''A Taste of Honey'' is the first play by the British dramatist
Shelagh Delaney
Shelagh Delaney, FRSL (; 25 November 1938 – 20 November 2011) was an English dramatist and screenwriter. Her debut work, '' A Taste of Honey'' (1958), has been described by Michael Patterson as "probably the most performed play by a post-war B ...
, written when she was 19. It was intended as a novel, but she turned it into a play because she hoped to revitalise British theatre and address social issues that she thought were not being presented. The play was produced by
Joan Littlewood
Joan Maud Littlewood (6 October 1914 – 20 September 2002) was an English theatre director who trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and is best known for her work in developing the Theatre Workshop. She has been called "The Mother of M ...
's
Theatre Workshop Theatre Workshop is a theatre group whose long-serving director was Joan Littlewood. Many actors of the 1950s and 1960s received their training and first exposure with the company, many of its productions were transferred to theatres in the West En ...
and premiered at the
Theatre Royal Stratford East
The Theatre Royal Stratford East is a 460 seat Victorian producing theatre in Stratford in the London Borough of Newham. Since 1953, it has been the home of the Theatre Workshop company, famously associated with director Joan Littlewood, whose ...
, a
socialist
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...
fringe theatre in London, on 27 May 1958. The production then transferred to
Wyndham's Theatre
Wyndham's Theatre is a West End theatre, one of two opened by actor/manager Charles Wyndham (the other is the Criterion Theatre). Located on Charing Cross Road in the City of Westminster, it was designed c.1898 by W. G. R. Sprague, the archit ...
in the
West End on 10 February 1959.
The play was adapted into an award winning
film of the same title in 1961 with an entirely different cast except for
Murray Melvin
Murray Melvin (born 10 August 1932) is an English actor. He is best known for his acting work with Joan Littlewood, Ken Russell and Stanley Kubrick. He is the author of two books: ''The Art of Theatre Workshop'' (2006) and ''The Theatre Royal, ...
as Geoff.
''A Taste of Honey'' is set in
Salford
Salford () is a city and the largest settlement in the City of Salford metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. In 2011, Salford had a population of 103,886. It is also the second and only other city in the metropolitan county afte ...
in North West England in the 1950s. It tells the story of Jo, a seventeen-year-old working class girl, and her mother, Helen, who is presented as crude and sexually indiscriminate. Helen leaves Jo alone in their new flat after she begins a relationship with Peter, a rich lover who is younger than she. At the same time Jo begins a romantic relationship with Jimmy, a black sailor. He proposes marriage but then goes to sea, leaving Jo pregnant and alone. She finds lodgings with a homosexual acquaintance, Geoffrey, who assumes the role of surrogate father. Helen returns after leaving her lover and the future of Jo's new home is put into question.
''A Taste of Honey'' comments on, and puts into question, class, race, gender and sexual orientation in mid-twentieth-century Britain. It became known as a "
kitchen sink
Kitchen sink may refer to:
* ''Freaks of Nature'' (film), a 2015 comedy horror film, also known as ''Kitchen Sink''
* ''Kitchen Sink'', a 1989 horror short directed by Alison Maclean
* ''Kitchen Sink'' (TV series), cookery series on Food Network ...
" play, part of a genre revolutionising British theatre at the time.
By way of a visual backdrop to ''A Taste of Honey'', Delaney reflected on life in Salford in a documentary, directed by
Ken Russell
Henry Kenneth Alfred Russell (3 July 1927 – 27 November 2011) was a British film director, known for his pioneering work in television and film and for his flamboyant and controversial style. His films in the main were liberal adaptation ...
, for BBC television's ''
Monitor
Monitor or monitor may refer to:
Places
* Monitor, Alberta
* Monitor, Indiana, town in the United States
* Monitor, Kentucky
* Monitor, Oregon, unincorporated community in the United States
* Monitor, Washington
* Monitor, Logan County, West Vir ...
