Feisty playwright best known for her ground-breaking debut, A Taste of Honey
Shelagh Delaney was 18 when she wrote A Taste of Honey, one of the defining plays of the 1950s working-class and feminist cultural movements. The play's group of dysfunctional characters, utterly alien to the prevailing middle-class "anyone for tennis?" school of theatre, each explored their chances of attaining a glimpse of happiness. The central character, a young girl named Jo, lives in a decrepit flat in Salford with her mother, who is apt to wander off in pursuit of men with money. Jo becomes pregnant by a black sailor and is cared for by Geoffrey, a young gay friend, until her mother ousts him in what could be a burst of suppressed maternal love or a display of jealous control-freakery.
Delaney, who has died of cancer aged 71, had to endure harsh criticism for her attack on the orthodoxies of the period.
Shelagh Delaney was 18 when she wrote A Taste of Honey, one of the defining plays of the 1950s working-class and feminist cultural movements. The play's group of dysfunctional characters, utterly alien to the prevailing middle-class "anyone for tennis?" school of theatre, each explored their chances of attaining a glimpse of happiness. The central character, a young girl named Jo, lives in a decrepit flat in Salford with her mother, who is apt to wander off in pursuit of men with money. Jo becomes pregnant by a black sailor and is cared for by Geoffrey, a young gay friend, until her mother ousts him in what could be a burst of suppressed maternal love or a display of jealous control-freakery.
Delaney, who has died of cancer aged 71, had to endure harsh criticism for her attack on the orthodoxies of the period.
- 11/22/2011
- by Dennis Barker
- The Guardian - Film News
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