John Arden

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

John Arden (born 1930) is an award-winning English playwright from Barnsley (which at the time was in the West Riding of Yorkshire). His works tend to expose social issues of personal concern. He is a member of the Royal Society of Literature.

He was educated at Sedbergh School, King's College, Cambridge and Edinburgh College of Art, where he studied architecture. He first gained critical attention for the radio play, The Life of Man in 1956 shortly after finishing his studies.

His 1959 play, Serjeant Musgrave's Dance, dealing with the protestors of war and its realities, is considered Arden's best work. Arden is reputed to be one of the greatest playwrights of the post-Look Back in Anger era. His work bears the heavy influence of Bertolt Brecht and the Epic Theatre. Other plays include Live Like Pigs, The Workhouse Donkey and Armstrong's Last Goodnight, the last of which was performed at the National Theatre, staring Albert Finney.

He has also written a number of novels, including Silence Among the Weapons, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and Books of Bale, about the protestant apologist John Bale.

He is notable for a number of highly public fallings-out with the theatre establishment - with his wife and co-writer Margaretta D'Arcy, he picketed the RSC premier of his Arthurian play The Island of the Mighty; and they have written several plays highly critical of British presence in Ireland, where he now lives, and the Military-Industrial Complex.

He has a long history of being associated with radical leftwing politics in the U.K. and Ireland. In 1961 he was a founder member of the anti-nuclear Committee of 100 and he also chaired the pacifist weekly, Peace News. In Ireland, he was for a while a member of Sinn Féin. He is also a well-known supporter of civil liberties and is critical of government anti-terror legislation, as was demonstrated in his 2007 radio play The Scam.

[edit] Awards

[edit] External links