Peter Barnes (playwright)

Peter Barnes (playwright)
Peter Barnes (10 January 1931 – 1 July 2004) was an English Olivier Award-winning playwright and screenwriter. His best known work is the play The Ruling Class, which was made into a 1972 film for which Peter O'Toole received an Oscar nomination.
Biography
Early career
Barnes was educated at Marling School in Stroud, Gloucestershire and performed his national service with the Royal Air Force. He then worked briefly for London County Council.
Bored with his job, Barnes took a correspondence course in theology and began to visit the British Museum Reading Room, which he used as an office on a daily basis. During this period he worked as a film critic, story editor, and a screenwriter. He achieved critical and box-office success with his baroque comedy The Ruling Class (1968), which debuted at the Nottingham Playhouse. The play was notorious for its anti-naturalistic approach, unusual in theatre at the time. Critic Harold Hobson deemed it to be one of the best first plays of its generation. Following a successful three-month run in the West End, Barnes adapted the play for the 1972 film of the same name, which featured a highly acclaimed performance by Peter O'Toole.
Later plays
Following his initial success, Barnes wrote a series of plays offering apocalyptic visions of various periods in history:
Leonardo's Last Supper (1969) portrayed Leonardo da Vinci as prematurely declared dead, with his subsequent "resurrection" in a filthy charnel-house.
The Bewitched (1974), which he produced with the Royal Shakespeare Company, showed the Spanish state attempting to produce an heir for Carlos II, whom Barnes portrayed as being an impotent imbecile.
Laughter! (1978) was his most controversial work, a double-bill that jumped from the reign of Ivan the Terrible to a satire based on the tedious bureaucracy required to sustain Auschwitz concentration camp.
Red Noses (1985) depicts a sprightly priest, originally played by Antony Sher, who travelled around the plague-affected villages of 14th-century France with a band of fools, known as God's Zanies, offering holy assistance. It was for this play that Barnes won his Olivier award.
Later life
In his later years Barnes turned his attention more in the direction of films, radio, and television. His screenplay for Elizabeth von Arnim's The Enchanted April earned him a nomination for the best adapted screenplay Oscar in 1992. He also wrote several hugely successful mini-series for U.S. television, including Arabian Nights, Merlin and Noah's Ark. For BBC Radio 3 he wrote a series of monologues entitled Barnes's People, for which he attracted a large number of well known actors: Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, Alec Guinness, Peggy Ashcroft, Judi Dench, and Ian McKellen. His television miniseries for ABC and NBC were the most popular of the day with record audiences.
Barnes continued writing historical comedies throughout the 1990s. These include Sunsets and Glories (1990), Dreaming (1999) which transferred to London's West End, and Jubilee (2001). He was the Royal Shakespeare Company's most produced living playwright at the time.
The last play that Barnes completed was Babies, which is based on his experiences as an elderly father. His second wife gave birth to a daughter when he was 69, followed by triplets a year later.
John Irvin directed his The Moon and the Stars with Alfred Molina about the film business in 1930s' Rome. A revival of his Noonday Demons was produced by renowned theatre designer John Napier. Barnes television miniseries are shown yearly as holiday favourites.
Personal life
Barnes, who had two sons and two daughters, married twice – in 1958 to Charlotte Beck and in 1995 to Christie Horn. His second wife, Christie, gave birth to his first daughter Leela in 2000 when he was 69. Barnes, who received much American mainstream media attention for his movies and US television miniseries in later life, quickly became a tabloid obsession in 2002 when he became a father again at the age of 71. His wife gave birth this time to triplets Abigail, Nathaniel and Zachary. Barnes died of a stroke on 1 July 2004.
