Pinner: Two Plays: The Teddy Bears' Picnic; The Potsdam Quartet

by David Pinner

The Teddy Bears' Picnic is an ironic comedy which shows Stalin playing relaxed host and bon viveur in his country dacha. The smiling, malignant 'Uncle Joe' torments his Politburo with brash insults, crude practical jokes and the ever-lurking threat of being 'purged'.
The Potsdam Quartet presents two very different quartets at the Potsdam Conference of 1945: the 'big four' of Stalin, Truman, Churchill and Attlee who are 'dividing up the world' off-stage, and the four embittered musicians who are there to provide the background music while they do 'a pity it has to be Haydn.'

178 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

David Pinner was born in 1940. After school and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he appeared with repertory companies at Sheffield, Perth, Coventry (Belgrade Theatre) and Windsor. By 1969 he had written thirteen plays, including ‘Fanghorn’, ‘Dickon’, ‘Lightfall’ and ‘Eiderdown’. RITUAL was his first novel.