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Every so often, someone takes a brilliant book and turns it into theatre magic.

Some of the biggest shows in recent times have been based on books - think War Horse, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, most of Roald Dahl’s classics and even Les Mis.

Many of the most exciting productions coming up in the 2018 theatre calendar also have our favourite novelists to thank. The Donmar is adapting Muriel Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, the Bridge has Laura Linney starring in My Name is Lucy Barton and the Young Vic has a big new musical based on graphic novel Fun Home.

Elsewhere there’s the Old Vic’s major adaptation of Patrick Ness’s A Monster Calls, and the Kiln Theatre bringing Zadie Smith’s White Teeth back to her native Kilburn.

We got in touch with our inner bookworm and had a think about the pageturners we’d love to see brought to the stage.

A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

Bringing Jennifer Egan’s modern masterpiece to the stage would be no walk in the park: it’s made up of 13 separate but intertwined stories, all focusing on different characters and told in different forms. But so much of it feels inherently theatrical, from the dramatic car crash celebrity profile interview to the chapter told as a PowerPoint presentation. It’s also a book that’s fascinated by music, and who doesn’t love a bit of loud music in a live venue?

The Outrun by Amy Liptrot

Readers fell in love with Amy Liptrot’s moving memoir about how she recovered from alcoholism by moving back to her childhood home of the Orkney Islands. Part of what made the book stand out was her poetic, evocative writing about nature and landscape, which brought to life by a performer would surely have that same capacity to transport.

Small Island by Andrea Levy

In 2004, Andrea Levy wrote one of the contemporary literature’s most loved stories about the arrival of the Windrush generation. The book won the Orange Prize for Fiction (now known as the Women’s Prize) in the year of its publication and was subsequently made into a TV drama starring David Oyelowo and Ruth Wilson. As the Windrush scandal continues to shock, this celebration of interracial relationships and Commonwealth citizens arriving to the UK would not only make a gripping stage drama, but would keep that conversation alive.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

At the heart of The Hunger Games is theatre. It imagines a dystopian future in which teens from separate districts have to fight each other to the death, harking back to the days of gladiatorial blood baths in Ancient Rome. It’s no wonder, then, that a stage version is already in the works - but it keeps getting delayed. The producers wanted to create a purpose-built theatre for the show in Wembley, but planning applications still haven’t been approved. The odds seem not quite to be in their favour.

Perfume by Patrick Suskind

It’s been a while since immersive theatre broke new ground, with many shows making promises about being site-specific or interactive, but actually not really being either. So what about a show that smells? Patrick Suskind’s 1985 novel, which was made into a film starring Ben Whishaw in 2006, tells the story of a man goes to extreme lengths to create the perfect scent. It’s a gripping tale - and we’d love to see it brought to life in full multi-sensory style.

There But For The by Ali Smith

Novelist Ali Smith is a playwright too, but many of her novels have a monologue-like quality that calls out to be brought to life by voices. Her dialogue is always a riot, but she’s also a queen of the spiralling, slightly claustrophobic stream of consciousness that will have you on the edge of your seat. Her 2011 novel There But For The, about a dinner party gone wrong, is a captivating journey of absurdity that also feels extremely contemporary - and we can see it working perfectly on stage.

Mad Girl’s Love Song by Andrew Wilson

Few public figures invite the same morbid fascination as Sylvia Plath. Her turbulent marriage to Ted Hughes and her tragic suicide have become the defining lens through which her life is viewed, but Andrew Wilson’s 2014 biography sought to change that. Wilson looks at Plath’s life before Hughes entered the picture, offering a brilliant, much-needed insight into her coming of age as a gifted writer, when economic factors were piled against her as much as her mental health struggles. Her early life still retains a dramatic quality that would suit the stage, but without the salacious element that so often features in other writing about her later life.

Escape from Spiderhead by George Saunders

George Saunders scooped the Booker Prize last year for his first novel Lincoln in the Bardo, but his short stories had already seen him described as one of the world’s best living writers. Escape from Spiderhead, from his Tenth of December collection, is full of Saunders’ characteristic mix of black humour and utter doom. This Black Mirror-esque tale of a man sent to a prison where he is subjected to experiments by a pharmaceutical company is is disturbing, funny and packs a knockout blow. It would make a perfect, claustrophobic play.

Marbles by Ellen Forney

With Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir Fun Home coming to the stage this summer in theatre form, it’s worth considering how these two highly visual forms of storytelling can complement each other. Ellen Forney’s acclaimed graphic memoir, Marbles, explores what it’s like to live with bipolar disorder and how it impacts on her life as an artist. As the taboo on mental health breaks down and conversations on creativity and wellbeing begin to further emerge, we think Forney’s book is a great candidate for a stage conversion.

Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine

OK, so we’re sort of cheating. Claudia Rankine’s multi award-winning work, an undefinable mix of poetry, prose, essays and images, has already been adapted for the stage in the US - but we’d really like it to be staged over here. From exploring major news stories about racism in America to everyday microaggressions, the book is an invaluable part of an essential conversation, but it’s also formally experimental - and where else can you experiment but in the theatre?