41-453: Sir Arnold Wesker FRSL (24 May 1932 – 12 April 2016) was an English dramatist . He was the author of 50 plays, four volumes of short stories, two volumes of essays, much journalism and a book on the subject, a children's book, some poetry, and other assorted writings. His plays have been translated into 20 languages, and performed worldwide. Wesker was born in Stepney , London, in 1932,
82-539: A challenging history in previews on the road, culminating (after the first night out of town in Philadelphia on 8 September 1977) with the death of the exuberant Broadway star Zero Mostel , who was initially cast as Shylock. Wesker wrote a book, The Birth of Shylock and the Death of Zero Mostel , chronicling the entire process from initial submissions and rejections of the play through to rehearsals, Zero's death, and
123-606: A charity that enables school children across the UK to perform Shakespeare in professional theatres. He was the castaway on Desert Island Discs , BBC Radio 4 , in 1966 and again in 2006. Wesker's papers, covering his entire career, were acquired by the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin in 2000. The collection contains not only the prolific output of the playwright, novelist and poet but also
164-606: A hotel in Norwich where Wesker was working as a kitchen porter and Doreen as a chambermaid. He gave her the nickname of "Dusty", because of her "gold-dust" hair; an Arts Council bursary of £500 covered the cost of their marriage. The character Beatie, in the "Wesker trilogy" of plays, was inspired by her. The couple had three children: Lindsay, Tanya and Daniel. Lindsay was named after director Lindsay Anderson . Tanya died in 2012. Wesker also had another daughter Elsa, with Swedish journalist, Disa Håstad. Wesker died on 12 April 2016 at
205-538: A locale which typified Wesker's political views as an ' angry young man '. Wesker's play Roots (1959) was a kitchen sink drama about a girl, Beatie Bryant, who returns after three years of stay in London to her farming family home in Norfolk and struggles to voice herself. Critics commended the "emotional authenticity" brought out in the play. Roots , The Kitchen , and Their Very Own and Golden City were staged by
246-487: A series of major new initiatives and 60 new appointments championing the great diversity of writing and writers in the UK". Initiatives included RSL Open (electing new Fellows from communities, backgrounds and experiences currently under-represented in UK literary culture), RSL International Writers (recognising the contribution of writers across the globe to literature in English) and Sky Arts RSL Writers Awards. In 2021,
287-542: A significant contribution to the advancement of literature, including publishers, agents, librarians, booksellers or producers, or who have rendered special service to the RSL. Paid membership is open to all and offers a variety of benefits. The society publishes an annual magazine, The Royal Society of Literature Review , and administers a number of literary prizes and awards, including the RSL Ondaatje Prize ,
328-600: A time it when was edited by Harold Evans . The RSC's literary manager Ronald Bryden thought it would be "the play of the decade" and it was scheduled to be directed by David Jones . The actors in that year's RSC company refused to perform it, Wesker said, because they were under the influence of the Workers Revolutionary Party . (The WRP was not founded until 1973, but its forerunner, the Socialist Labour League had many sympathisers in
369-517: Is framed within the larger historical context of international events. Wesker was actively involved in the organizing of his archive, and before shipping it to the Ransom Center, Wesker compiled a list of the contents, which is also available to scholars for consultation. The collection's contents include over three hundred boxes of manuscript drafts, correspondence, production ephemera, personal records, and other materials. Wesker's family shipped
410-463: The Benson Medal for lifetime service in the field of literature . The RSL runs a membership programme offering a variety of events to members and the general public. Membership of the RSL is open to all. The RSL also runs an outreach programme, currently for young people and those in prison. The RSL administers two annual prizes, two awards, and two honours. Through its prize programmes,
451-685: The Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton. He was suffering from Parkinson's disease . Wesker received numerous awards throughout his career. In 1958 he received grant of £ 300 for the play Chicken Soup from the Arts Council of Great Britain . He used the money to marry Bicker. The following year he won the Evening Standard Theatre Award in the "Most Promising Playwright" category. He
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#1732780007511492-571: The 1950s who, like so many angry young people, changed the face of our country. The BBC repeated in May 2016 the retrospective radio programme on Wesker's career first broadcast on his 80th birthday. "And though, like most writers, I fear dying before I write that one masterpiece for which I'll be remembered, yet I look at the long row of published work that I keep before me on my desk and I think, not bad, Wesker, not bad." – Wesker on his 70th birthday Wesker married Doreen Bicker in 1958, after meeting at
533-557: The Blitz . He then returned to live with his parents who had moved to a council flat in Hackney , East London, where he attended Northwold Road School. He then attended Upton House Central School, Hackney, from 1943. This was a school where emphasis was placed on teaching office skills, including typing, to bright boys who however had not been selected for grammar school places. He was then evacuated again to Llantrisant , South Wales . He
574-723: The English Stage Company at the Royal Court Theatre under the management of George Devine and later William Gaskill . Wesker's 1962 play "Chips With Everything" shows class attitudes at the time by examining the life of an Army corporal. Wesker joined with enthusiasm the Royal Court group on the Aldermaston March in 1959. Another of the Royal Court contingent, Lindsay Anderson , made a short documentary film ( March to Aldermaston ) about