'' that was broadcast on 26 September 1960.
Plot
Act 1
![Angela Lansbury Joan Plowright A Taste of Honey Broadway](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/Angela_Lansbury_Joan_Plowright_A_Taste_of_Honey_Broadway.jpg)
In the first scene, Helen and her teenage daughter Jo are moving into a shabby flat. Within a few minutes, the audience learns that they have little money, living off Helen's immoral earnings—money given to her by her lovers; she is not a true prostitute, being more of a "good time girl." Helen is a regular drinker, and she and Jo have a confrontational and ambiguously interdependent relationship. As they settle, Helen's surprise at some of Jo's drawings both suggests Jo's talent and originality and shows Helen's lack of interest and knowledge about her daughter. Jo rejects the idea of going to an art school, blaming Helen for having interrupted her training all too often by moving her constantly from one school to another. Jo now only wants to leave school and earn her own money so that she can get away from Helen. After this conversation, Peter (Helen's younger boyfriend) comes in. Jo assumes that Helen has moved here to escape from him, but the audience never is told the reason why. Peter had not realised how old Helen was until he sees her daughter. Nonetheless he asks Helen to marry him, first half-jokingly, then more or less in earnest.
In the next scene, Jo is walking home in the company of her black boyfriend. During a light-hearted, semi-serious dialogue, he asks her to marry him, and she agrees, but he is in the navy and will be away on his ship for six months before they can marry. He gives Jo a ring that she hangs around her neck under her clothes to hide it from Helen. Jo tells him that she is really leaving school and that she is going to start a part-time job in a pub.
At the flat, Helen informs Jo that she is going to marry Peter. Peter enters, and a dialogue ensues among the three. Instead of only Jo and Helen attacking each other, a more complex pattern evolves: Jo attacks the others, the others attack Jo, and Helen attacks both Peter and Jo. Jo is truly upset at the thought of Helen marrying Peter, but pesters and provokes him in an effort to antagonise him. After Helen and Peter leave her on her own for Christmas, Jo weeps, and she is consoled by her boyfriend. She invites him to stay over Christmas, but she has a feeling that she never will see him again.
The action moves to the occasion of Helen's wedding, the day after Christmas. Jo has a cold and will not be able to attend at the wedding. Because she is in her pyjamas, Helen catches a glimpse of the ring around her neck and learns the truth. She scolds Jo violently for thinking of marrying so young, one of her occasional bursts of real feeling and concern for her daughter. Asked by Jo about her real father, Helen explains that she had been married to a "Puritan" and that she had to look elsewhere for sexual pleasure. Thus she had her first sexual experience with Jo's father, a "not very bright man," a "bit retarded". She then hurries off to her wedding.
Act 2
Several months later, Jo is living alone in the same shabby flat. She works in a shoe shop by day and in a bar in the evenings to afford the rent. She is pregnant, and her boyfriend has not come back to her. She returns from a funfair to the flat in the company of Geoff, an art student, who has possibly been thrown out from his former lodgings because his landlady suspected he was gay. Jo offends him with insensitive questions about his sexuality, and he in turn maliciously criticises her drawings. She apologises and asks him to stay, sleeping on the couch. Geoff develops genuine concern for Jo's situation, and they develop a friendly, light-hearted relationship.
The audience next sees Jo irritable and depressed by her pregnancy, with Geoff patiently consoling her. Then, seeking reassurance himself, he kisses her and asks her to marry him. Jo says that, although she likes him, she cannot marry him. She makes a sexual pass at him which he fails to recognize, confirming that "it is not marrying love between us". At this point, Helen enters. She has been contacted by Geoff, who wishes to keep this fact secret from Jo.
Jo, however, guesses as much, and she is angry with both Helen and Geoff. Geoff tries to interfere in the quarrel between the two women, but each time, he is attacked by one or the other or both. As Helen is offering Jo money, Peter comes in, very drunk, and takes back the money and Helen's offer of a home to Jo. He leaves, insisting that Helen come with him; after a moment's hesitation, she runs after him.
