James Saunders (8 January 1925 – 29 January 2004) was a prolific English
playwright
A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays.
Etymology
The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...
born in
Islington
Islington () is a district in the north of Greater London, England, and part of the London Borough of Islington. It is a mainly residential district of Inner London, extending from Islington's High Street to Highbury Fields, encompassing the ...
,
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
Penguin Books
Penguin Books is a British publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.Alperton Community School and Southampton University. He married Audrey Cross.
Evening Standard
The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format.
In October 2009, after be ...
'' award (with Charles Wood) for "Most Promising Playwright". The play was also produced in New York the same year.
In 1975 he completed John Vanbrugh's four-act fragment, ''A Journey to London'', a play that had been sentimentalised by Colley Cibber in 1728 as ''
The Provoked Husband
''The Provoked Husband'' is a 1728 comedy play by the British writer and actor Colley Cibber, based on a fragment of play written by John Vanbrugh. It is also known by the longer title ''The Provok'd Husband: or, a Journey to London''.
Vanbrug ...
''. Saunders' version was first staged in Greenwich and successfully revived at the Orange Tree Theatre in 1986.
''Bodies'', commissioned and first staged by Sam Walters at the Orange Tree in 1977, was revived by Robin Lefévre at the
Hampstead Theatre
Hampstead Theatre is a theatre in South Hampstead in the London Borough of Camden. It specialises in commissioning and producing new writing, supporting and developing the work of new writers. Roxana Silbert has been the artistic director sin ...
Angela Down
Angela Down (born 15 June 1946) is an English actress. She is known for her role in the BBC drama programme '' Take Three Girls'' portraying cockney art student Avril for the first series before being replaced in the second.
Career
Down pla ...
.
Television
Saunders' television work included ''Watch Me I'm a Bird'' (1964), and the BBC sitcom '' Bloomers'' (1979), starring Richard Beckinsale (in the year that he died) playing an unsuccessful actor working in a flower shop. Beckinsale's co-star was Anna Calder-Marshall.
Works
Stage plays include:
*''Moonshine'' (1955)
*''The Ark'' (1959)
*''A Slight Accident'' (one-act 1961)
*''Double Double'' (1962)
*''Next Time I'll Sing To You'' (1962)
*''Who was Hilary Maconochie?'' (one-act 1963)
*''A Scent of Flowers'' (1966)
*''The Travails of Sancho Panza'' (1969)
*''Games'' (one-act 1970)
*''After Liverpool'' (one-act 1970)
*''Hans Kolhaus'' (1972)
*''A Journey to London'' (co-author, 1975)
*''The Island'' (1976)
*''
Bodies
Bodies may refer to:
* The plural of body
* ''Bodies'' (2004 TV series), BBC television programme
* Bodies (upcoming TV series), an upcoming British crime thriller limited series
* "Bodies" (''Law & Order''), 2003 episode of ''Law & Order''
* ...
'' (1977)
*''Over the Wall'' (one-act 1977)
*''Random Moments in a May Garden'' (1980)
*''Retreat'' (1995)
Sources
*''Who's Who in the Theatre'' 14th Jubilee Edition, ed Freda Gaye, Pitman (1967)
*''Who's Who in the Theatre'' 17th edition, ed Ian Herbert, Gale (Vols 1 and 2, 1981)
* Theatre Record and its annual Indexes
*''Halliwell's Television Companion'' by Leslie Halliwell and Philip Purser, Grafton Books (1986)
Harry Ransom Center
The Harry Ransom Center (until 1983 the Humanities Research Center) is an archive, library and museum at the University of Texas at Austin, specializing in the collection of literary and cultural artifacts from the Americas and Europe for the pu ...