The writer of Shopping and Fucking will direct cycle of bawdy comedies inspired by scenarios from a 17th-century Italian collection

A premiere by Mark Ravenhill has been an event ever since the British playwright’s explosive debut 30 years ago with Shopping and Fucking. But Ravenhill is now set to unveil a staggering 10 new full-length plays over two days, performed by a cast of 80 actors and directed by Ravenhill.

An epic cycle of bawdy modern comedies, the plays borrow from scenarios collected in a 1611 publication by the Italian commedia dell’arte actor and manager Flaminio Scala. Ravenhill said he had been attracted to the “generosity of spirit and comic energy” of the scenarios. “They are sexually frank, with the women given as much agency as the men. They are socially acute, depicting the newly rich mixing with the urban poor and new migrants from the countryside. They are grounded in money, sex and the body.” Collectively, the storylines depict a world “in which we are all fools and we all need to find a way to get along”. His aim, Ravenhill said, was not to make a historical reconstruction but “to write plays that allow contemporary audiences to laugh and to celebrate our shared humanity”.