In the next scene, the baby is due any moment. Jo and Geoff seem happy. He reassures her that Helen was probably mistaken about or exaggerating the mental deficiencies of Jo's father. Geoff has bought a doll for Jo to practise handling the baby, but Jo flings it to the ground because it is the wrong colour: Jo assumes that her baby will be as black as its father. Her momentary outburst against the baby, motherhood and womanhood is short-lived, and she and Geoff are about to have tea when Helen enters with all her luggage. Apparently, she has been thrown out by Peter and now plans to move in with her daughter. To get rid of Geoff, she behaves rudely to him while overwhelming Jo with advice and presents. Jo defends Geoff, but while she is asleep, Geoff decides to leave because Helen is determined and he does not want Jo to be pulled between them. Jo wakes, and Helen pretends that Geoff is out doing the shopping. When her mother learns that the baby will be black, she loses her nerve and rushes out for a drink, even though Jo's labour pains have begun. Alone, Jo comforts herself by humming a tune Geoff used to sing, still not realising that he has in fact gone...
Characters
* Helen: A hardened, working-class, single mother and alcoholic
* Josephine, her teenage daughter, known as Jo, raised solely by Helen
* Peter: Helen's younger, wealthy boyfriend from London
* The Boy: Also known as Jimmy, a black sailor, with whom Jo falls in love and becomes pregnant
* Geoffrey: An art student in his early 20s who becomes Jo's roommate and friend
Productions
Original cast and crew (1958, London)
*Helen –
Avis Bunnage
Avis Bunnage (22 April 1923, Ardwick, Manchester – 4 October 1990, Thorpe Bay, Southend-on-Sea) was an English actress of film, stage and television.
She attended Manley Park Municipal School and Chorlton Central School in Manchester. She ...
*Josephine –
Frances Cuka
Frances Cuka (21 August 193616 February 2020) was an English actress, principally on television, whose career spanned over sixty years. In her later years, she was best known for playing Grandma in the sitcom ''Friday Night Dinner'' from 2011 to ...
*Peter –
Nigel Davenport
Arthur Nigel Davenport (23 May 1928 – 25 October 2013) was an English stage, television and film actor, best known as the Duke of Norfolk and Lord Birkenhead in the Academy Award-winning films '' A Man for All Seasons'' and ''Chariots of Fir ...
*The Boy –
Clifton Jones
Clifton Jones (born 26 July 1937, St. Andrew, Jamaica) is a Jamaican actor known for his roles in British television.
Career
He played the role of Jo's boyfriend in the original Theatre Workshop production of Shelagh Delaney's '' A Taste of H ...
*Geoffrey –
Murray Melvin
Murray Melvin (born 10 August 1932) is an English actor. He is best known for his acting work with Joan Littlewood, Ken Russell and Stanley Kubrick. He is the author of two books: ''The Art of Theatre Workshop'' (2006) and ''The Theatre Royal, ...
*The Apex Jazz Trio – Johnny Wallbank (cornet), Barry Wright (guitar), Christopher Capon (double bass)
*Setting by
John Bury
*Costumes by Una Collins
Broadway cast (1960)
*Helen –
Angela Lansbury
Dame Angela Brigid Lansbury (October 16, 1925 – October 11, 2022) was an Irish-British and American film, stage, and television actress. Her career spanned eight decades, much of it in the United States, and her work received a great deal ...
*Josephine –
Joan Plowright
Joan Ann Olivier, Baroness Olivier, (née Plowright; born 28 October 1929), professionally known as Dame Joan Plowright, is an English retired actress whose career has spanned over seven decades. She has won two Golden Globe Awards and a Ton ...
