John Arden (26 October 1930 – 28 March 2012) was an Englishplaywright who at his death was lauded as "one of the most significant British playwrights of the late 1950s and early 60s".[1]
Arden was initially associated with the English Stage Company at theRoyal Court Theatre in London. His 1959 play,Serjeant Musgrave's Dance, in which four army deserters arrive in a northern mining town to exact retribution for an act of colonial violence, is considered to be his best[by whom?]. His work was influenced byBertolt Brecht andEpic Theatre as inLeft-Handed Liberty (1965, on the anniversary ofMagna Carta).[3] Other plays includeLive Like Pigs,The Workhouse Donkey, andArmstrong's Last Goodnight, the last of which was performed at the 1965 Chichester Festival by theNational Theatre after it was rejected by the Royal Court.[1] In 1964 he joined theWho Killed Kennedy? Committee set up byBertrand Russell.[4]
His 1978 radio playPearl was considered in aGuardian survey[5] to be one of the best plays in that medium. He also wrote several novels, includingSilence Among the Weapons, which was shortlisted for theBooker Prize in 1982,[6] andBooks of Bale, about theProtestant apologistJohn Bale. He was a member of theRoyal Society of Literature.[2]
With his wife and co-writerMargaretta D'Arcy he picketed theRSC premiere of hisArthurian playThe Island of the Mighty, because they thought the production was pro-imperialist, and they wrote several plays together which were highly critical of theBritish presence in Ireland, where he and D'Arcy lived from 1971 onward.[1]
In 1961, he was a founder member of the anti-nuclearCommittee of 100, and he also chaired the pacifist weeklyPeace News.[7] In Ireland, he was for a while a member ofOfficial Sinn Féin.[8] He was an advocate of civil liberties, and opposed anti-terror legislation, as demonstrated in his 2007 radio playThe Scam.[8]
Jack Juggler and the emperor's whore: seven tall tales linked together for an indecorous toy theatre (1995)
Stealing Steps (2003)
Plays written in collaboration with Margaretta D'Arcy include:
The Happy Haven (1960)
The Business of Good Government: a Christmas Play (1963)
Ars Longa Vita Brevis (1965)
The Royal Pardon (1967)
The Hero Rises Up (1969)
The Island of the Mighty trilogy (Part I, "Two Wild Young Noblemen: Concerning Balin and Balan and How Ignorant They Were"; Part II, "Oh the Cruel Winter: Concerning Arthur – Flow He Refused to See That the Power of His Army Was Finished"; and Part III, "A Handful of Watercress: Concerning Merlin – How He Needed to Be Alone and Then How He Needed Not to Be Alone") (1972)[12][13][14]
The Ballygombeen Bequest
The Non-Stop Connolly Show: a dramatic cycle of continuous struggle in six parts (1977)
Vandaleur's folly: an Anglo-Irish melodrama: the hazard of experiment in an Irish co-operative, Ralahine, 1831 (1981)
The little gray home in the west: an Anglo-Irish melodrama (1982)
Keep the People Moving (BBC Radio);
Portrait of a Rebel (RTÉ Television);
The Manchester Enthusiasts (BBC 1984 and RTÉ 1984 under the titleTheRalahine Experiment);
Whose is the Kingdom? (9-part radio play, BBC 1987).
^Leach, Robert (1 January 2012). "A mighty bust-up: John Arden and Margaretta D'Arcy's The Island of the Mighty at the Aldwych theatre, December 1972".Studies in Theatre and Performance.32 (1):3–14.doi:10.1386/stap.32.1.3_1.ISSN1468-2761.S2CID192189442.
