Mark Ravenhill (born 7 June 1966) is an English playwright, actor and journalist. Ravenhill is one of the most widely performed playwrights in British theatre of the late-twentieth and twenty-first centuries. His major plays include ''

Shopping and Fucking ''Shopping and Fucking'' (sometimes billed as ''Shopping and F**king'') is a 1996 play by English playwright Mark Ravenhill. It was Ravenhill's first full-length play. It received its first public reading at the Finborough Theatre, London, in 1 ...

'' (first performed in 1996),Ravenhill, Mark. 2001. ''Plays:1''. Methuen. . p.1-91 ''Some Explicit Polaroids'' (1999), ''Mother Clap's Molly House'' (2000), '' The Cut'' (2006), ''Shoot Get Treasure Repeat'' (2007) and ''The Cane'' (2018). In 1999 he was one of the recipients of the V Europe Prize Theatrical Realities awarded to the

Royal Court Theatre The Royal Court Theatre, at different times known as the Court Theatre, the New Chelsea Theatre, and the Belgravia Theatre, is a non-commercial West End theatre in Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, Englan ...

(with Sarah Kane,

Jez Butterworth Jeremy "Jez" Butterworth (born March 1969) is an English playwright, screenwriter, and film director. He has written screenplays in collaboration with his brothers, John-Henry Butterworth, John-Henry and Tom. Life and career In March 1969, But ...

Conor McPherson Conor McPherson (born 6 August 1971) is an Irish playwright, screenwriter and director of stage and film. In recognition of his contribution to world theatre, McPherson was awarded a doctorate of Literature, Honoris Causa, in June 2013 by the Un ...

Martin McDonagh Martin Faranan McDonagh (; born 26 March 1970) is a British-Irish playwright, screenwriter, producer, and director. Born and brought up in London, he is the son of Irish parents. He is known as one of the most acclaimed modern playwrights whose ...

). He made his professional acting debut in his own monologue ''Product'', at the

2005 Edinburgh Festival Fringe The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (also referred to as The Fringe, Edinburgh Fringe, or Edinburgh Fringe Festival) is the world's largest arts and media festival, which in 2019 spanned 25 days and featured more than 59,600 performances of 3,841 dif ...

Early life

Ravenhill is the elder of two sons born to Ted and Angela Ravenhill. He grew up in West Sussex, England and cultivated an early interest in theatre, putting on plays with his brother when they were eight and seven, respectively. He studied English and Drama at

Bristol University , mottoeng = earningpromotes one's innate power (from Horace, ''Ode 4.4'') , established = 1595 – Merchant Venturers School1876 – University College, Bristol1909 – received royal charter , type ...

from 1984 to 1987, and worked as a freelance director, workshop leader and drama teacher. In the mid-1990s, Ravenhill was diagnosed as HIV+, his partner of the early 1990s having died from AIDS.

Career

His first short play, ''Fist'', gained the attention of

Max Stafford-Clark Maxwell Robert Guthrie Stewart "Max" Stafford-Clark (born 17 March 1941) is a British theatre director. Life and career Stafford-Clark was born in Cambridge, England. the son of David Stafford-Clark, a physician, and Dorothy Crossley (née Old ...

, artistic director of

Out of Joint Theatre Company Out of Joint is a British and international touring theatre company based in London. It specialises in the commissioning and production of new writing, interspersed with occasional revivals and classic productions. It was founded in 1993 by direct ...

who asked to see his next play. Ravenhill quickly finished the play that would make his name: ''Shopping and Fucking''. It is set among a mostly young, queer group of friends and captured a generation using sex, drugs, popular culture and therapy to replace a fundamental lack of history, value and political commitment. The play toured with two successful runs at the

and then the West End, before embarking on world tours. It was one of the British plays that were picked up by German theatres to establish a new generational wave of directors, writers, and audiences. Ravenhill followed this with a series of plays that shared

's punky, gender-queer aggression, including ''Faust Is Dead'' (1997), ''Handbag'' (1998), ''Some Explicit Polaroids'' (1999). The plays did not necessarily share the attitudes of their characters and contained ironic commentary beneath the violence and intensity. ''Faust is Dead'' explored some queer post-modern ideas, with nods to

Jean Baudrillard Jean Baudrillard ( , , ; 27 July 1929 – 6 March 2007) was a French sociologist, philosopher and poet with interest in cultural studies. He is best known for his analyses of media, contemporary culture, and technological communication, as w ...

; ''Some Explicit Polaroids'' adopted some features of the 'State of the Nation Play', an epic left-wing theatre style associated with the 1970s. Each play simultaneously endorsed and critiqued the intellectual styles and movements that they were working in. ''Handbag'' was a response to

Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...

