WONDROUS STRANGE by dramaturg, director, and long-lime literary manager Chris Mead is a high-wire musing on what makes great plays. For anyone who is into theatre of any kind, read on …

From Aristotle’s Poetics to Suzan-Lori Parks’ ‘bad math’ to the neurochemistry of storytelling, WONDROUS STRANGE takes the reader on a satisfyingly meandering journey through seven ‘thoughts’ on theatrical storytelling. Combining autobiography, practice and theory, Chris Mead has written a wondrous book for anyone who has ever grappled with what it means to tell a story on stage, one that both comprehensively elucidates the key schools of dramaturgical thought while celebrating their disruption and transformation.-ANCHULI FELICIA KING

Mead’s wide-ranging, deeply researched and erudite book makes it clear that there are no simple formulas to follow if you want to write a great play. It takes talent and great perceptive power, but finally the process is so mysteriously complex as to make it ‘wondrous strange’.-DAVID WILLIAMSON

Chris Mead-theatre-geek extraordinaire-shines a magnifying glass on this wondrous and strange medium of ours with this deep exploration of theatre at a cellular level throughout the ages. More than a brain dump, this is a carefully considered and finely crafted love poem to theatre that practitioners and theatre lovers from all walks of life can dive into and swim around in.-ANDREA JAMES

Chris Mead promises ‘… vertigo, whiplash, forking paths and some thin ice ahead: but there is also insight and wonder’. He delivers each element superbly. His seven thoughts are provocative, insightful, wondrous, yes, and at times I felt the ice crack beneath me. This is not a manual, a how-to book to write plays … I’ve been writing plays for a long lime and I learned heaps but most importantly, I was reminded of how marvellous a play can be: full of wonder and as strange as can be.-PATRICIA CORNELIUS