Shelagh Delaney's 1958 play, written when she was only 19, brought the lives and struggles of northern, working-class people onto the stage. Initially dividing the critics - some of whom regarded it as 'immature' - it went on to become one of the most defining plays of the twentieth century.
This Student Edition contains a commentary by Hannah Simpson, Lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, UK, which explores the following themes in relation to the play:
- gender roles - homosexuality - race - class - youth - 1950s notions of family
In addition, it looks at the play's production history, different ways it has been staged, and critical reception; the form of the kitchen-sink and drawing-room drama and to what extent the play conforms or disrupts these models; 1950s Britain and what it was like; and the play's ambiguous ending.
Muu info
This Student Edition of Shelagh Delaney's 1958 plays offers a contemporary lens on the play and its then-radical exploration of themes including class, race, gender and homosexuality.
Chronology
Introduction
Historical, Social and Cultural Contexts
1950s Britain
Angry Young Men
Genres and Themes
Class and Kitchen-Sink Realism
Women
Race
Queer Identity
Play as Performance
Production History
Further Reading
A TASTE OF HONEY
Notes
Shelagh Delaney (1938 - 2011) was born in Salford, Lancashire, in 1938. She is most well-known for A Taste of Honey (1958), for which she won the Foyle's New Play Award and the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award. She wrote the screenplay for the film version with Tony Richardson and received the British Film Academy Award and the Robert Flaherty Award. Her other screenplays include The White Bus and Charley Bubbles, for which she won the Writers' Guild Award. She also wrote for television and radio and published a collection of short stories. She died in 2011.
Hannah Simpson is Lecturer in Drama and Performance in the English Faculty at the University of Edinburgh, UK. She is the author of Samuel Beckett and the Theatre of the Witness: Pain in Post-War Francophone Drama (2022) and Samuel Beckett and Disability Performance (2022). She has edited special issues for Twentieth Century Literature, Medical Humanities and the Journal of War and Culture Studies, and is co-editor of the Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Disability book series.
