Life
1930- ; b. 26 Oct. Barnsley, Yorkshire; ed. Sedburgh, King’s
Coll., Cambridge, followed by military service; worked as arch. assistant
in London; held Fellowship in Playwriting at Bristol Univ., 1959-60; visiting
lect. in Politics and Drama, NYU 1967, during which time he staged The
War Carnival, in the NYU Drama Dept., culminating with his announcement
that the play was CIA-commissioned to weed out anti-war activists, after
which he trampled the US flag; Regent’s Lecturer, Davis (Univ. of
California), 1973; Writer in Residence, New England Univ., Australia,
1975; m. D’Arcy, 1957, and settled in Co. Galway; a Marxian playwright
often compared with Brecht, he writes chiefly about English regional
politics; The Waters of Babylon, slum landlordism (1957), first
presented with All Fall Down by students at Edinburgh Univ. in
1955; wrote The Life of Man (1956), for radio; Live Like Pigs
(1958), dealing with a housing-estate conflict between the itinerant Sawneys
and the settled Jacksons Sarjeant Musgrave’s Dance (1959),
dir. by Lindsay Anderson, Court Th., London, and set in Yorkshire 1860-80,
an anti-war play and his best-known work in which four returning soldiers
in the 1860s range themselves against the Mayor, Constable, and Parson
in a strikebound Northern town, using the bones of a dead comrade to win
over the community; The Happy Haven (1960), dealing with an insurrection
in an old-age home; Business of Good Government (1960); Ars
Longa Vita Brevis (1963), concerning an art-teacher’s efforts
to control his class-room; The Workhouse Donkey (1963), on a puritanical
police chief’s encounter with municipal corruption; Armstrong’s
Last Goodnight (1964), dealing with Scottish border violence in the
1530s; Left-Handed Liberty (1965) written to celebrate the 750th
anniversary of Magna Carta; The Royal Pardon (1966); his use of
non-professional actors triggered a professional ‘blockade’
lasting many years; The Hero Rises Up (1969), written in collaboration
with D’Arcy, was edited without authorisation by Martin Esslin, Head
of BBC Drama; Arden accused Esslin of political censorship in Plays
and Players; picketted the Royal Shakespeare Company production of
their collaboration The Island of the Mighty (Aldwych Th. 1972),
based on Arthurian legends; contrib. to New Statesman 1972, article
on comic relief in English playwrights since the sixteen century, and
passionate denouncement of the treatment of the Irish as troublemakers;
Irish plays incl. The Non-Stop Connolly Show, a twenty-six hour
cycle about James Connolly in Dublin commissioned by the BBC but shelved
in view of of the troubles in Northern Ireland, subsequently performed
at the Dublin Theatre Festival in 1975; The Ballygombeen Bequests
(1972), later issued as The Little Gray Home in the West (1982),
has strong republican overtones and deals with a housing-estate eviction
brought by an English landlord; defended a libel action arising from it;
Vandaleur’s Folly, produced by 7:84 Theatre Co. (Edinburgh
1978), depicts the collapse of William Thompson’s socialist commune
in 1831; Pearl (1978), radio-play given to the BBC, depicts a viceregal
administration in seventeenth-century Ireland; The Romans in Britain
(1980); also Silence Among the Weapons (1982), a picaresque
novel set in the 1st century b.c..The Book of Bale (1988) a novel,
based on the career of Bishop John Bale in Ireland; issued with D’Arcy,
Awkward Corners (1989), controversial second part of autobiography;
Cogs Tyrannic (1991), an ambitious mix of history and romance;
also Whose Is the Kingdom, a nine-play epic; living Galway in 1996;
The Stealing Steps (2003), nine stories set in different historical
periods.
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Works
Plays (First Performances), The Waters of Babylon (1957);
Live Like Pigs (1958); Sarjeant Musgrave’s Dance (1959);
with Margaretta D’Arcy, The Business of Good Government (1960;
revived 1963); The Happy Haven (1960), with D’Arcy; Ars
Longa, Vita Brevis (1963; revived 1965); The Workhouse Donkey
(Chichester Th. Fest. 1963, dir. Olivier); Armstrong’s Last Goodnight
(Glasgow Citizens’ Th. 1964; National Th. 1965); Left-handed Liberty
(Mermaid Th. 1965); with D’Arcy, The Royal Pardon (1966);
with D’Arcy, The Hero Rises Up (1968; revived 1969); Bagman
(1970) [for radio]; The Impromptu of Muswell Hill (1970) [for radio];
with D’Arcy, The Island of the Mighty (1972); with D’Arcy,
The Ballygombeen Bequests (1972); with D’Arcy, The Non-Stop
Connolly Show (Dublin Th. Fest. 1975); Vandaleur’s Folly
(1978); The Little Gray Home in the West (1978) [revised from Ballygombeen];
Pearl (1978) [for radio]; The Romans in Britain (1980);
adapt. Don Quixote (1980); Garland for a Hoar Head (1982) [for
radio]; Whose Is the Kingdom? (Easter 1988) [10-hr. radio broadcast];
Squire Jonathan and Muswell Hill [q.d.].
