Moon on a Rainbow Shawl by Errol John depicts the vibrant, cosmopolitan of Port-of-Spain, Trinidad - a world that is as harsh as it is filled with colour and warmth.

Esther - if yer have yer head screw on right - No matter where yer go - One night - some time - Yer reach up - yer touch that moon.

For the teeming populace of Old Mack's cacophonous yard in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, it's a cheek by jowl existence lived out on a sweltering public stage. Snatches of calypso compete with hymn tunes, drums and street cries as ... Read moreneighbours drink, brawl, pass judgment, make love, look out for each other and crave a better life. But Ephraim is no dreamer and nothing, not even the seductive Rosa, is going to stop him escaping his dead-end job for a fresh start in England.

Set as returning troops from the Second World War fill the town with their raucous celebrations, Erroll John's Moon on a Rainbow Shawl depicts a vibrant, cosmopolitan world that is as harsh as it is filled with colour and warmth.

First published by Faber in 1958, Moon on a Rainbow Shawl was revived at the National Theatre, London, in March 2012.

'A brawling, laughing, bitter sense of life courses through Moon on a Rainbow Shawl. Errol John fills the stage with people of flesh and blood; he communicates the harshness and tension in this steaming, crowded corner of Port-of-Spain. He writes with such warmth and understanding that the problems and characters of a mean backyard in Trinidad assume a validity for a multitude of teeming, troubled places on this planet.' New York Times

'Errol John's seminal Caribbean drama deserves to be recognised as a twentieth-century classic.' Independent on Sunday