John Robert Whiting (15 November 1917 – 16 June 1963) was an English actor,
dramatist
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 ...
and
critic
A critic is a person who communicates an assessment and an opinion of various forms of creative works such as art, literature, music, cinema, theater, fashion, architecture, and food. Critics may also take as their subject social or governmen ...
.
Life and career
Born in
Salisbury
Salisbury ( ) is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder and Bourne. The city is approximately from Southampton and from Bath.
Salisbury is in the southeast of Wil ...
, he was educated at
Taunton School
Taunton School is a co-educational independent school in the county town of Taunton in Somerset in South West England. It serves boarding and day-school pupils from the ages of 13 to 18.
The current headmaster is Lee Glaser, appointed in the aut ...
, "the particular hellish life which is the English public school" as he described it. Trained at
RADA
The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA; ) is a drama school in London, England, that provides vocational conservatoire training for theatre, film, television, and radio. It is based in the Bloomsbury area of Central London, close to the Senat ...
, he then worked as an actor in repertory, and while in the company at
Bideford
Bideford ( ) is a historic port town on the estuary of the River Torridge in north Devon, south-west England. It is the main town of the Torridge local government district.
Toponymy
In ancient records Bideford is recorded as ''Bedeford'', ''By ...
in Devon, met the actress Asthore Lloyd Mawson ("Jackie").
At the start of the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, as a lifelong pacifist, he registered as a conscientious objector, but soon after changed his mind and joined the anti-aircraft section of the
Royal Artillery
The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery (RA) and colloquially known as "The Gunners", is one of two regiments that make up the artillery arm of the British Army. The Royal Regiment of Artillery comprises t ...
: his wartime experiences as a soldier, which are vividly described in dark detail in diaries written at the time (now held in the V&A theatre museum collection) were to mark a profound change in his life and work. In 1940, he married Jackie; in 1944 he was discharged from the army for undisclosed health reasons.
From 1946 until 1952, while writing, he again worked as an actor, as a member of
John Gielgud
Sir Arthur John Gielgud, (; 14 April 1904 – 21 May 2000) was an English actor and theatre director whose career spanned eight decades. With Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier, he was one of the trinity of actors who dominated the Briti ...
's company, and also, in 1951, winning first prize in the
Festival of Britain
The Festival of Britain was a national exhibition and fair that reached millions of visitors throughout the United Kingdom in the summer of 1951. Historian Kenneth O. Morgan says the Festival was a "triumphant success" during which people:
...
play competition for ''Saint's Day''. As a working actor, he, Jackie and their two young boys led a peripatetic life moving to different lodgings around the country until settling into rooms in Jackie's aunt's house in Barnes, where he was able to find a place in the London theatre world and where his first daughter was born. In 1956, he bought and moved his family to a house in the tiny hamlet of Duddleswell, on Ashdown Forest in East Sussex, and in 1957, his second daughter was born in Crowborough.
In Duddleswell, he worked on many plays, film scripts and reviews on a wide mahogany table that had belonged to a hero of his,
Lord Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and Peerage of the United Kingdom, peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and h ...
, writing by hand in a tiny black script adopted from the handwriting of Frederick Rolfe (Baron Corvo), or typing out the pages on a stately German typewriter, often to the accompaniment of a Beethoven piece on a rather modern stereo system.
Works
His works include:
* ''No More A-Roving'' (1947)
* ''Conditions of Agreement'' (1947)
* ''Saint's Day'' (1947–49)
* ''
A Penny for a Song
''A Penny for a Song'' is a 1951 historical comedy play by the British writer John Whiting. In 1967 it was adapted into an opera of the same title by Richard Rodney Bennett, performed at Sadler's Wells.
It premiered at Wimbledon Theatre before ...
''. A play (1951)
* ''Marching Song''. A play (1953)
* ''The Gates of Summer''. A play (1956)
* ''No Why'' (1957)
* ''
The Devils''. A play (1960) based on the book ''
The Devils of Loudun
''The Devils of Loudun'' is a 1952 non-fiction novel by Aldous Huxley.
Premise
It is a historical narrative of supposed demonic possession, religious fanaticism, sexual repression, and mass hysteria that occurred in 17th-century France surroun ...
'' by
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Leonard Huxley (26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. He wrote nearly 50 books, both novels and non-fiction works, as well as wide-ranging essays, narratives, and poems.
Born into the prominent Huxley ...