*Peter –
Nigel Davenport
Arthur Nigel Davenport (23 May 1928 – 25 October 2013) was an English stage, television and film actor, best known as the Duke of Norfolk and Lord Birkenhead in the Academy Award-winning films '' A Man for All Seasons'' and ''Chariots of Fir ...
*The Boy –
Billy Dee Williams
William December Williams Jr. (born April 6, 1937) is an American actor. He appeared as Lando Calrissian in the ''Star Wars'' franchise, first in the early 1980s for ''The Empire Strikes Back'' (1980) and ''Return of the Jedi'' (1983), and thirt ...
*Geoffrey –
Andrew Ray
Andrew Ray (31 May 193920 August 2003) was an English actor who was best known as a child star.
Biography
He was born Andrew Olden (Ray was his father's stage name) in Southgate, Middlesex, the son of the radio comic Ted Ray and his wife, sho ...
Broadway revival cast (1981)
* Helen –
Valerie French
* Josephine –
Amanda Plummer
Amanda Michael Plummer (born March 23, 1957) is an American actress. She is known for her work on stage and for her roles in such films as '' Joe Versus the Volcano'' (1990), ''The Fisher King'' (1991), ''Pulp Fiction'' (1994), and '' The Hunge ...
* Peter – John Carroll
* The Boy – Tom Wright
* Geoffrey –
Keith Reddin
Keith Reddin (born July 7, 1956) is an American actor and playwright. He received his B.S. in 1978 from Northwestern University and then went on to attend Yale School of Drama until he received his M.A. in 1981.
Reddin grew up in Englewood, New ...
Watford Palace cast (UK)(2000)
* Helen -
Gemma Craven
Rita Gemma Craven (''née'' Gabriel; born 1 June 1950) is an Irish actress.
She is best known for her role as Joan Parker, the frigid wife of Arthur (Bob Hoskins), in the BBC TV drama '' Pennies From Heaven'' (1978).
Biography
Craven's family ...
* Jo -
Kaye Wragg
Kaye Michelle Wragg (born 15 December 1972) is an English actress best known for her television roles as Sergeant Diane Noble in ''The Bill'', Kate Oakley in ''No Angels'', Essie Harrison (now known as Essie di Lucca) in ''Holby City'' from 201 ...
* Peter -
Patrick Baladi
Patrick Bashir Baladi (born 25 December 1971) is an English actor and musician. He is best known for playing Neil Godwin in the BBC sitcom ''The Office'', Michael Jackson in the Sky 1 drama '' Stella'' and Stephen Holmes in the ITV thriller ''Ma ...
* The Boy - Mark Springer
* Geoffrey - Ashley Artus
UK Touring Production 2006
* Helen –
Samantha Giles
Samantha Elizabeth Giles (born 2 July 1971) is an English actress and author. She is known for portraying the role of Bernice Blackstock in the ITV soap opera ''Emmerdale''. She had also portrayed Sally Boothe in the ITV drama series '' Where t ...
* Josephine –
Samantha Robinson
* Peter –
Andonis Anthony
* Jimmy- Chris Jack
* Geoffrey –
Bruno Langley
Bruno Langley (born 21 March 1983) is an English former actor. He is known for his roles as Darren Michaels and Todd Grimshaw in ''Coronation Street'' (2001–2004, 2007, 2011, 2013–2017) and Adam Mitchell in ''Doctor Who'' (2005).
In Octob ...
Royal Exchange Theatre Mancheser, 2008
*Helen –
Sally Lindsay
Sally Jane Lindsay (born 8 July 1973) is an English actress and television presenter known for her roles as Shelley Unwin in the long-running ITV soap opera ''Coronation Street'', Lisa Johnson in the Sky One comedy series '' Mount Pleasant'' an ...
* Josephine – Jodie McNee
* Peter –
Paul Popplewell
Paul Popplewell (born 18 April 1977) is a British actor. He became a professional actor at 16, leaving college after gaining the lead role of Simon in the BBC television drama ''Criminal'', for which he won Best Actor at the Golden Chest Film Fe ...
