Michael Frayn | |
|---|---|
_(cropped).jpg) Frayn at the 2023 Chiswick Book Festival | |
| Born | (1933-09-08)8 September 1933 (age 92) |
| Occupation |
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| Education | Kingston Grammar School Joint Services School for Linguists |
| Alma mater | Emmanuel College, Cambridge |
| Period | 1962–present |
| Genre | Farce, historical fiction, philosophy |
| Notable awards | Somerset Maugham Award;Laurence Olivier Award;International Emmy Awards;Critics' Circle Theatre Awards;Tony Award;Commonwealth Writers' Prize;Golden PEN Award;Whitbread Prize |
| Spouse | Gillian Palmer[1][2] [3][4] |
| Children | 3, includingRebecca[5] |
| Relatives | Finn Harries (grandson)[6] Jack Harries (grandson)[7] |
Michael Frayn,FRSL (/freɪn/; born 8 September 1933) is an English playwright and novelist. He is best known as the author of the farceNoises Off [8] and the dramasCopenhagen, andDemocracy.
Frayn's novels, such asTowards the End of the Morning,Headlong, andSpies, have also been critical and commercial successes, making him one of the handful of writers in the English language to succeed in both drama and prose fiction. He has also written philosophical works, such asThe Human Touch: Our Part in the Creation of the Universe (2006).
Frayn was born inMill Hill, north London (then inMiddlesex), to Thomas Allen Frayn, anasbestos salesman from a working-class family ofblacksmiths,locksmiths and servants, and his wife Violet Alice (née Lawson). Violet was the daughter of a failedpalliasse merchant; having studied as a violinist at theRoyal Academy of Music, she worked as a shop assistant and occasional clothes model atHarrods. Frayn's sister also supported the family by working at Harrods, as a children's hairdresser.[9][10]
Frayn grew up inEwell, Surrey, and was educated atKingston Grammar School. Following two years ofNational Service, during which he learned Russian at theJoint Services School for Linguists, Frayn read Moral Sciences (Philosophy) atEmmanuel College, Cambridge, graduating in 1957. He then worked as a reporter and columnist forThe Guardian andThe Observer, where he established a reputation as asatirist and comic writer, and began publishing his plays and novels.
Frayn's playCopenhagen deals with a historical event, a 1941 meeting between the Danish physicistNiels Bohr and his protégé, the GermanWerner Heisenberg, when Denmark is under German occupation, and Heisenberg is—maybe?—working on the development of anatomic bomb. Frayn was attracted to the topic because it seemed to 'encapsulate something about the difficulty of knowing why people do what they do andthere is a parallel between that and the impossibility that Heisenberg established in physics, about ever knowing everything about the behaviour of physical objects'.[11] The play explores various possibilities.
Frayn's more recent playDemocracy ran successfully in London (theNational Theatre, 2003-4 andWest End transfer),Copenhagen and onBroadway (Brooks Atkinson Theatre, 2004-5); it dramatised the story of the German chancellorWilly Brandt and his personal assistant, the East German spyGünter Guillaume. Five years later, again at the National Theatre, it was followed byAfterlife, a biographical drama of the life of the great Austrian impresarioMax Reinhardt, director of theSalzburg Festival, which opened at the Lyttelton Theatre in June 2008, starringRoger Allam as Reinhardt.[12]
Frayn's other original plays include two evenings of short plays,The Two of Us andAlarms and Excursions, the philosophical comediesAlphabetical Order,Benefactors,Clouds,Make and Break andHere, and the farcesDonkeys' Years,Balmoral (also known asLiberty Hall), andNoises Off, which criticFrank Rich wrote in his bookThe Hot Seat "is, was, and probably always will be the funniest play written in my lifetime."[citation needed]
Frayn's novels includeHeadlong (shortlisted for the 1999Booker Prize),The Tin Men (won the 1966Somerset Maugham Award),The Russian Interpreter (1967,Hawthornden Prize),Towards the End of the Morning,Sweet Dreams,A Landing on the Sun,A Very Private Life,Now You Know andSkios (long-listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2012). His novelSpies was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize and won theWhitbread Prize for Fiction in 2002.
Frayn has written a book about philosophy,Constructions, and a book of his own philosophy,The Human Touch.
Frayn's columns forThe Guardian andThe Observer (collected inAt Bay in Gear Street, The Day of the Dog,The Book of Fub andOn the Outskirts) are models of the comic essay; in the 1980s a number of them were adapted and performed forBBC Radio 4 byMartin Jarvis.
Frayn has also written screenplays for the filmsClockwise, starringJohn Cleese,[13]First and Last starringTom Wilkinson,Birthday,Jamie on a Flying Visit, and the TV seriesMaking Faces, starringEleanor Bron.[14]
Frayn learned Russian during his period of National Service. Frayn is now considered to be Britain's finest translator ofAnton Chekhov[15] (The Seagull,Uncle Vanya,Three Sisters andThe Cherry Orchard), including an early untitled work, which he titledWild Honey (other translations of the work have called itPlatonov orDon Juan in the Russian Manner). From four of Chekhov's short stories and four of his one-act plays Frayn devisedThe Sneeze (originally performed on the West End byRowan Atkinson).
Frayn has also translatedYuri Trifonov's playExchange,Leo Tolstoy'sThe Fruits of Enlightenment, andJean Anouilh'sNumber One.
In 1980, Frayn presented the Australian journey of theBBC television seriesGreat Railway Journeys of the World. His journey took him fromSydney toPerth on theIndian Pacific, with side visits to theLithgow Zig Zag and a journey onThe Ghan's old route fromMarree toAlice Springs shortly before the opening of the new line fromTarcoola toAlice Springs.
Frayn has three daughters with his first wife, Gillian Palmer:Rebecca, a documentary film maker, writer and actress; Susanna; and Jenny, a television producer.[16][17] Frayn and his second wife,Claire Tomalin, a biographer and literary journalist, live inPetersham, London.[2][18]
Frayn is an honorary associate of theNational Secular Society,[34] and declined aCBE and aknighthood in 1989 and 2003 respectively.[35]
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