Live Theatre: Six Plays from the North East: Filletting Machine; My Heart's Delight; Shooting the Legend; Wittengenstein on Tyne

Description

Published to tie in with the legendary Live Theatre's thirtieth birthday celebrations Spanning three generations, Live Theatre is a celebration of the finest playwrights from the North East. In The Filleting Machine (Tom Hadaway), a fishing family's way of life faces extinction; in You Are My Heart's Delight (C.P. Taylor), the lights are switched out in the house of a gamekeeper and his sister who have resisted change for years; Shooting the Legend (Alan Plater) is a comedy of cultural errors in which two women prepare to make a documentary about the 'socially deprived' of Gateshead; in Wittgenstein on Tyne (Lee Hall), Wittgenstein is caught red-handed when working as a hospital porter on Tyneside; Laughter When We're Dead (Sean O'Brien) is a modern revenge tragedy set around the politics of old versus new labour while Cold Calling (Julia Darling) is a dark comedy about a door-to-door salesman.

Alan Plater was born in 1935 in Jarrow, near the river Tyne. Brought up in Hull, he trained as an architect in Newcastle. He has been a full-time writer since 1961, with over two hundred assorted credits in radio, television, theatre and films - plus six novels, occasional journalism, broadcasting and teaching. His first plays were written for radio, including The Journal of Vasilije Bogdanovic, which won the inaugural 1983 Sony Radio Award. Cecil Philip Taylor (1929-81) was a Glasgow-born playwright who wrote just under eighty plays during his sixteen years as a professional playwright. His plays largely drew on his Jewish background and socialist viewpoint. His works include Mr David, Happy Days Are Here Again, Bread and Butter, Lies About Vietnam, The Black and White Minstrels, Next Year in Tel Aviv, Schippel, Gynt, Walter, and Good - the latter arguably his most successful play. Taylor worked throughout his career with both the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, and the Live Theatre Company, Newcastle. He died of pneumonia in 1981. Julia Darling was a poet, playwright and fiction writer. In March 2003 she became the second winner of the the UK's biggest literary prize, the GBP60,000 Northern Rock Foundation Writer's Award. Fiona Ellis, the Foundation's Director, paid tribute after Julia's death: "We were incredibly proud when Julia became the second holder of our Award. She was a wonderful writer and a quite extraordinary ambassador for writing." She was Royal Literary Fund Project Fellow at Newcastle University, where for two years she was also doing a poetry MA, which she obtained with a distinction in 2002. She was also writer-in-residence for Live Theatre, Newcastle in 2002. Plays include Attachments; Cold Calling; Doughnuts like Fanny's; Eating the Elephant; Head of Steam; The Last Post and Posties; Manifesto for a New City; NE1; Personal Belongings; and Venetia Love Goes Netting. Darling died in 2005, after a long battle with breast cancer. She was 50 years old. Lee Hall has won numerous awards, including a Sony award for his phenomenally popular radio play Spoonface Steinberg, which later transferred to the stage in a production with Kathryn Hunter. His play Cooking With Elvis had a sell-out run at the Whitehall Theatre throughout 2000, after his stint as Writer in Residence at the RSC. His adaptation of A Servant to Two Masters was a smash hit for the RSC and the Young Vic, and continues to tour worldwide. His two Brecht adaptations, Mr Puntilla and his Man Matti and Mother Courage and her Children were both sell-out successes in the West End. Lee Hall was Oscar nominated for his screenplay Billy Elliot. Sean O'Brien is a poet, critic, playwright, broadcaster, anthologist and editor. He is Professor of Poetry at Sheffield Hallam University. His theatre work includes the political tragedy Laughter When We're Dead (Live Theatre, Newcastle, 2000); a monologue, My Last Barmaid (Live Theatre, Newcastle, 2001); a jazz music theatre piece, Downriver (cowritten with Keith Morris, Newcastle Playhouse, 2001); a second radio play, The Black Path, broadcast on Radio 3 (cowritten with Julia Darling, 2002); and his verse version of Aristophanes' The Birds premiered at the Royal National Theatre in July 2002. He has written five collections of poetry: The Indoor Park (1983); The Frighteners (1987); HMS Glasshouse (1991); Ghost Train (winner of the Forward Prize, 1995); and Downriver (Poetry Book Society recommendation and winner of the Forward Prize, 2001). His other awards include the Somerset Maugham Award, the Cholmondeley Award and the E. M. Forster Award. Cousin Coat: Selected Poems, 1976-2001 was published in 2002. He is poetry critic of the Sunday Times, he contributes to the Times Literary Supplement and the Guardian, and is editor of a magazine called The Devil. Tom Hadaway was born in 1923 in North Shields and began writing at the encouragement of C. P. Taylor. Most of his stage plays were premiered by Live Theatre, including Seafarers, The Long Line and God Bless Thee, Jackie Maddison. He also worked with the North-Eastern film company Amber Films and the BBC has broadcast eight of his television plays. The Filleting Machine was published by Methuen Drama in 2003 in Live Theatre: Six Plays from the North East. His Prison Plays were published in 2004. He died the following year.