has acted in several films and TV series. He has received many awards including the Deutscher Kritikerpreis, Bertolt-Brecht-Literaturpreis and the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.
18 March - 12 April 2025
Week 1
Prices until 23 March
Tickets £20, £18 Concessions
Concession Details
Tickets £20, £18 concessions. Previews £15 all seats.
£10 tickets for Under 30s for performances from Tuesday to Sunday of the first week when booked online only.
£15 tickets for residents of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham on the first Saturday evening of each run, when booked online only.
Group Bookings for all performances – 1 free ticket in every 10 purchased.
Week 2
Prices from 25 to 30 March
Tickets £23, £20 Concessions
Concession Details
Tickets £23, £20 concessions, except Tuesday evenings £20 all seats.
Group Bookings for all performances – 1 free ticket in every 10 purchased.
Weeks 3 and 4
Prices from 1 to 12 April
Tickets £25, £23 Concessions
Concession Details
Tickets £25, £23 concessions. No concessions on Friday or Saturday evenings.
Group Bookings for all performances – 1 free ticket in every 10 purchased.
For details of our Returns Policy for sold out performances, please click here
PLEASE NOTE THAT LATECOMERS CANNOT BE ADMITTED AND TICKETS CANNOT BE EXCHANGED OR REFUNDED.
Tickets and Times
Tuesday | 7:30pm |
Wednesday | 7:30pm |
Thursday | 7:30pm |
Friday | 7:30pm |
Saturday | 3:00pm 7:30pm |
Sunday | 3:00pm |
Approximately 75 minutes.