Dennis Kelly

Dennis Kelly (born 1970) is a British writer for film, television and theatre. He is perhaps best known for co-writing BBC Three's sitcom Pulling with actress Sharon Horgan, for co-writing Matilda the Musical with comedian Tim Minchin, and for the controversial Channel 4 conspiracy thriller Utopia.

Early life

Kelly grew up in Barnet, North London, in an Irish family and was brought up a Catholic. One of five children, he left school at 16 to work in Sainsbury's.

While working in supermarkets, he discovered theatre when he joined a local youth group, the Barnet Drama Centre. At the age of 30, he graduated from Goldsmiths College, University of London with First Class Honours in Drama and Theatre Arts.

Work

Kelly wrote his first play Debris when he was 30; he says he wrote it imagining he'd give himself a part. Staged at Theatre 503 in 2003, it transferred the next year to Battersea Arts Centre. It was well received and he went on to write the controversially titled Osama the Hero which was produced by Hampstead Theatre, beginning a long-running relationship with the theatre that he would return to often.

He wrote After the End in 2005. It was produced by Paines Plough in his first out of London production at the Traverse, though it later came to the Bush Theatre before going on a tour of the UK and internationally in 2006.

Love and Money, arguably one of his most famous plays, was staged at the Royal Exchange, Manchester and then at the Young Vic in 2006. That same year his sitcom Pulling,^[1] co-written and starring Sharon Horgan, aired on BBC Three. It received good ratings for the channel and was well reviewed, being nominated for a BAFTA TV Award for Best Situation Comedy in 2007.

Returning to theatre and the Hampstead Theatre in 2007, his fake verbatim play Taking Care of Baby was another success for both writer and theatre.

For the 2007 National Theatre Connections Festival, he wrote DeoxyriboNucleic Acid (better known by the title DNA) which after the connections received a professional production alongside The Miracle by Lin Coghlan and Baby Girl by Roy Williams at the National Theatre in the Cottesloe.^[2] The play is now used widely in schools and is on several curriculums for GCSE drama.

The second series of Pulling ran in 2008 and won a British Comedy Award. However, the show was not renewed for a third series, although in 2009 an hour-long special closed the series. That same year he also wrote an episode for Series 8 of Spooks.

In 2009, his play Orphans was staged at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre before transferring to the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Kelly was one of the ten writers who took part in writing monologues based on a children's account for a one-off event at the Old Vic Theatre directed by Danny Boyle in London in support of Dramatic Need in 2010. His three monologues were performed by Ben Kingsley, Jenny Jules and Charlie Cox.^[3]

In 2010, Kelly returned to the Hampstead Theatre once more for his response to Shakespeare's King Lear, The Gods Weep starring Jeremy Irons, with mixed reviews. His next theatrical venture fared much better; his musical version of Roald Dahl's Matilda co-written with comedian Tim Minchin was a hit at the RSC in 2011. It transferred to the West End and has won several awards including Best Musical at the Evening Standard Awards, The Critics' Circle and Theatre Awards.

On 9 November 2015, Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts awarded both Kelly and Matilda co-collaborator Tim Minchin an Honorary Doctorate in letters, validated by the University of East Anglia, for their work on Matilda the Musical.^[4][5]

His work has been produced in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Slovakia, the Netherlands, Ireland, Iceland, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Poland, Italy, Australia, Japan, the United States, Belgium, Denmark, Romania and Canada. Other work includes translations of Péter Kárpáti’s Fourth Gate (National Theatre Studio) and The Colony, a radio play which won Best European Radio Drama at the Prix Europa, 2004.

Film work

• Black Sea (2014) - Writer

Theatre work

• From Morning to Midnight (2013): a translation, original play by Georg Kaiser, premiered at the National Theatre
• The Ritual Slaughter of Gorge Mastromas (2013): premiered at the Royal Court Theatre^[6]
• Things That Make No Sense (2011): performed as part of Theatre Uncut: A Response to the Countrywide Spending Cuts, premiered at Southwark Playhouse
• True Love, Sums and Christmas (2010): monologues performed as part of The Children's Monologues one off event at the Old Vic Theatre (Unpublished)
• Matilda the Musical^[7] (2010): music by Tim Minchin, premiered at The Courtyard Theatre
• The Gods Weep (2010): premiered at the Hampstead Theatre
• The Prince of Homburg (2010): a translation, original by Heinrich von Kleist, premiered at the Donmar Warehouse
• Orphans (2009): premiered at the Traverse Theatre transferred to the Soho Theatre
• Our Teacher's a Troll (2009): premiered at Mull Theatre by the National Theatre of Scotland.
• D.N.A. (2007): part of National Theatre Connections
• Pupation (2007): written as a 10-minute play and completed by Natasha Bell, Georgia Lester, Indiana Seresin and Joey Sims, premiered at Hampstead Theatre (Unpublished)
• Murder at Gobbler's Wood (2007): written with Enda Walsh and Robin French, premiered at the Latitude Festival at Henham Park (Unpublished)
• Taking Care of Baby (2007): premiered at the Birmingham Rep
• Love and Money (2006): premiered at the Royal Exchange Theatre
• After the End (2005): premiered at the Bush Theatre
• Osama the Hero (2005): premiered at the Hampstead Theatre
• Rose Bernd (2005): a translation, original play by Gerhart Hauptmann, premiered at the Arcola Theatre
• The Fourth Gate (2004): a translation, original play by Péter Kárpáti, premiered at the National Theatre
• Blackout (2004): premiered at the Soho Theatre (Unpublished)
• Debris (2003): premiered at Theatre 503
• Brendan's Visit (1997) premiered at the Etcetera Theatre (Unpublished)

Radio work

• 12 Shares (2005)
• The Colony (2004)^[8]

Television work

• Spooks BBC Series 8
• Pulling for BBC Three co written with Sharon Horgan
• Utopia for Channel 4

Pulling

Kelly said that writing for TV and theatre is very unusual as Pulling is a comedy and not theatrical unlike his plays which are serious and often non-naturalistic. Kelly said "telling people from the world of TV that I also inhabit the world of theatre is something I've begun to avoid."
Despite very good reviews and good ratings Pulling was cancelled in 2007. The decision by the BBC was much criticised and Kelly and Horgan claimed to have cried and threw themselves at their feet over the decision. Most striking about Pulling is its lack of a moral centre. In an interview with The Guardian Horgan said "I guess there isn't a moral centre because Dennis and I don't have one." Kelly then said "That's scary. Fuck. We need to get a moral centre. Shit. It's really true. But we do try to make sure we don't get nasty for the sake of it. We make sure there's a bit of heart. " ^[9]

Awards

References

External links

• Dennis Kelly at the Internet Movie Database
• Keble O'Reilly Love and Money, 24–27 November
• entry on Doollee
• "I can’t imagine a more violent writer than Shakespeare." London Evening Standard, 9 March 2010