(Please note that LabLit.com is an Amazon Associate, so we earn from qualifying purchases when you click on any of the Amazon book links below and go on to purchase. These funds go to support LabLit.com.)
Blinded by the Sun
by Stephen Poliakoff
Drama: Scientists squabble as cold fusion goes belly-up.
Links: Amazon (UK)
Copenhagen
by Michael Frayn
Historical drama: Mr. and Mrs. Niels Bohr reminisce with Werner Heisenberg over the uncertainty of memory and quantum mechanics.
Links: Amazon (UK)
Les Palmes de M. Schutz
by Jean-Noël Fenwick
Drama/Comedy: Marie and Pierre Curie discover something hot.
Links: IMBD
An Immaculate Misconception
by Carl Djerassi
Drama: A broody scientist finally gets her gloved hands on some sperm.
Links: our author profile • Amazon (UK)
Oxygen
by Carl Djerassi and Roald Hoffman
Drama: Scientists both past and present bicker about who discovered the humble gas.
Links: our author profile • Amazon (UK)
Calculus
by Carl Djerassi
Drama: More bickering (this time about mathematics and the dark side of Isaac Newton).
Links: our author profile • Amazon (UK)
Phallacy
by Carl Djerassi
Drama/Comedy: Art vs. science as a bronze statue catalyzes love and a museum spat.
Links: our review • our author profile • Playwright’s website
Autodestruct: the ultimate cure for cancer
by Lizzie Burns
Drama: A man lives on through an immortal cell culture of himself.
Links: our playwright interview • Playwright’s website
Safe Delivery
by Tom McGrath and Julie Webb
Drama: A story about gene therapy, lab politics and life.
Links: Edinburgh review
Arcadia
by Tom Stoppard
Comedy: Two cultures collide in this classic tale of order, chaos and landscape gardening.
Links: our review • Amazon (UK)
Galileo (Life of Galileo)
by Bertolt Brecht
Historical fiction: The Church battles it out against rationality in this insight-packed masterpiece.
Links: our review • Amazon (UK)
A Disappearing Number
by Simon Burney and Complicite
Historical fiction: A time-bending fantasy account based on the real life of the genius mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan.
Links: Complicite
Proof
by David Auburn
Drama: Catherine struggles to come to terms with the legacy of her mathematician father.
Links: Amazon (UK)
Photograph 51
by Anna Ziegler
Drama: Rosalind Franklin battles with lab politics as much as with the discovery of the structure of DNA
Links: our interview • Amazon (UK)
Experiment With An Air Pump
by Shelagh Stephenson
Historical fiction: Scientists in the past and present grapple with scientific mysteries.
Links: Wikipedia
Lenin’s Embalmers
by Vern Thiessen
Dark Comedy: Two rival chemists must decide how to preserve the deceased leader’s body.
Links: Amazon
Chain Reaction
by Jonathan Alexandratos
Drama: The key scientists at Los Alamos must build the A-bomb and deal with its consequences.
Links: Backstage
Should’ve
by Roald Hoffman
Drama: A chemist takes his own life, blaming himself for putting an easy way to make a neurotoxin into the hands of terrorists.
Links: Play website
Newton’s Darkness: Two Dramatic Views
by David Pinner
Historical fiction: Two plays about two of Newton’s infamous conflicts: one with Hooke, and one with Leibniz.Links: Amazon (UK)
The Hard Problem
by Tom Stoppard
Drama:A researcher tries to understand the nature of consciousness.
Links: Amazon (UK)
Oppenheimer
by Tom Morton-Smith
Historical fiction: A study of the moral issues inherent in being a scientist and a human being
Links: Royal Shakespeare Company
Infinities
by John D. Barrow FRS
Experimental: Five scenarios eplore infinity, mathematics and the concept of life – without a plot or characters
Links: SIAM
Placebo
by Melissa James Gibson
Drama: A clinical trial forms the backdrop for crucial life decisions
Links: Amazon (UK)
Informed Consent
by Deborah Zoe Laufer
Drama: Is DNA is our destiny, and who gets to decide?
Links: Amazon (UK)
Miss Atomic Bomb
by Adam Long, Gabriel Vick and Alex Jackson-Long
Musical: In 1952, a Las Vegas hotel tries to lure in tourists coming to gawk at desert nuclear tests by holding a beauty pageant.
Links: The Guardian
Calculating Kindness
by Lydia Adetunji and Laura Farnworth, Directed by Laura Farnworth
Musical: A play based on the life of geneticist George Price, the man who tried to use math to explain altruism.
Links: at Camden People’s Theatre
Links: The Observer
God’s Dice
by David Baddiel
Drama: What would happen if someone was able to prove, scientifically, the existence of God?
Links: Soho Theatre
The Starry Messenger
by Ira Hauptman
Historical fiction: Galileo’s decision to renounce his discoveries takes a big toll on his family.
Links: Dramatic Publishing
Dr Semmelweis
by Stephen Brown
Play: Drama about the real-life doctor who promoted hand washing to stop the spread of diseases.
Links: National Theatre
Farm Hall
by Katherine Moar
Play: German nuclear scientists deal with life in British captivity in 1945
Links: Guardian
Test Room Eight
by Lester Powell
Radio play: Philip Odell and his assistant investigate suspected sabotage at a pharmaceutical plant
Links: Internet Archive