Alfred Fagon
Alfred Fagon (25 June 1937 – 29 August 1986) was a British playwright, poet and actor.[1][2] He was one of the most notable Black British playwrights of the 1970s and 1980s.[3] Fagon worked for British Rail and served in the British Army before he wrote and produced plays at theatres across the UK, including Royal Court Theatre and Hampstead Theatre.[1]
Biography
Alfred Fagon was born in
Fagon died of a heart attack outside his flat in Camberwell on 29 August 1986, aged 49.[4][2] Police claimed they were unable to identify him and he was given a pauper's funeral.[2]
Legacy
There is a statue of Fagon in St Paul's, Bristol, where he lived, on the corner of Ashley Road and Grosvenor Road. The bronze bust was sculpted by David G Mutasa and commissioned by the Friends of Fagon committee, chaired by Paul Stephenson, on the first anniversary of his death in 1987.[5] The location was chosen because Fagon would often say "the heart of St. Paul’s is at the corner of Ashley Road and Grosvenor Road".[6] On 11 June 2020, during a period of protests by the Black Lives Matter movement, people reported to the local police that the bust was apparently coated with an unknown substance. This followed the removal of the statue of Edward Colston during a protest in Bristol on 7 June 2020.[7][8] The statue was awarded Grade II listed status by Historic England in September 2022.[9]
In 1996 the Alfred Fagon Award, an annual award for the best new play by a Black British playwright of Caribbean or African descent, resident in the United Kingdom, was founded to commemorate his life and work.[10][4][2]
Fagon's archives are part of the Theatre and Performance Collections of the
Plays
- 11 Josephine House (1972)
- The Death of a Black Man (1975)
- Four Hundred Pounds (1982)
- Lonely Cowboy (1985)
References
- ^ a b c d "Fagon; Alfred | BPA". www.blackplaysarchive.org.uk. Retrieved 31 December 2017.
- ^ a b c d e f g "Black actor Alfred Fagon's statue damaged in Bristol". BBC News. 12 June 2020. Retrieved 13 June 2020.
- ISBN 978-1-78319-555-8.
- ^ a b c d e "Alfred Fagon" at Oberon Books.
- ^ "Statue of Alfred Fagon". Port Cities Bristol. Retrieved 31 December 2017.
- ^ Smith, Joseph (22 October 2017). "Five ground-breaking figures from Bristol's black history". bristolpost. Retrieved 31 December 2017.
- ^ Morris, Steven (11 June 2020). "Statue of black poet Alfred Fagon feared attacked with bleach in Bristol". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 June 2020.
- ^ Cork, Tristan (11 June 2020). "'Bleach attack' on Bristol actor's statue shocks community". Bristol Post. Retrieved 11 June 2020.
- ^ Historic England. "Statue of Alfred Fagon, Junction of Ashley Road and Grosvenor Road, St. Pauls, Bristol (Grade II) (1482464)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 3 October 2022.
- ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 31 December 2017.
- ^ "Alfred Fagon, playwright, actor and poet: papers". Archives Hub. Retrieved 4 May 2021.