Adapted from Man Booker Prize winner Howard Jacobson's hilarious homage to Manchester.
Oliver Walzer is shy, bookish, Jewish. He doesn't know how to talk to girls. But he can chop, flick and spin a ping pong ball better than any teenager in Manchester. When Sheeny Waxman takes him under his wing on the Akiva Social Club Table Tennis team, Oliver channels his frustrated adolescent lust into the game he loves. That is until the heartbreaking Lorna Peachley and the prospect of a place at Cambridge take his eye off the ball.
"The Mighty Walzer: a very funny, messily authentic portrait of adolescence…Bent's adaptation captures much of the rich Yiddish vernacular and zippy, self-deprecating gallows humour in Jacobson's novel."The Telegraph
"…there's a full-flavoured wit and luminous humanity in the writing"The Times
"I'm glad that writer Howard Jacobson lent us his story of The Mighty Walzer and even happier that this adaptation by Simon Bent has turned a funny novel into an even funnier play."What's On Stage
"Jacobson's ping-pong comedy is a smash on stage…Loose-limbed, semi-autobiographical novels do not necessarily transfer easily to the stage, but Simon Bent's adaptation is the happy occurrence of a fine novelist and an equally experienced playwright putting their heads together."The Guardian