The Importance of Being Earnest ''The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People'' is a play by Oscar Wilde. First performed on 14 February 1895 at the St James's Theatre in London, it is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious ...

making more explicit a sense of contemporary identities being connected to a longer history. This was brought even more to the fore in ''Mother Clap's Molly House'', set in an eighteenth-century

Molly House Molly-house was a term used in 18th- and 19th-century Britain for a meeting place for homosexual men. The meeting places were generally taverns, public houses, coffeehouses or even private rooms where men could either socialise or meet possible ...

and depicting a range of gender-nonconformists from a pre-gay, pre-queer era exploring dissident sexualities. The play was directed by Nick Hytner who became artistic director of the National Theatre the year after, bringing in Ravenhill as a key advisor. Through the 2000s, Ravenhill moved further away from naturalism, continually changing styles and forms. His play ''The Cut'' moves into Pinteresque territory, its metaphorical image of a near-future society organised around an unspecified surgical procedure (the 'cut' of the title) was an allegory of liberal authoritarianism. ''Shoot Get Treasure Repeat'' began as a series of short (usually 20-minute) plays performed over successive mornings at the

Edinburgh Festival __NOTOC__ This is a list of arts and cultural festivals regularly taking place in Edinburgh, Scotland. The city has become known for its festivals since the establishment in 1947 of the Edinburgh International Festival and the Edinburgh Fe ...

in 2007, under the title ''Breakfast with Ravenhill'' (for which he received the Spirit of the Fringe award). Retitled collectively ''Shoot Get Treasure Repeat'' they were performed across London by the

Gate Theatre The Gate Theatre is a Theater (structure), theatre on Cavendish Row in Dublin, Ireland. It was founded in 1928. History Beginnings The Gate Theatre was founded in 1928 by Hilton Edwards and Micheál MacLiammóir with Daisy Bannard Cogley and Ge ...

, the Royal Court, the National Theatre, Paines Plough and others. Most of the plays' titles are drawn from the western literary canon, and offered satirical commentaries on western complacency, the Iraq War, and more. Product (2005), his monologue for two people (the second actor is silent) was a satire of Hollywood and attitudes to terrorism post-9/11. Ravenhill himself performed the role in the original tour. ''pool (no water)'' was written for the physical theatre company

Frantic Assembly Frantic Assembly is a theatre production company. They have worked in over 40 countries and are widely studied as practitioners for A-Levels in the UK. Background Frantic Assembly was formed by three students of Swansea University in 1994. No ...

and concerned a group of artists who lament and celebrate the death of their successful colleague; the text was written in fragments, observing the speech patterns of the

Young British Artists The Young British Artists, or YBAs—also referred to as Brit artists and Britart—is a loose group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in London in 1988. Many of the YBA artists graduated from the BA Fine Art course at Goldsm ...

and the hypocrisies of artistic rivalry. Each of these texts move away from direct representations of the contemporary world towards something more abstract, minimalist, metaphorical. Despite this he continued to resist definition, also writing a pantomime, ''Dick Whittington'' (2006), for the Barbican Theatre, a piece for, about and performed by the drag performer Bette Bourne entitled ''A Life in Three Acts'' (2009), and a series of plays for young people: ''Totally Over You'' (2003), ''Citizenship'' (2005) and ''Scenes from Family Life'' (2007). His range widened further in the 2010s. At the end of the 2000s, Ravenhill collaborated with Ramin Gray in directing his own ''Over There'', a highly experimental play and performance about twins separated by the Berlin Wall for the Royal Court. He also worked in music theatre, creating libretti for

Monteverdi Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi (baptized 15 May 1567 – 29 November 1643) was an Italian composer, choirmaster and string player. A composer of both secular and sacred music, and a pioneer in the development of opera, he is consider ...

's '' The Coronation of Poppea'' and a new music-theatre piece ''Ten Plagues'' written for

Marc Almond Peter Mark Sinclair "Marc" Almond, (born 9 July 1957) is an English singer. Almond first began performing and recording in the synthpop/ new wave duo Soft Cell where he became known for his distinctive soulful voice and androgynous image. ...

(both 2011). As Writer-in-Residence for the Royal Shakespeare Company, he produced a new translation of Brecht's

Life of Galileo ''Life of Galileo'' (), also known as ''Galileo'', is a play by the 20th century German dramatist Bertolt Brecht and collaborator Margarete Steffin with incidental music by Hanns Eisler. The play was written in 1938 and received its first theatri ...

and a dramatisation and response to

Voltaire François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778) was a French Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his ''Pen name, nom de plume'' M. de Voltaire (; also ; ), he was famous for his wit, and his ...

's ''

Candide ( , ) is a French satire written by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment, first published in 1759. The novella has been widely translated, with English versions titled ''Candide: or, All for the Best'' (1759); ''Candide: or, The ...

'' (both 2013). At the end of the decade he collaborated with

Robbie Williams Robert Peter Williams (born 13 February 1974) is an English singer and songwriter. He found fame as a member of the pop group Take That from 1990 to 1995, and achieved commercial success after launching a solo career in 1996. His debut stud ...

and

Guy Chambers Guy Antony Chambers (born 12 January 1963) is an English songwriter, musician and record producer, best known for his work with Robbie Williams. Education Chambers attended Quarry Bank Comprehensive School sixth form in Liverpool. From 18, h ...

on a musical adaptation of

David Walliams David Edward Williams (born 20 August 1971), known professionally as David Walliams, is an English comedian, actor, writer, and television personality. He is best known for his work with Matt Lucas on the BBC sketch comedy series ''Little Br ...

