Peter Nichols: All my Life in Tudor Manor

Abstract

There could be no more suitable writer with whom to start this section of the book than Peter Nichols. His dramatic roots lie in the first modern revival of the 50s, with television work dating from 1959; and he even received a passing mention in John Russell Taylor’s Anger and After (1962). His first stage play, A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, was not produced until 1967, however, and in the years that followed his has proved to be one of the most important voices of the new mainstream.

Hedley: What should they know of England who only know Heathrow?

Quennie: Knock it off, Hed. I know England. I lived all my life in Tudor Manor till I came to my senses. The irony, the privacy, the un-quote eccentricity. Over there you hear so often about the wonderful British theeyater you almost come to believe it so last night I went to a play. Irony. Sooner or later, no matter how the writer tries to slice it, the actors finish in a row delivering quote-unquote witty lines, and discussing the state of the nation. No conflict, no action, no resolution, no hope. Everybody goes home depressed out of their skulls.

Hedley: I’d have thought the West End theatre was the last place to look for an awareness of change.

(Peter Nichols, Born in the Garden, 1979)