Shelagh Delaney (1938–2011)
Author of A Taste of Honey: A Play
About the Author
Shelagh Delaney, English playwright and television screenwriter, was born in 1939 in Salford, Lancashire to a bus inspector. At the age of 18, she completed her most famous play, A Taste of Honey, which recounts the story of a young white woman's difficult home life and the pregnancy that results show more from her affair with a black sailor. When it was produced in London in 1958, Delaney won immediate critical praise. She followed her success with another play, The Lion in Love. Delaney's screenplay, Dancing with a Stranger, tells the story of Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in England. It is recognized as a brilliant insight into Ellis's life and the forces that caused her to murder her lover. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: from wikipedia
Works by Shelagh Delaney
Charlie Bubbles [1968 film] — Screenwriter — 1 copy
Associated Works
The Actor's Book of Scenes from New Plays: 70 Scenes for Two Actors, from Today's Hottest Playwrights (1988) — Contributor — 80 copies
Jugend der Welt : Erzählungen aus 5 Kontinenten — Contributor — 1 copy
Five Modern Plays — Author — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Delaney, Shelagh
- Other names
- Delaney, Sheila Mary (birth)
- Birthdate
- 1938-11-25
- Date of death
- 2011-11-20
- Gender
- female
- Nationality
- England
UK - Country (for map)
- UK
- Birthplace
- Salford, Lancashire, England, UK
- Place of death
- Suffolk, England, UK
- Cause of death
- breast cancer
- Places of residence
- London, England, UK
- Education
- Broughton Secondary School
- Occupations
- playwright
screenwriter
short story writer - Organizations
- Royal Society of Literature (Fellow, 1985)
- Awards and honors
- Charles Henry Foyle New Play Award, 1958, New York Drama Critics Award, 1961, and Arts Council bursary, all for A Taste of Honey; British Film Academy Award, 1961, and Robert Flaherty Award, both for screenplay of A Taste of Honey; Encyclopedia Britannica Award, 1963; Writers Guild Award for best screenplay, 1968, for Charlie Bubbles; Prix Film Jeuness-Etranger, 1985, for Dance with a Stranger
- Short biography
- Shelagh Delaney was born in Salford, near Manchester, England, to a working-class family of Irish descent. Though most sources give the year of her birth as 1939, her daughter Charlotte Delaney says the correct date was Nov. 25, 1938. She wrote her breakthrough first play, A Taste of Honey (1958), at age 18. It took place in England’s gritty industrial north country, an unusual setting at the time, and quickly became known as part of the pioneering "Angry Young Men" or "kitchen sink" movement of drama. In 1961, it was adapted as an award-winning film, with a screenplay by Delaney, directed by Tony Richardson.
She continued her career as a writer for another 50 years, although none of her subsequent works achieved the same degree of fame. They included the play The Lion in Love (1961); a volume of short stories, Sweetly Sings the Donkey (1963); and screenplays for Charlie Bubbles (1968) and Dance with a Stranger (1985).
Members
Reviews
A Taste of Honey: A Play by Shelagh Delaney
Gritty fifties British working-class, a feminine answer to the "Angry Young Man" plays of the time. Some excellent dialogue.
I read Shelagh Delaney's play A Taste of Honey for a few reasons, none of them all that convincing. First of all, Delaney was from my hometown of Salford and the play is set there (although to be honest it could have been set in any poor industrialised area, and Salford is a lot different nowadays than it was back then). Secondly, as a fan I was aware of the loose Beatles connections: the band covered the song 'A Taste of Honey' (from the 1961 film adaptation) on their first album in 1962, and a line from the play inspired Paul McCartney's 1967 song 'Your Mother Should Know'. Thirdly, the book was short (four scenes over two acts) and I had it to hand (it was my mother's old copy).
None of these, you will agree, are compelling reasons for reading a book and so it is no surprise that it didn't really resonate with me. It is good for what it is, but I've never really been into kitchen sink dramas (it felt at times like I was reading the screenplay for a Coronation Street episode). Nevertheless, it has sharp dialogue and doesn't pull its punches. And I respect that it was revolutionary in its time; Delaney was understandably annoyed at the contemporary accepted portrayal of the working class as simple folk going cap in hand to their benevolent bosses and calling them 'sir'. But today, in 2015, even in Salford in 2015, it seems more like a curio representing a period in the history of theatre than a powerful human drama.… (more)
None of these, you will agree, are compelling reasons for reading a book and so it is no surprise that it didn't really resonate with me. It is good for what it is, but I've never really been into kitchen sink dramas (it felt at times like I was reading the screenplay for a Coronation Street episode). Nevertheless, it has sharp dialogue and doesn't pull its punches. And I respect that it was revolutionary in its time; Delaney was understandably annoyed at the contemporary accepted portrayal of the working class as simple folk going cap in hand to their benevolent bosses and calling them 'sir'. But today, in 2015, even in Salford in 2015, it seems more like a curio representing a period in the history of theatre than a powerful human drama.… (more)
A play set in Lancashire, about "semi-whore" Helen and her seventeen year-old daughter Jo. The two have a bitter, combative relationship made worse by Helen's boyfriend and pimp, Peter, who likes to taunt Jo to see her get angry. Though Helen is an alcoholic, she hasn't neglected Jo her whole life intentionally, more out of obliviousness, but Jo has seething resentment towards her mother. Left alone over Christmas, Jo finds her first boyfriend, a sailor about to leave for six months. Jump to six months later and we find that the sailor hasn't returned, Helen and Peter have married and moved away, and Jo is six months pregnant and being supported by her gay friend, Geoffrey.
I read this one for "The Swinging Sixties" challenge even though is was published in 1956 and first performed in 1958 in London, but the movie version, which a saw just a few years ago and starred Rita Tushingham, was released in 1961. It's black and white and fits right in with the Angry Young Man films, except for Jo being a girl. The dialogue is biting and often funny, and the insults still sting.… (more)
I read this one for "The Swinging Sixties" challenge even though is was published in 1956 and first performed in 1958 in London, but the movie version, which a saw just a few years ago and starred Rita Tushingham, was released in 1961. It's black and white and fits right in with the Angry Young Man films, except for Jo being a girl. The dialogue is biting and often funny, and the insults still sting.… (more)
1. A girl convalesces in post-war Blackpool with fellow invalids, nuns and the waves.
2. Four women meet for their 60th birthdays in Blackpool, where they first met as children, and compare how their lives have changed.
3. Four older woman with a unique friendship prepare for a farewell.
2. Four women meet for their 60th birthdays in Blackpool, where they first met as children, and compare how their lives have changed.
3. Four older woman with a unique friendship prepare for a farewell.
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