Life
1916-1965; b. 21 May; 2, Montrose St., Belfast; one of four brothers,
his father was part-time sexton of St Clement’s Church of Ireland; ed. locally; became apprentice painter at shipyard,
at fourteen [var. 16]; voluntarily entered National Council of Labour
Colleges; attended NCLC summer school in Paris, 1939; employed by Corporation
after War; laid off on becoming shop steward; m. May Thompson, 1947; moved
to Craigmore St.; as shop steward, resisted sectarian apportioning of
work; began writing at 39; encouraged by Sam Hanna Bell, he wrote BBC
radio plays and features from the 1950s, incl. Brush in Hand (1956),
Tommy Baxter - Shop Steward (1957), and The General Foreman
(1958), all giving graphic accounts of poverty and sectarian violence
in Ulster working-class urban society; Over the Bridge (1957),
first and only published play, written 1955-57, candid portrayal of bigotry
and discrimination, caused break-up of Ulster Group Theatre in rehearsal
when Ritchie McKee, a director and prominent Unionist, stopped rehearsals,
May 1959, leading to resignation from the Group of other such as James
Ellis, Maurice O’Callaghan, and Harold Goldblatt, and causing Jack
Loudan to withdraw his new play; Thompson successfully sued for breach
of contract; play later staged by ex-members as Over the Bridge Productions
under direction of James Ellis, at the Empire Theatre, 26 Jan. 1960, running
to full houses for six weeks (42,000 tickets) and touring Dublin, Scotland
and England thereafter; Thompson commenced writing full-time, 1959; suffered
heart attack, June 1961; resumed work
acting, on stage and TV; undertook lecturing; produced The Evangelist,
a raw attempt to deal with events of 1859, the ‘year of Grace’
in Ulster, produced by Louis Ellimann with Ray McNally as in the title-role
as Pastor Earls (Belfast Opera Hse., 3 June 1963), and moved to Dublin;
ran for S. Down as Labour candidate, 1964, a rural seat that he had no
prospect of winning; wrote Cemented with Love (1965), dealing with
political corruption and skullduggery during a Drumtory election, written
for BBC television, postponed in Sept.; re-postponed, Dec. 1964; and finally
broadcast posthumously, April 1965; stage version, Dublin theatre Festival,
1967; d. suddenly of heart attack, 15 Feb., in offices of Northern Ireland
Labour Party; The Masquerade, a play set in London,was discovered
among his papers at his death. DIW DIL FDA DUB OCIL
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Works
Plays, The Evangelist (1961); Cemented With Love (1965),
and The Masquerade, a last play, set in London, and unproduced;
Stewart Parker, ed. & intro., Over the Bridge [1957] (Dublin:
Gill & Macmillan 1970); John Keyes, ed., Over the Bridge and
Other Plays (Belfast: Lagan Press 1997), 249pp.
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Criticism
Robert Hogan, After the Irish Renaissance (Minn. UP 1967; London:
Macmillan 1968), pp.100-02.
Robert Hogan, Seven Irish Plays, Introduction (Minnesota UP 1967) [at which date none of his plays were yet published].
Sam Hanna Bell, ‘Theatre’, in Michael Longley, ed., Causeway: The Arts in Ulster (NI Arts Council 1971), pp.82-94, espec. pp.88-89.
H. Mengel, ‘A Lost Heritage, Ulster Drama and the Work of Sam Thompson’, in Theatre Ireland, 1 (Dept/Dec. 1982), pp.18-19; 2 (Jan/May 1983), pp.80-82.
P. Devlin, ‘First Bridge Too Far’, in Theatre Ireland 3 (June/Sept. 1983), pp.122-24.
Hagel Mengel, Sam Thompson and Modern Drama in Ulster (Frankfurt am Main, Bern, NY: Verlag Peter Lang 1986) [Over the Bridge, pp.248-299].
Lionel Pilkington, ‘Theatre and Cultural Politics in Northern Ireland: The Over the Bridge Controversy, 1959’, Éire-Ireland, Vol. XXX, No. 4 (Winter 1996), pp.76-93.
Stewart Parker, ed. & intro., Over the Bridge (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1970), ‘Introduction’ reprinted from Honest Ulsterman (Autumn 1994), pp. 20-24.
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Notes
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing
(Derry: Field Day Co. 1991), Vol. 3: selects Over the Bridge
[1176-81], written 1955-57, cancelled in rehearsal as too controversial;
finally produced to critical acclaim after court-case in 1960; set in
Harland and Wolff, where Peter O’Boyle is a catholic victim of the
incensed workforce, Davy Mitchell the level-headed trade-union official,
Rabbie white the zealous, rule-bound member and the Leader, a characteristic
example of the mob orator; presented by company formed by Thompson and
others, Ulster Bridge Productions, Empire Theatre, Belfast, 26 Jan 1960;
also, [60s new dramatist 1137-8]; BIOG 1305 [as above].
Helena Sheehan, Irish Television Drama (1987), lists RTÉ film, Over the Bridge, dir. Chloe Gibson (1970).
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)