Collected Editions, Three Plays (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1969) [contains ‘The Waters of Babylon’ (per. 1957), ‘Live Like Pigs’ (per. 1958), and ‘The Happy Haven’ (per. 1960)]; Plays: One (London: Methuen 1978) [contains ‘Serjeant Musgrave’s Dance’ (per. 1959); ‘The Workhouse Donkey’ (per. 1963), and ‘Armstrong’s Last Goodnight’ (per. 1964).
Prose, To Present the Pretence (London: Eyre Methuen 1977) [selection of writings since 1965, incl. reviews on British drama, world affairs and Ireland]; also, ‘Ecce Hobo Sapiens: O’Casey’s Theatre’, in Thomas Kilroy ed., Sean O’Casey: A Collection of Critical Essays (NJ: Prentice Hall 1975), pp.61-76; also with Margaretta D’Arcy; Plays and Players [n.d.], essays/
Novels, Silence Among The Weapons: Some Events at the Time of The Failure of A Republic (London Methuen 1982); The Book of Bale (London: Methuen 1988), 532pp.; Cogs Tyrannic (1991). Short fiction, The Stealing Steps (London: Methuen 2003), 319pp. [incls. “The Hag out of Legend”, “Breach of Trust”, “A Grim, All-Purpose Hall”, “Molly Concannon & the State of the Art Development”, “The Dissident”, et al.] Short stories, The Stealing Steps (London: Methuen 2004), 328pp.
Autobiography, with D’Arcy, Awkward Corners: Essays, Papers, Fragments (London: Methuen 1989), 271pp.
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- Redmond O’Hanlon, ‘John Arden: Theatre and Commitment’, in The Crane Bag, Vol. 7, No.1 [‘Socialism and Culture’] (1983), pp.155-61.;
- Robert Leach ‘The Place of the Popular in D’Arcy and Arden’s Plays’, in The Crane Bag Vol. 8, No. 2 [‘Media and Popular Culture’] (1984), pp.111-14;
- David Ian Rabey, British and Irish Political Drama in the Twentieth Century (1986) [infra];
- Paul Hadfield & Linda Henderson, ‘Getting Time For Adjustments: The Making of Whose Kingdom [... &c.]’, in Writing Ulster, Nos. 2 & 3 (1991-92), pp.85-109 [infra];
- Nicholas Roe, ‘Britain’s Brecht - John Arden: Dissident’, [feature-article] in The Guardian (3 Jan. 2004).
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Notes
University of Ulster Library holds Armstrong’s Last Goodnight
(1965); Ars Longa Vita Brevis (1965); Business of Good Government
(1963), with others incl. Left Handed Liberty (1965); Sarjeant
Musgrave’s Dance (1960); Three Plays (1961, new eds. 1964,
1967); To Present the Pretence, [essays] (1977); Squire Jonathan
and Muswell Hill [q.d.]; with Margaretta D’Arcy, Awkward Corners
(London: Methuen 1989), 271pp; The Book of Bale (1988); Cogs
Tyrannic (1991).
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7:84, the Scottish radical theatre company, produced a version of Sarjeant Musgrave Dances On in which the historical parallels are stressed by making Musgrave a veteran of Derry’s Bloody Sunday.
Art O’Leary: Arden participated as actor and organiser in the filming of Airt Ui Laoire (1975), commissioned by Official Sinn Féin, the first independent Irish-language film, led by Bob Quinn with Thaddeus O’Sullivan as cameraman, and drawing on a cast from Corrandulla Arts and Entertainments Club in Connemara in which he was active. See Kevin Rockett, et al., eds., Cinema & Ireland (1988).
IT reposte: John Arden writes in answer to Kevin Myer’s “Irishman’s Diary” [column] offering on Engels and Mary Ellen Synon, disputing that Myers lives up to his pretence of reviling hatred, and instances his use of the unacceptible term ‘knackers’ for Irish Travellers [itinerants]. Arden gives as his address St Bridget’s Place Lr., Galway (Letters to the Editor, Irish Times, 20 April 1996).
Directorial role: John Arden collaborated with Bob Quinn on the the Irish-language film Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire (1975), taking the part of the English film ‘director’ in the contemporary mis-en-scène.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)