Trevor Griffiths
Trevor Griffiths | |
---|---|
Born | Manchester, England | 4 April 1935
Died | 29 March 2024 Boston Spa, England | (aged 88)
Occupation | Dramatist |
Alma mater | Manchester University |
Period | 1964–2011 |
Spouse |
|
Children | 3 |
Trevor Griffiths (4 April 1935 – 29 March 2024) was an English dramatist.
Early life
Born in
Career
1960s–1970s
Griffiths became chairman of the Manchester Left Club, and the editor of the Labour Party's Northern Voice newspaper. Gradually he tired of political journalism, began writing plays, and was eventually commissioned by Tony Garnett to provide a script for The Wednesday Play (BBC, 1964–70). The play, "The Love Maniac", was about a teacher, but even though Garnett took the commission with him when he moved to London Weekend Television and formed Kestrel Productions, it was never produced.[3]
Buoyed by Garnett's enthusiasm and influenced by the
The play soon brought him to the attention of
Despite his considerable success in the theatre, he said of his work as a television dramatist in 1976: "I simply cannot understand socialist playwrights who do not devote most of their time to television... [t]hat if for every Sweeney that went out, a Bill Brand went out, there would be a real struggle for the popular imagination... [a]nd people would be free to make liberating choices about where reality lies."[3]
In the meantime, Griffiths had continued to write for the theatre with Comedians commissioned by the Nottingham Playhouse. The premiere production of the play was directed by Richard Eyre, then artistic director of the Nottingham theatre, and was first performed on 20 February 1975.[11] Comedians is set in a Manchester night-school, where a group of budding comics gather for a final briefing before performing to an agent from London. The play is set in real time, i.e. as the real time is 7.27, the clock on the wall of the school room also says 7.27. It subsequently transferred to Broadway, and was later adapted for television by Eyre while he was responsible for Play for Today.[12][13]
1980s
Griffiths' reputation at the time was such that Warren Beatty asked him to write a screenplay for a project about the US revolutionary John Reed, which eventually became the Oscar-winning film Reds (1981), but Griffiths departed from the project before the script was completed and estimated that he had written only 45% of the script for the finished film.[4]
Griffiths continued to work in the theatre, gaining success with the touring production of Oi for England (ITV, 17 April 1982). His television play, Country (BBC, 20 October 1981), set just before the Labour victory at the
1990s–2000s
Griffiths's Food for Ravens (BBC, 15 November 1997), was commissioned to mark the 100th anniversary of
In November 2008 Griffiths participated in a discussion on "The Writer and Revolution" with the World Socialist Web Site's arts editor David Walsh at the University of Manchester.[15] In 2009 he completed his last play, A New World: A Life of Thomas Paine.[16]
Griffiths participated in the
Personal life and death
In 1960, Griffiths married Janice Stansfield; the couple had three children and were married until her death in an aviation accident in Cuba in 1977.[1] Griffiths married Gill Cliff in 1992.[1][2] He lived in Boston Spa.[1]
Griffiths died from heart failure at his home on 29 March 2024, six days before his 89th birthday.[1][2]
References
- ^ a b c d e f Coveney, Michael (2 April 2024). "Trevor Griffiths obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 April 2024.
- ^ ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 13 April 2024.
- ^ a b c "BFI Screenonline: Griffiths, Trevor (1935- ) Biography". www.screenonline.org.uk.
- ^ a b c d e Robert Chalmers, "Putting the world to rights: Trevor Griffiths on Olivier's dope-smoking, Marxist ranting and his 20-year purgatory", The Independent, 9 August 2009.
- ^ a b Alycia Smith Howard, Studio Shakespeare: The Royal Shakespeare Company at The Other Place, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006, pp. 19–20.
- ^ a b Michael Patterson, Strategies of Political Theatre: Postwar British Playwrights, Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 69.
- ^ "BFI Screenonline: All Good Men (1974)". www.screenonline.org.uk.
- ^ a b "BFI Screenonline: Through the Night (1975)". www.screenonline.org.uk.
- ^ "BFI Screenonline: Absolute Beginners (1974)". www.screenonline.org.uk.
- ^ "BFI Screenonline: Bill Brand (1976)". www.screenonline.org.uk.
- ^ "Comedians: racist and sexist standups who messed with audiences' minds". the Guardian. 20 February 2015.
- ^ "Comedians – Broadway Play – Original | IBDB". www.ibdb.com.
- ^ "BFI Screenonline: Comedians (1979)". www.screenonline.org.uk.
- ^ "Trevor Griffiths - Literature". literature.britishcouncil.org.
- ^ "Trevor Griffiths and David Walsh discuss "The Writer and Revolution"". World Socialist Web Site. 13 November 2008.
- ^ Szalwinska, Maxie (21 June 2023). "A New World: A Life of Thomas Paine at Shakespeare's Globe, SE1" – via www.thetimes.co.uk.
- ^ "Sixty-Six Writers". bushtheatre.co.uk.
External links
- Trevor Griffiths website
- Trevor Griffiths, BFI Screenonline
- Trevor Griffiths at IMDb
- "Trevor Griffiths", British Council
- Video: “The Writer and Revolution” Part 1
- Ann Talbot, "Trevor Griffiths' These are the Times: a Life of Thomas Paine", World Socialist Web Site, 21 February 2008.