Works
Theatre plays
The Time of the Barracudas, Curran Theatre, San Francisco, 1963
Sclerosis, Aldwych Theatre, 1965
The Ruling Class, Nottingham/Piccadilly Theatre, 1968
Leonardo’s Last Supper, Open Space, 1969
Noonday Demons, Open Space, 1969
The Bewitched, RSC at the Aldwych Theatre, 1974
Laughter!, Royal Court, 1978
Somersaults (revue), Leicester, 1981
Red Noses, RSC, 1985
Sunsets And Glories, Yorkshire Playhouse, 1990
Luna Park Eclipses, National Theatre Studio, 1995
Corpsing (revue), Tristan Bates Theatre, 1996
Clap Hands Here Comes Charlie, (first act was to have been performed in 1967, second act written in 1996)
Heaven’s Blessings, Florida State University, 1997
Dreaming, Royal, Exchange & Queen’s Theatre, 1999
Jubilee, RSC, 2001
Original works for radio
My Ben Johnson, 1973
Barnes' People : Seven Monologues, 1981
Barnes' People II: Seven Duologues, 1984
Barnes People III: Eight Trialogues, 1986
No End to Dreaming, 1987
More Barnes' People, 1990
Original screenplays
Violent Moment (film, Anglo Amalgamated, 1959)
Breakout (film, Anglo Amalgamated, 1959)
The White Trap (film, Anglo Amalgamated, 1959)
The Professionals (film, Anglo Amalgamated, 1960)
The Devil Inside (aka Off-Beat, film, 1961)
Ring of Spies (aka, Ring of Treason, film written with Frank Launder, 1964)
Not with My Wife, You Don't! (film co-writer, 1966)
The Ruling Class (film, 1972)
Original teleplays
Checkmate (No Hiding Place TV series 1959)
With Suicidal Intent (No Hiding Place TV series 1959)
Who Is Gustav Varnia? (No Hiding Place TV series 1959)
The Man with a Feather in His Hat (Armchair Mystery Theatre TV Series 1960)
Breakout (Kraft Mystery Theater TV Series 1961)
Nobody Here but Us Chickens: Nobody Here but Us Chickens, More than a Touch of Zen, Not as Bad as They Seem (Channel 4, 1989)
Revolutionary Witness: The Patriot, The Preacher, The Butcher, The Amazon 1989
The Spirit of Man (BBC Two 1990)
Bye Bye Columbus (BBC Two 1992)
Merlin (Hallmark 1998): two episodes
Adaptations for stage, screen and radio
Lulu: A Sex Tragedy (adaptation of Frank Wedekind's plays Earth Spirit and Pandora's Box), produced at Nottingham Playhouse / Royal Court Theatre, London, 1970
The Alchemist (adaptation of a play by Ben Jonson), produced at Old Vic Theatre, 1970
The Devil Is an Ass (adaptation of a play by Ben Jonson), produced at Nottingham Playhouse, 1973 revised version, Edinburgh Festival, 1976 then National Theatre, London, 1977
For All Those Who Get Despondent (cabaret; based on works by Bertolt Brecht and Frank Wedekind), produced at Theatre Upstairs, 1976
The Frontiers of Farce (adaptation of the plays The Purging by Georges Feydeau and The Singer by Frank Wedekind), produced at Old Vic Theatre, 1976
Bartholomew Fair (based on the play by Ben Jonson), produced at Round House Theatre, 1978 then London, 1987
Antonio (based on John Marston's plays Antonio' and Mellida and Antonio's Revenge), produced at Nottingham Playhouse, 1979
Chaste Maid in Cheapside (radio adaptation of a play by Thomas Middleton), BBC, 1979
The Two Hangmen (radio adaptation of Barnes's stage play For All Those Who Get Despondent), 1979
Eulogy on Baldness (radio adaptation of a work by Synesius of Cyrene), BBC, 1980
The Devil Himself (revue; adaptation of works by Frank Wedekind), music by Carl Davis and Stephen Deutsch, produced at Lyric Hammersmith Theatre, London, 1980
The Atheist (radio adaptation of play by Thomas Otway), BBC, 1981
The Singer (radio adaptation of work by Frank Wedekind), 1981
The Soldier's Fortune (radio adaptation of a play by Thomas Otway), BBC, 1981
The Dutch Courtesan (radio adaptation of play by John Marston), BBC, 1982
The Magician, radio adaptation of work by Maxim Gorky, 1982
A Mad World, My Masters (radio adaptation of a play by Thomas Middleton), 1983
The Primrose Path (radio adaptation of a play by Georges Feydeau), 1984
A Trick to Catch the Old One (radio adaptation of a play by Thomas Middleton), 1985
Scenes from a Marriage (based on the play by Georges Feydeau), produced at Barbican Theatre, London, 1986
The Old Law (radio adaptation of a play by Thomas Middleton, William Rowley and Philip Massinger), 1986
Woman of Paris (radio adaptation of work by Henri Becque), 1986
Don Juan and Faust (radio adaptation of by C. D. Grabbe), 1987
The Magnetic Lady (radio adaptation of a play by Ben Jonson), 1987
Tango at the End of Winter (based on a play by Kunio Shimizu), produced in London, 1991
Hard Times (television adaptation of the novel by Charles Dickens), BBC, 1994
Enchanted April (screen adaptation of the novel by Elizabeth Von Arnim), Miramax, 1992
Voices (aka Voices from a Locked Room, screen adaptation written with Nicholas Meyer of the book Double Jeopardy by Mark A. Stuart), 1995
Noah's Ark (television adaptation) Hallmark, 1999
A Christmas Carol (television adaptation) Hallmark, 1999
Alice in Wonderland (television adaptation) Hallmark, 1999
Arabian Nights (television adaptation) Hallmark, 2000
Selected filmography
Violent Moment (1959)
References
Bibliography
Woolland, Brian (2004). Dark Attractions: The Theatre of Peter Barnes. London, Methuen, .
External links
"Peter Barnes", Fellows Remembered, The Royal Society of Literature
1931 births
2004 deaths
20th-century British dramatists and playwrights
British male screenwriters
English male dramatists and playwrights
English satirists
Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature
Laurence Olivier Award winners
People educated at Marling School
People from Bow, London
20th-century British screenwriters