Neil Bartlett (playwright)

Front cover of the programme to the 1993 production of Neil Bartlett and Nicolas Bloomfield's musical Night After Night at the Traverse Theatre.

Neil Vivian Bartlett, OBE, (born 1958) is a British director, performer, translator, and writer. He is one of the founding members of Gloria, a production company established in 1988 to produce his work along with that of Nicolas Bloomfield, Leah Hausman and Simon Mellor.^[1] His work has garnered several awards, including the 1985 Perrier Award (for More Bigger Snacks Now), the Time Out Dance Umbrella Award (for A Vision of Love Revealed in Sleep), a Writers Guild Award (for Sarrasine), a Time Out Theatre Award (for A Judgement in Stone), and the Special Jury Prize at the Cork Film Festival (for Now That It's Morning).^[1] His production of The Dispute won a Time Out Award for Best Production in the West End and the 1999 TMA Best Touring Production award.^[2] He was appointed an OBE in 2000 for his services to the arts.^[3][4]

Career

Who Was That Man shows how the gay history of London in the 1890s affects Bartlett's life as a gay man in London in the 1980s. His latest novel, The Disappearance Boy was published in London by Bloomsbury Circus publishing in January 2014.

He also served as Artistic Director at the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith from 1994 until 2004.^[5] At the Lyric he directed productions of classic plays, which he translated or adapted. The following are some of the plays he directed and translated:

• The first English production of Jean Genet's Splendid's
• Kleist's Prince of Homburg and Marivaux's La Dispute
• His recent adaptation of Dickens' Oliver Twist
• Adaptation of "The Servant" by Robin Maugham.

Many of his translations of classic plays have been performed throughout the world.

He also took part in the Bush Theatre's 2011 project Sixty Six Books where he wrote a piece based upon a chapter of the King James Bible^[6]

Work

Fiction

• Who Was That Man: A Present for Mr. Oscar Wilde (1988)
• Ready to Catch Him Should He Fall (1992)
• Mr. Clive and Mr. Page (1996)
• Skin Lane (2007)
• The Disappearance Boy (2014)

• "When the Time Comes; or, the Case of the Man Who Didn't Know" (short story)

Theatre and radio

• More Bigger Snacks Now (1985), director for Complicité
• A Vision of Love Revealed in Sleep (Part One) (1987)
• The Misanthrope (1988), director for Red Shift
• Lady Audley's Secret (1988-1989) for Gloria
• A Vision of Love Revealed in Sleep (Part Three) (1989-1990) for Gloria
• Ariadne (1989-1990)
• Berenice (1990) for the Royal National Theatre
• The School for Wives (1990) for the Derby Playhouse
• Sarrasine (1990-1991) for Gloria
• The Avenging Woman (1991)
• Let Them Call It Jazz (1991) for Gloria
• Twelfth Night (1992) for the Goodman Theatre, Chicago
• A Judgement in Stone (1992) for Gloria
• The Game of Love and Chance (1992-1993) for Gloria/Cambridge Theatre Co./Royal National Theatre
• Night After Night (Part One) (1993) musical
• The Seven Sacraments of Nicolas Poussin (1998)
• The Verger Queen or Bette's Full Service (2000)
• In Extremis (2000)
• Does You Good (2001)
• Camille (2003) adaptation of The Lady of the Camellias
• Improbable (2004) radio

Television

• That's What Friends Are For (1988) television, for After Image/Channel Four
• Where Is Love? (1988) television, for ICA/BBC2
• Pedagogue (1988) with Stuart Marshall
• That's How Strong My Love Is (1989) television, for Channel Four
• Now That It's Morning (1992) television, for Channel Four/British Screen

References

Sources

• Bartlett, Neil, adapter. 2003. Camille. By Alexandre Dumas fils. London: Oberon. ISBN 1-84002-360-0.
• Bartlett, Neil. 2005. Solo Voices: Monologues 1987-2004. London: Oberon. ISBN 1-84002-465-8.
• Burton, Peter, editor. 2008. A Casualty of War: the Arcadia Book of Gay Short Stories. London: Arcadia Books. ISBN 978-1-906413-31-6.

External links

• Official website
• Brief biography
• IMDB biography