- Shelagh Delaney
Shelagh Delaney (born
November 25 ,1939 ), is a Britishplaywright , best known for her debut work, "A Taste Of Honey".Born in Broughton,
Salford ,Lancashire , she attended three different primary schools. After failing the eleven-plus examination to qualify for grammar school, she went to Broughton Secondary School, where she saw her first stage production, an amateur performance of Shakespeare's "Othello ". She was twelve at the time and the play made a lasting impression.Delaney proved to be a late developer and she eventually transferred to the local grammar school where she had a record of fair achievement. She left school at seventeen for a succession of jobs in
Salford , which included shop assistant, milk-depot clerk, and usherette. Her driving ambition was always to write.At age seventeen Delaney began "
A Taste of Honey " as anovel , but soon realised that it would work better as a play. It focuses on a teen-agedworking-class girl who refuses to conform to her dreary surroundings. The play portrays the lives of typical workers in the north of England in an inventive way."A Taste of Honey" was accepted by
Joan Littlewood , artistic director of theTheatre Workshop , who strongly believed that plays should be about ordinary people. It opened at theTheatre Royal Stratford East inLondon onMay 27 ,1958 , and onFebruary 10 ,1959 , transferred toWyndham's Theatre in the West End, where it enjoyed a long run and won several awards. OnOctober 4 ,1960 , the play opened at Broadway'sLyceum Theatre with a cast includingJoan Plowright ,Angela Lansbury , andBilly Dee Williams .Two years later, Shelagh co-wrote with director
Tony Richardson thescreenplay for the film version, which starredRita Tushingham andDora Bryan and won Delaney aBAFTA Award for Best British Screenplay (along with Richardson). The film was one of the key films of theBritish New Wave of cinema in theSixties .She has penned a collection of
short stories entitled "Sweetly Sings the Donkey", several television plays, including "Did your Nanny Come from Bergen?" (1970), and "St Martin's Summer" (1974), award-winning scripts such as "Charley Bubbles" and "Dance with a Stranger", and radio plays such as "So Does the Nightingale" (1980), but has never attained the level of success she did with her first play.Her works have formed the inspiration for several songs written by the British
singer /songwriter Morrissey , and she featured on the sleeves of the "Louder Than Bombs "album and "Girlfriend in a Coma" single by his band,The Smiths .References and external links
* [http://www.peopleplayuk.org.uk/timelines/women.php?year=3&syear=5& Theatre Museum profile]
Persondata
NAME = Delaney, Shelagh
ALTERNATIVE NAMES =
SHORT DESCRIPTION = British playwright
DATE OF BIRTH =November 25 ,1939
PLACE OF BIRTH = Broughton,Salford ,Lancashire ,England
DATE OF DEATH =
PLACE OF DEATH =
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