No More Honey

I have provided this blog with nothing but stunning silence for the last few weeks. I am not quite sure why; there have been plenty of things to write about. I have come to life again today following my reading of the death of Shelagh Delaney. She died just 5 days short of her 72nd birthday and was suffering from cancer. Born in Salford, she truly was one of my contemporaries - both in time and place. She is most famous for her first published play — A Taste of Honey. Set in Salford in the 1950s, the play deals sensitively with the subject of homosexuality. It was accepted by Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop and became a success world-wide. It was performed on Broadway with Angela Lansbury as the mother - which seems an extraordinary slection. Mrs Dale in kitchen sink drama - shock. Perhaps, I am being unkind. Angela Lansbury has had a very varied career but I can't get Murder She Wrote out of my mind.

A Taste of Honey was made into a film with Rita Tushingham and Dora Bryan and really did create the atmosphere of post-war Salford. I could almost see L.S. Lowery's matchstick men running across every scene. It was a moving film and one that I can remember very clearly even though it was fifty years since I saw it in a Leeds cinema. The play was produced at the Theatre Royal, Stratford - not on-Avon but Stratford with Bow in the Borough of Newham in the East End of London. I went there in 1963 with my friend Keith Mills, to see Oh What A Lovely War. The Theatre Royal was then an extraordinary place. Before the Theatre Workshop took it over it was virtually derelict; abandoned in an area that seems mainly one of bomb-sites. You could take the tube to Stratford and then you walked across this desolate landscape - interestingly, the pavements seemed to have survived - until you reached the theatre, which was not far from the tube station. The building had been semi-renovated by the members of the cast of actors and off stage staff and had an odour of new paint about it. It was not a big place and had a wonderfully intimate atmosphere which was boosted by the actors appearing in the auditorium. I remember that visit so well and I will say it was one the most enjoyable visits to a theatre that I have ever made.

I was sorry to hear of the death of Shelagh Delaney. She never produced anything quite like that first play which she wrote in just ten days. There was something there that she just wanted to say and perhaps she never felt quite that inspiration again.

Rest in Peace.

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