* ''The Art of the Dramatist'' (1970)
He also wrote un unpublished novel, ''Not a Foot of Land'', many film scripts, short stories for radio and the wartime diaries, as well as an account of his meeting and courtship of Jackie. He was drama critic for the ''
London Magazine
''The London Magazine'' is the title of six different publications that have appeared in succession since 1732. All six have focused on the arts, literature and miscellaneous topics.
1732–1785
''The London Magazine, or, Gentleman's Monthly I ...
'' and a very active member of the
Arts Council in encouraging new writing for the theatre.
''A Penny for a Song'' was adapted into a two-act opera by
Richard Rodney Bennett
Sir Richard Rodney Bennett (29 March 193624 December 2012) was an English composer of film, TV and concert music, and also a jazz pianist and occasional vocalist. He was based in New York City from 1979 until his death there in 2012.Zachary Woo ...
, premiered at
Sadler's Wells
Sadler's Wells Theatre is a performing arts venue in Clerkenwell, London, England located on Rosebery Avenue next to New River Head. The present-day theatre is the sixth on the site since 1683. It consists of two performance spaces: a 1,500-sea ...
in 1967.
''The Devils'' formed the basis of the three-act opera ''
Die Teufel von Loudun
''Die Teufel von Loudun'' (''The Devils of Loudun'') is an opera in three acts written in 1968 and 1969 by Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki, and then revised in 1972 and 1975. It has a German libretto by the composer, based on John Whiting's ...
'' by
Krzysztof Penderecki
Krzysztof Eugeniusz Penderecki (; 23 November 1933 – 29 March 2020) was a Polish composer and conductor. His best known works include ''Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima'', Symphony No. 3, his '' St Luke Passion'', ''Polish Requiem'', ''A ...
, to his own libretto adapted from Whiting's theatrical version of the novel. It was premiered by
Hamburg State Opera
The Hamburg State Opera (in German: Staatsoper Hamburg) is a German opera company based in Hamburg. Its theatre is near the square of Gänsemarkt. Since 2015, the current ''Intendant'' of the company is Georges Delnon, and the current ''General ...
on 20 June 1969, and widely performed throughout Europe, and in North America.
''Marching Song'' was adapted into a three-act opera by
Benjamin Frankel, with a libretto by
Hans Keller
Hans (Heinrich) Keller (11 March 19196 November 1985) was an Austrian-born British musician and writer, who made significant contributions to musicology and music criticism, as well as being a commentator on such disparate fields as psychoana ...
. Finished by the composer in short score, it was orchestrated after his death by
Buxton Orr
Buxton Orr (18 April 1924 – 27 December 1997) was a Glasgow-born Anglo-Scottish composer and teacher.
Life
Originally trained as a doctor, Orr gave up medicine and switched to music in 1952, studying composition at the Guildhall School of Mu ...
and broadcast on 3 October 1983 by
BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It replaced the BBC Third Programme in 1967 and broadcasts classical music and opera, with jazz, world music, Radio drama, drama, High culture, culture and the arts ...
.
Personal life
John Whiting died from
testicular cancer
Testicular cancer is cancer that develops in the testicles, a part of the male reproductive system. Symptoms may include a lump in the testicle, or swelling or pain in the scrotum. Treatment may result in infertility.
Risk factors include an u ...
on 16 June 1963 in London at the age of 45.
His obituary notice in ''The Times'' noted that, ''"As a dramatist John Whiting was in reach of the first rank, even if in his completed works he never quite achieved it. He was an incisive critic (for some time he wrote as drama critic of The London Magazine and his fine critical intelligence prevented him from ever, after Saint's Day, going too far, but in artistic creations those who never go too far perhaps never go quite far enough. Nevertheless in Marching Song in particular he wrote a play which seems likely to last, and at the time of his death he appeared to be at the beginning of a fruitful new phase in his career. The British theatre, even in its present flowering, can ill afford to lose the plays he might have written had he lived long enough to achieve his full potential stature."''
In 1965, the
John Whiting Award
Between 1965 and 2010, the John Whiting Award (from 2007 renamed the Peter Wolff Trust Supports the John Whiting Award) was awarded annually to a British or Commonwealth playwright who, in the opinion of a consortium of UK theatres, showed a new ...
was established to commemorate the writer's contribution to post-war British theatre.
In 2015, the wartime diaries, as well as personal letters, handwritten notes, manuscripts etc. were donated by the family to the V&A.
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Whiting, John
1917 births
1963 deaths
Military personnel from Wiltshire
People from Salisbury
Deaths from cancer in England
People educated at Taunton School
20th-century English dramatists and playwrights
English male dramatists and playwrights
Alumni of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
20th-century English male writers
Deaths from testicular cancer
British Army personnel of World War II
Royal Artillery personnel