Difference between revisions 337649223 and 337649329 on enwiki

[[Image:Girlfriend in a Coma.png|thumb|right|Delaney was featured three times on [[The Smiths|Smiths]] record sleeves, including this one for their 1987 single, "Girlfriend in a Coma".]]

'''Shelagh Delaney, FRSL''' (born 25 November 1939) is an [[England|English]] [[playwright]], best known for her debut work, ''[[A Taste of Honey]]''.

She was born in [[Broughton, Greater Manchester|Broughton]], [[Salford, Greater Manchester|Salford]] to [[Irish people|Irish]] immigrant parents and attended three different primary schools. After failing the [[Eleven plus exam|eleven-plus examination]] to qualify for grammar school, she went to Broughton Secondary School, where she saw her first stage production, an amateur performance of ''[[Othello]]'' at the age of 12.

Delaney eventually transferred to the local grammar school where she had a record of fair achievement. She left school at seventeen for a succession of jobs in [[Salford, Greater Manchester|Salford]], which included shop assistant, milk-depot clerk, and usherette. Her driving ambition was always to write.

At age seventeen Delaney began ''[[A Taste of Honey]]'' as a [[novel]], but soon realised that it would work better as a [[Play (theatre)|play]]. It focuses on a teen-aged [[working-class]] girl who refuses to conform to her dreary surroundings. The play portrays the lives of typical workers in the north of England in an inventive way.

''A Taste of Honey'' was accepted by [[Joan Littlewood]], [[theatre director|artistic director]] of the [[Theatre Workshop]], who strongly believed that plays should be about ordinary people. It opened at the [[Theatre Royal Stratford East]] in [[London]] on 27 May 1958, and on 10 February 1959, transferred to [[Wyndham's Theatre]] in the [[West End theatre|West End]], where it enjoyed a long run and won several awards. On 4 October 1960 the play opened at [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]]'s [[Lyceum Theatre (Broadway)|Lyceum Theatre]] with [[Joan Plowright]], [[Angela Lansbury]] and [[Billy Dee Williams]]. Two years later, Delaney co-wrote the adaptation for the [[A Taste of Honey (film)|film version]], with director [[Tony Richardson]], which starred [[Rita Tushingham]] and [[Dora Bryan]] and won Delaney and Richardson a [[BAFTA Award]] for Best British Screenplay. The film was one of the key films of the [[British New Wave]] of cinema. 

She has written a collection of [[short stories]] ''Sweetly Sings the Donkey'', several television plays, including ''Did your Nanny Come from Bergen?'' (1970), and ''St Martin's Summer'' (1974), award-winning scripts such as ''[[Charlie Bubbles]]'' (1967) and ''[[Dance with a Stranger]]'' (1985), and radio plays, i.e. ''So Does the Nightingale'' (1980), but Delaney never repeated the level of success she did with her first play. 

==Honours==
In 1985, Delaney was made a Fellow of the [[Royal Society of Literature]].

==Family==
She has one daughter, Charlotte, born in 1964 in London.

==External links==
*[http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Shelagh_Delaney.aspx Encyclopedia entry for Delaney]
*{{imdb|0216340}}
*[http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=delash The Orlando Project]

<!-- Metadata: see [[Wikipedia:Persondata]] -->

{{Persondata
|NAME              = Delaney, Shelagh
|ALTERNATIVE NAMES = 
|SHORT DESCRIPTION = English playwright
|DATE OF BIRTH     = 25 November 1939
|PLACE OF BIRTH    = [[Broughton, Greater Manchester|Broughton]], [[Salford, Greater Manchester|Salford]], [[England]]
|DATE OF DEATH     = 
|PLACE OF DEATH    =}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Delaney, Shelagh}}
[[Category:1939 births]]
[[Category:English dramatists and playwrights]]
[[Category:English people of Irish descent]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:People from Broughton]]

[[de:Shelagh Delaney]]
[[sv:Shelagh Delaney]]