Identification points are listed only where two independent sources agree. Last reviewed 22 Oct 2026.
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Leave Taking premiered at the Liverpool Playhouse Studio in November 1987. It first appeared in print not as a separate book but in the anthology First Run: New Plays by New Writers, selected and introduced by Kate Harwood, a 253-page paperback (20 cm) from Nick Hern Books, London, 1989 (ISBN 1854590103). The contents are Prickly Heat, Inventing a New Colour, Low Level Panic, Leave Taking and A Handful of Stars, which identifies the right volume. The first separate edition followed on 24 May 2018, an 88-page NHB Modern Plays paperback (ISBN 9781848427402) issued for the Bush Theatre revival directed by Madani Younis, alongside an A4 spiral edition and an ebook.
We have not yet confirmed the issue points that tell this first impression from later ones. Until we do, compare your copy's title page and copyright page with the publisher, place and year above: any later printing or edition statement means it is not this one.
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Nick Hern Books, London, in 1989, in paperback.
Points of issue are listed only where at least two independent sources agree. Last reviewed 22 October 2026. Reviewed by Harriet Ellis; read how we check facts.
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