* Jimmy – Marcel McCalla
*Geoffrey –
Adam Gillen
Adam Gillen (born 11 September 1985, Manchester) is a British actor, best known for his role as Liam Conroy in the ITV hit series '' Benidorm'', Brian in the Channel 4 comedy '' Fresh Meat'' and Gavin in BBC's ''Prisoners’ Wives''. In 2019, ...
Royal National Theatre 2014
* Helen –
Lesley Sharp
Lesley Sharp is an English stage, film and television actress whose roles on British television include ''Clocking Off'' (2000–2001), '' Bob & Rose'' (2001) and ''Afterlife'' (2005–2006). She was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actres ...
* Jo –
Kate O'Flynn
Kate O'Flynn is a British actress. She is known for her performance in Royal National Theatre, National Theatre's production of ''Port'' for which she received a Critics' Circle Theatre Award in 2013, as well as starring roles in plays ''A Taste ...
* Jimmy – Eric Kofi Abrefa
* Peter –
Dean Lennox Kelly
Dean Lennox Kelly (born 30 November 1975) is an English actor. He is known for his television roles as Kev Ball in '' Shameless'' and Meredith Rutter in '' Jamestown''.
Early life
Kelly is from Lytham St Annes, Lancashire. He trained at the B ...
* Geoffrey –
Harry Hepple
Harry Hepple (born David Matthew Hepple) is a British actor and musician.
Career
Hepple graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 2006. The same year he made his professional debut in ''Alaska'' at the Royal Court Theatre with Rafe ...
Belvoir Theatre, Sydney 2018
* Helen –
Genevieve Lemon
Genevieve Lemon (born 21 April 1958) is an Australian actress and singer who has appeared in a number of Australian television series and international film, including a frequent collaboration with Jane Campion for Academy Award-winning ''The P ...
* Jo – Taylor Ferguson
* Jimmy – Thuso Lekwape
* Peter –
Josh McConville
Josh McConville is an Australian actor. He was nominated for the 2018 AACTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his role in 1%.
Filmography
TV
*'' Mr Inbetween'' (2019) TV series – Alex (2 episodes)
*'' Home and Away'' (2017) TV s ...
* Geoffrey – Tom Anson Mesker
Adaptation for BBC Radio 3 cast (2004)
* Helen –
Siobhan Finneran
Siobhán Margaret Finneran (born 27 April 1966) is a British actress. She made her screen debut in the 1987 independent film ''Rita, Sue and Bob Too'', and subsequently worked consistently in television drama including roles in ''Coronation Stre ...
* Jo – Beth Squires
* Peter –
Charles Lawson
Quintin Charles Devenish "Charlie" Lawson (born 17 September 1959) is an actor, from Northern Ireland, who is best known for playing Jim McDonald on the long-running ITV soap opera, ''Coronation Street''.
Early life and education
Lawson was bo ...
* The Boy –
Richard Mylan
Richard Mylan (born 24 November 1973) is a Welsh actor and former dancer. He is best known for his roles in ''The Bill'', '' Bad Girls'' and '' Grownups'' as Chris.
Early life
Mylan was born in Swansea in 1973. There he attended the Birchgrove ...
* Geoffrey –
Andrew Sheridan
Andrew John Sheridan (born 1 November 1979 in Petts Wood, Bromley, England) is a retired English rugby union player who played as a loosehead prop.
Sheridan is tall, which is unusually tall for a prop, and weighs . He is known for his great ...
1970 BBCTV Production
20th. September-4th. October. Three-part, BBCTV mini-series, with
Diana Dors
Diana Dors (born Diana Mary Fluck; 23 October 19314 May 1984) was an English actress and singer.
Dors came to public notice as a blonde bombshell, much in the style of Americans Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield and Mamie Van Doren. Dors was pr ...
, made for schools.
