Shelagh Delaney

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Shelagh Delaney [ ˈʃiːlə dəˈleini ] (born November 25, 1938 in Broughton , Salford , Lancashire , † November 20, 2011 in Suffolk , East Anglia , England ) was a British writer and screenwriter who was best known for her play Bitter Honey (original title A. Taste Of Honey ) became known.

Life

Shelagh Delaney, a British writer with Irish roots, was born in Salford, Lancashire in 1938, where her best-known work, Bitter Honey , is set. When she was twelve she saw a play for the first time, an amateur performance of Shakespeare's Othello , which impressed her very much. After dropping out of school at the age of 17, she worked, among other things, as a saleswoman and receptionist.

At the age of 17 she began working on Bitter Honey , but initially as a novel . She soon realized that the content would be better shown in the form of a play and took two weeks off to rewrite it. The main character of the play is the girl Jo, who lives with her irresponsible mother Helen in an English slum. The drama confronts the reader with a variety of social issues - single motherhood, racism, and homosexuality - with an openness that was completely new to 1950s England. It also portrays the life and behavior of typical northern English workers in an original way.

In 1958, director Joan Littlewood became aware of the work and arranged a performance in London's East End . Shortly thereafter it was also played in the West End , where it performed successfully for several years and won several awards. In 1960 it hit the stages in New York and won an award there too. At the request of several directors, Shelagh Delaney wrote the screenplay for her play in 1961 and received a BAFTA for Best British Screenplay . The film, which bears the same name as the play , was directed by Tony Richardson and made it the key feature of British new wave cinema. This made Shelagh Delaney one of the most famous writers of her time at the age of 23. For the film, Bobby Scott composed the later evergreen A Taste of Honey , which was not mentioned in the novel.

Since then her works have shown a remarkable versatility. In 1960 her second play followed, The Lion in Love . In 1963 she published the short story book Sweetly Sings the Donkey , later also several television plays and award-winning scripts such as Dance with a Stranger (1982).

Her works had a great influence on Morrissey , the singer of the indie band The Smiths , who repeatedly integrated quotes from her works (especially bitter honey ) into his lyrics. You can also see the writer on the cover of Smiths' album Louder Than Bombs and the single Girlfriend in a Coma .

The Beatles also used a Delaney title. A version of A Taste of Honey can be heard on the debut album Please Please Me . In addition, the title of the song "Your Mother Should Know" by Paul McCartney is a quote from "A Taste of Honey".

In 2006 Peter Zadek rediscovered the piece Bitterer Honig for the German theater and staged it at the St. Pauli Theater in Hamburg with Julia Jentsch and Eva Mattes in the lead roles.

Shelagh Delaney died of complications from cancer and heart failure a few days before her 73rd birthday. She left behind her daughter Charlotte and three grandchildren.

Works

  • A Taste Of Honey , 1958, German A Taste Of Honey. Stories and plays , translated by Tobias Schwartz , AvivA Verlag, Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3-932338-77-9
  • The Lion in Love , 1960, dt. Der amliebte Löwe , 2019 in: A Taste Of Honey. Stories and plays , translated by Tobias Schwartz , AvivA Verlag, Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3-932338-77-9
  • Sweetly Sings the Donkey , 1963, German vodka and small pieces of gold , 1966 as well as newly translated Sweet sings the donkey , 2019 in: A Taste Of Honey. Stories and plays , translated by Tobias Schwartz , AvivA Verlag, Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3-932338-77-9

Film adaptations

literature

  • Selina Todd: Tastes of honey: the making of Shelagh Delaney and a cultural revolution . Chatto & Windus, London 2019 ISBN 978-1-78474-082-5
    • Übers. Tobias Schwartz : A taste of honey. Aviva, Berlin 2019 (German)
    • Partial print: Pavane for a dead prince. Jungle, supplement to jungle world , 50, December 12, 2019, p. 21ff. (Before that, essay by the translator Shakespeare's sister , on life and work, p. 19ff., photo by the author, p. 18)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Matthias Heine: Shelagh Delaney: Even old white men like them . In: THE WORLD . November 25, 2019 ( welt.de [accessed March 24, 2020]).
  2. ↑ "Shelagh Delaney, author of the play" A Taste of Honey ', this at 72 " , New York Times , November 24, 2011th
  3. ↑ "Bitter Honey" - playwright Shelagh Delaney dies, at Spiegel Online Kultur, November 21, 2011
  4. ↑ Shelagh Delaney dead - The woman who was a role model for the Beatles and Smiths - Shelagh Delaney became the creator of modern English social drama and an icon of pop culture with "A Taste of Honey". Now she has died at the age of 71, by Matthias Heine, Welt Online, November 22, 2011
  5. ^ Shelagh Delaney obituary - Feisty playwright best known for her ground-breaking debut, A Taste of Honey, by Dennis Barker, in the Guardian, November 21, 2011
  6. ↑ Shelagh Delaney, the playwright, who died on Sunday aged 71, wrote - at the age of 17 - A Taste of Honey (1958), which was to place her at the heart of what became known as the kitchen sink movement in Britain's post -war dramatic revival, The Telegraph, November 21, 2011
personal data
SURNAME Delaney, Shelagh
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British writer
DATE OF BIRTH November 25, 1938
PLACE OF BIRTH Broughton , Salford, Lancashire, England, United Kingdom
DATE OF DEATH November 20, 2011
Place of death Suffolk , East Anglia, England