's ''The Boy in the Dress'' (2019). He was commissioned by the

London Gay Men's Chorus London Gay Men's Chorus is a gay choir that was founded in 1991 by a group of nine gay men. The group now has around 150 singing members at any one time and almost 300 members in total. Introduction With a widely varying repertoire from class ...

for a piece to mark the choir's 21st anniversary in 2012. With the music composed by

Conor Mitchell Conor Mitchell is a Northern Irish composer, librettist and theatre-maker. His play, ''The Dummy Tree'', was commissioned by the Royal National Theatre for their 2009 New Connections series. Conor has been a great supporter of Youth Music Theatr ...

, the piece, entitled ''Shadow Time'', explores the evolution of mentalities in respect of homosexuality in the lifetime of the Chorus and was premiered at the

Royal Festival Hall The Royal Festival Hall is a 2,700-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford Bridge, in the London Borough of Lambeth. It is a Grade I l ...

in May 2012 during the Chorus' summer concert: ''A Band of Brothers''. He returned to the Royal Court in 2018 with The Cane, about a schoolteacher whose distant history as an administer of corporal punishment threatens his reputation, his family even his life. He created ITV sitcom ''Vicious'' with Gary Janetti which aired between 2013 and 2016. and in 2014 wrote a Doctor Who audio story entitled ''Of Chaos Time The'' for Big Finish. In 2021, Ravenhill was appointed co-artistic director of the King's Head Theatre for 2022. In a 2021 interview with

Benjamin Yeoh Benjamin Yeoh (born 1978) is a British Chinese playwright. Biography Born near London, England, his father came from Ipoh, Malaysia and mother from Singapore. His grandfather, Datuk Yeoh Cheang Lee was the first non-European chairman of t ...

, Ravenhill explained he was looking to programme more queer and LGBTQ+ work as a co-artistic director.

Plays

* ''Fist'' (1995) * ''

'' (1996) * ''Faust Is Dead'' (1997) * ''Sleeping Around'' (1998) * ''Handbag'' (1998) * ''Some Explicit Polaroids'' (1999) * ''

Mother Clap's Molly House ''Mother Clap's Molly House'' is a 2001 play by Mark Ravenhill with music by Matthew Scott. It is based on an essay in the book of the same name by Rictor Norton. The play is a black comedy and explores the diversity of human sexuality. It is s ...

'' (2000) * ''Feed Me'' (Radio Play) (2000) * ''Totally Over You'' (2003) * ''Education'' (2004) * ''Citizenship'' (2005) * ''Product'' (2005) * '' The Cut'' (2006) * ''Pool (No Water)'' (2006) * ''Ravenhill For Breakfast'' (2007) * ''Scenes From Family Life'' (2007) * ''Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat'' (2008) * ''Over There'' (2009) * ''The Experiment'' (2009) * '' Ten Plagues - A Song Cycle'' (2011) * ''Candide'' (2013) * ''Ghost Story'' (2015) * ''The Cane'' (2018) *'' The Boy in the Dress'' (2019)

Opera translations

* '' The Coronation of Poppea''

(2011)

References

External links

Biography
at the Barbican homepage.
Mark Ravenhill
at the website of the

British Arts Council The Arts Council of Great Britain was a non-departmental public body dedicated to the promotion of the fine arts in Great Britain. It was divided in 1994 to form the Arts Council of England (now Arts Council England), the Scottish Arts Council ...

. Author's page, incl. "critical perspective." (Compiled and written by Dr. Peter Buse, 2003.)
Mark Ravenhill
at the website o

Ravenhill 10
A symposium celebrating the tenth anniversary of ''Shopping & Fucking'', The

Pinter Harold Pinter (; 10 October 1930 – 24 December 2008) was a British playwright, screenwriter, director and actor. A Nobel Prize winner, Pinter was one of the most influential modern British dramatists with a writing career that span ...

Centre for Performance and Creative Writing,

Goldsmiths, University of London Goldsmiths, University of London, officially the Goldsmiths' College, is a constituent research university of the University of London in England. It was originally founded in 1891 as The Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute by the Wor ...

.
Audio interview
from ''

OpenLearn OpenLearn is an educational website. It is the UK's Open University's contribution to the open educational resources (OER) project and the home of free, open learning from The Open University. The original project was part-funded by the Wi ...

''
Literary EncyclopediaContemporary Writers, British CouncilNew York EntertainmentBarbican, Mark Ravenhill
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ravenhill, Mark 1966 births English dramatists and playwrights Living people Alumni of the University of Bristol People with HIV/AIDS LGBT writers from England English male stage actors English satirists English television writers English screenwriters English male screenwriters British gay writers LGBT dramatists and playwrights English male dramatists and playwrights LGBT screenwriters British male television writers