1958 critical reception
Writing of the original production,
Milton Shulman
Milton Shulman (1 September 1913 – 24 May 2004) was a Canadian author, film and theatre critic who was based in the United Kingdom from 1943.
Early life
Shulman was born in Toronto, Ontario, the son of a successful shopkeeper. His parents wer ...
in the ''Evening Standard'' found the play immature and unconvincing, and others were similarly derogatory about the author's age, with the ''Daily Mail'' writing that it tasted not of honey, but "of exercise books and marmalade."
However,
Kenneth Tynan
Kenneth Peacock Tynan (2 April 1927 – 26 July 1980) was an English theatre critic and writer. Making his initial impact as a critic at ''The Observer'', he praised Osborne's ''Look Back in Anger'' (1956), and encouraged the emerging wave of ...
wrote "Miss Delaney brings real people on to her stage, joking and flaring and scuffling and, eventually, out of the zest for life she gives them, surviving” ; while
Lindsay Anderson
Lindsay Gordon Anderson (17 April 1923 – 30 August 1994) was a British feature-film, theatre and documentary director, film critic, and leading-light of the Free Cinema movement and of the British New Wave. He is most widely remembered for h ...
in ''Encore'' called the play "a work of complete, exhilarating originality," giving "a real escape from the middlebrow, middle-class vacuum of the
West End."
[
]
Popular references
The play was admired by Morrissey
Steven Patrick Morrissey (; born 22 May 1959), known professionally as Morrissey, is an English singer and songwriter. He came to prominence as the frontman and lyricist of rock band the Smiths, who were active from 1982 to 1987. Since then ...
of the band The Smiths
The Smiths were an English rock band formed in Manchester in 1982. They comprised the singer Morrissey, the guitarist Johnny Marr, the bassist Andy Rourke and the drummer Mike Joyce. They are regarded as one of the most important acts to emerg ...
, who used Delaney's photo on the album cover artwork for ''Louder Than Bombs
''Louder Than Bombs'' is a compilation album by English rock band the Smiths, released as a double album in March 1987 by their American record company, Sire Records. It peaked at number 62 on the US ''Billboard'' 200 album chart. Popular dem ...
''. A photograph of Shelagh Delaney appears on the cover for The Smiths' single " Girlfriend in a Coma". "This Night Has Opened My Eyes", an earlier Smiths song, is based on the play and includes a paraphrase of Geoffrey's line to Jo near the end: "The dream has gone but the baby is real." Morrissey's lyrics include other borrowings from Delaney, such as "river the colour of lead" and "I'm not happy and I'm not sad", both of which are spoken by the lead character Jo. Other quotations and near-quotations appear in several other songs by The Smiths and Morrissey."Morrissey under the influence: literature"
''Passions Just Like Mine'' website
The play is referred to by
Akira the Don in the title track on the album ''Thieving'' (2008), in which it appears to awaken him to literature in a school English lesson.
It appears in ''
On Chesil Beach
''On Chesil Beach'' is a 2007 novella by the British writer Ian McEwan. It was selected for the 2007 Booker Prize shortlist.
''The Washington Post'' and Pulitzer Prize-winning book critic Jonathan Yardley placed ''On Chesil Beach'' on his to ...
'' by
Ian McEwan
Ian Russell McEwan, (born 21 June 1948) is an English novelist and screenwriter. In 2008, ''The Times'' featured him on its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945" and ''The Daily Telegraph'' ranked him number 19 in its list of th ...
as a film watched by the main characters.
See also
* Delaney, Shelagh. ''A Taste of Honey.'' Methuen Student Edition with commentary and notes. London: Methuen Publishing, 1982.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Taste Of Honey, A
1958 plays
British plays adapted into films
1950s debut plays
Lancashire in fiction
LGBT-related plays
Methuen Publishing books
Plays about race and ethnicity
Salford
Social realism
Works about teenage pregnancy
West End plays