The Last Cigarette

Description

Notable for his uncompromising honesty and a wit both fierce and fearless, Simon Gray's voice was uniquely his own - intelligent, probing and often outrageously funny. He faced life - and death - with unflinching courage and defiant humanity; even when writing about his own mortality, he lost none of his prodigious talent to entertain. Warm, candid and with a double dose of dark humour, this dramatisation of Gray's The Smoking Diaries and other memoirs was completed just before his death last summer. The Last Cigarette premiered at the Minerva Theatre, Chichester in March 2009.

Hugh Whitemore was born in 1936. He began his writing career in British television (contributing to The Wednesday Play, Armchair Theatre and Play for Today) and twice received Writers' Guild Awards. Movie credits include The Return of the Soldier (an adaptation of the novel by Rebecca West), Mel Brooks' production of 84 Charing Cross Road, Utz, (an adaptation of Bruce Chatwin's novel) and Franco Zeffirelli's Jane Eyre. His stage plays include Stevie, Pack of Lies , Breaking the Code, The Best of Friends, It's Ralph, A Letter of Resignation, Disposing of the Body, God Only Knows and a new version of Pirandello's As You Desire Me. These plays have been translated into many languages and produced throughout the world. Hugh Whitemore's work has twice been named Best Single TV drama by the UK Broadcasting Press Guild, he has received the Scripter Award in Hollywood (for 84 Charing Cross Road), the Script Prize at the 1998 Monte Carlo Festival (for his adaptation of A Dance to the Music of Time) and a special Communications Award from the American Mathematical Society (for Breaking the Code). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an Honorary Fellow of King's College, London. Simon Gray was born in 1936. He began his writing career with Colmain (1963), the first of five novels, all published by Faber. He is the author of many plays for TV and radio, also films, including the 1987 adaptation of J L Carr's A Month in the Country, and TV films including Running Late, After Pilkington (winner of the Prix Italia) and Emmy Award-winning Unnatural Pursuits. He wrote more than thirty stage plays amongst them Butley and Otherwise Engaged (which both received Evening Standard Awards for Best Play), Close of Play, The Rear Column, Quartermaine's Terms, The Common Pursuit, Hidden Laughter, The Late Middle Classes (winner of the Barclay's Best Play Award), Japes, The Old Masters (his ninth play to be directed by Harold Pinter) and Little Nell, which premiered at the Theatre Royal Bath in 2007, directed by Peter Hall. Little Nell was first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2006, and Missing Dates in 2008. In 1991 he was made BAFTA Writer of the Year. His acclaimed works of non-fiction are: An Unnatural Pursuit, How's That for Telling 'Em, Fat Lady?, Fat Chance, Enter a Fox, The Smoking Diaries, The Year of the Jouncer, The Last Cigarette and Coda. He was appointed CBE in the 2005 New Year's Honours for his services to Drama and Literature. Simon Gray died in August 2008.