Two short, complementary plays, Winners and Losers, are contained in Lovers.
In the first, the lovers are a young couple preparing for their final school exams and their imminent wedding. The girl is pregnant. Although they promise each other happiness their deaths by drowning save them from a more likely destiny.
In the second play, the lovers are older, but their passion, at first, is no less real. It is their marriage that brings its share of compromises and unhappiness. These plays combine to suggest ‘the fallible hopes and disenchantments of the varieties of love’ (D E S Maxwell). They have become perennial favourites with drama companies and audiences all over the world.