Everything about John Arden totally explained
John Arden (born 1930) is an award-winning
English playwright from
Barnsley (which at the time was in the
West Riding of Yorkshire). His works tend to expose social issues of personal concern. He is a member of the
Royal Society of Literature.
He was educated at
Sedbergh School,
King's College, Cambridge and
Edinburgh College of Art, where he studied architecture. He first gained critical attention for the
radio play,
The Life of Man in
1956 shortly after finishing his studies.
His
1959 play,
Serjeant Musgrave's Dance, dealing with the protestors of war and its realities, is considered Arden's best work. Arden is reputed to be one of the greatest playwrights of the post-
Look Back in Anger era. His work bears the heavy influence of
Bertolt Brecht and the Epic Theatre. Other plays include
Live Like Pigs,
The Workhouse Donkey and
Armstrong's Last Goodnight, the last of which was performed at the
National Theatre, staring
Albert Finney.
He has also written a number of novels, including
Silence Among the Weapons, which was shortlisted for the
Man Booker Prize, and
Books of Bale, about the
protestant apologist
John Bale.
He is notable for a number of highly public fallings-out with the theatre establishment - with his wife and co-writer
Margaretta D'Arcy, he picketed the
RSC premier of his
Arthurian play
The Island of the Mighty; and they've written several plays highly critical of British presence in
Ireland, where he now lives, and the
Military-Industrial Complex.
He has a long history of being associated with radical leftwing politics in the U.K. and Ireland. In 1961 he was a founder member of the anti-nuclear
Committee of 100 and he also chaired the pacifist weekly,
Peace News. In Ireland, he was for a while a member of
Sinn Féin. He is also a well-known supporter of civil liberties and is critical of government anti-terror legislation, as was demonstrated in his 2007 radio play
The Scam.
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