Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview
  • No Boys Play Here

  • A Story of Shakespeare and My Family’s Missing Men
  • By: Sally Bayley
  • Narrated by: Sally Bayley
  • Length: 6 hrs and 21 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (3 ratings)

£0.00 for first 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

No Boys Play Here

By: Sally Bayley
Narrated by: Sally Bayley
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Summary

‘Nobody writes like Sally Bayley’ Lemn Sissay

From the brilliantly original and critically acclaimed Sally Bayley, a literary story of working class childhood, absent or broken men and the power of literature to save and rebuild a world.

In Sally Bayley’s childhood, the men were often missing. Missing because they were drunk, or out of work, or wandering. Or missing because their behaviour meant women banned them from the house.

The man who was around for Sally was Shakespeare, and he brought men with him to fill the gaps. Sally grew up with a troupe of sad kings and lonely heroes. Her mind ran away from home with Falstaff and Prince Hal, with deceivers and mavericks and geniuses.

In her signature and extraordinary style, this is Sally’s story of her childhood – one lived with darkness snapping at heels, with real and imagined people passing through interchangeably, and with trauma a spiky memory to be skirted and avoided.

Inventive, literary and adventurous, this is a story of hard childhood and a testament to the way that great literature and its characters can guard an imagination against the bad.

©2020 Sally Bayley (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers Limited
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

The House of Arden cover art
Pearl in a Cage cover art
Norman: Through My Eyes: A Social and Personal History of Leicester cover art
The Story of the Treasure Seekers cover art
The Running Wolf cover art
Fairy Tales & Scary Tales cover art
Tunnel of Mirrors cover art
Cousins cover art
The Watchmaker's Wife cover art
A Waltz for Matilda cover art
The Emerald Circus cover art
Owls Do Cry cover art
The Archers: Home Fires at Ambridge cover art
Finnegans Wake cover art
A Chorus of Innocents cover art
The Butcher Boy cover art

Critic reviews

"Sally Bayley’s second volume of memoir is as original and moving as the first. Shakespeare’s characters walk with a family enacting their own tragedies and comedies as they struggle with poverty and illness. Bayley’s bright, tight, sentences and tender wit create a truly child-like perspective which allows us to understand great pain. To be read by all educationalists." (Kate Clanchy, Orwell Prize-winning author of Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me)

"Very powerful and moving.... With many insights into aspects of the way we live now." (Marina Warner, author of Once Upon a Time)

What listeners say about No Boys Play Here

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.