615-590: The RSC.) Wesker wrote in 2004 that he had also "committed the politically incorrect crime of creating Tory ministers who were intelligent rather than caricatures". The Journalists received its American premiere at the Back Alley Theatre in Los Angeles in 1979. It was directed by Laura Zucker and produced by Allan Miller . Wesker's play The Merchant (1976), which he later renamed Shylock , uses
656-576: The RSL Giles St Aubyn Awards for Non-Fiction, the RSL Encore Award for best second novel of the year and the V. S. Pritchett Memorial Prize for short stories. In 2000, the RSL published a volume that provides a description and history of the society, written by one of its fellows, Isabel Quigly . In 2020, the RSL celebrated its 200th anniversary with the announcement of RSL 200, "a five-year festival launched with
697-554: The RSL Council responsible for its direction and management, being drawn from the Fellowship. As an independent charity, the RSL receives no regular public or government funding, relying on the support of its Members, Patrons, Fellows and friends to continue its work. The RSL has about 600 Fellows, elected from among the best writers in any genre currently at work. Additionally, Honorary Fellows are chosen from those who have made
738-1038: The RSL launched "Literature Matters: Reading Together", a project aiming to make recreational reading accessible to young people across the UK. The society maintains its current level of about 600 Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature : generally 14 new fellows are elected annually, who are accorded the privilege of using the post-nominal letters FRSL. Past and present fellows include Samuel Taylor Coleridge , J. R. R. Tolkien , W. B. Yeats , Rudyard Kipling , Thomas Hardy , George Bernard Shaw , Arthur Koestler , Chinua Achebe , Ruth Prawer Jhabvala , Robert Ardrey , Sybille Bedford , Muriel Spark , P. J. Kavanagh , Hilary Mantel , and Sir Roger Scruton . Present Fellows include Margaret Atwood , Bernardine Evaristo , David Hare , Kazuo Ishiguro , Andrew Motion , Paul Muldoon , Zadie Smith , Nadeem Aslam , Sarah Waters , Geoffrey Ashe , J. K. Rowling , and Nick Cave . A newly created fellow inscribes his or her name on
779-473: The RSL roll book. The RSL's 2022–23 Open initiative aimed to recognise writers from backgrounds currently underrepresented in UK literary culture by electing 60 fellows over a two-year period from communities, backgrounds and experiences currently under-represented in UK literary culture, through drawing on a broad range of writers from "different parts of the UK, from different communities, different demographics", as Bernardine Evaristo noted. The * before
820-422: The RSL supports new and established contemporary writers. The Council of the Royal Society of Literature is central to the election of new fellows, and directs the RSL's activities through its monthly meetings. Council members serve for a fixed term of four years, with new members being elected by Council when members retire. The Royal Society of Literature comprises more than 600 Fellows, who are entitled to use
861-491: The action is concerned with the dotcom boom . In 2008, Wesker published his first collection of poetry, All Things Tire of Themselves (Flambard Press). The collection dates back many years and represents what he considered his best and most characteristic poems. He was a member of the editorial advisory board of Jewish Renaissance magazine. He was a patron of the Shakespeare Schools Festival ,
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#1732780007511902-465: The community. Centre 42 was initially a touring festival aimed at devolving art and culture from London to the other main working class towns of Britain, moving to the Roundhouse in 1964. The project to establish a permanent arts centre struggled through subsequent years, because its funding was limited; Wesker fictionalised it in his play Their Very Own and Golden City (1966). He formally dissolved
943-468: The disappointment of the critical reception for the Broadway opening. The book reveals much about the playwright's relationship to director John Dexter (who had been the earliest, near-familial interpreter of Wesker's works), to criticism, to casting, and to the ephemeral process of collaboration through which the text of any play must pass. In 2005, he published his first novel, Honey , which recounted
984-463: The event. He was an active member of the Committee of 100 and, with other prominent members, was jailed in 1961 for his part in its campaign of mass nonviolent resistance to nuclear weapons. After his stay in prison in 1961, Wesker made a full-time commitment to become the leader of an initiative which arose from Resolution 42 of the 1960 Trades Union Congress , concerning the importance of arts in
1025-507: The experiences of Beatie Bryant, the heroine of his earlier play Roots . The novel broke from the previously established chronology. Roots was set in the early 1960s and Beatie is 22; but in Honey she has only aged three years yet the action has been transplanted into the 1980s. Other oddities are that the timeframe includes the Rushdie affair and John Major 's fall as recent events and yet
1066-606: The last of his papers to the Ransom Center in March, 2016 shortly before his death. On 13 April 2016, the Leader of the Opposition, Jeremy Corbyn , gave thanks for the playwright's life. They shared a socialist background in London, where Corbyn is an MP. I am sure the whole House will join me in mourning the death of the dramatist Arnold Wesker, one of the great playwrights of this country, one of those wonderful angry young men of
1107-482: The letter of the law or jeopardise the scant legal security of the entire Jewish community. He is, therefore, quite as grateful as Antonio when Portia, as in Shakespeare's play, shows the legal way out. The play received its American premiere on 16 November 1977 at New York's Plymouth Theatre with Joseph Leon as Shylock, Marian Seldes as Shylock's sister Rivka and Roberta Maxwell as Portia. This production had
1148-507: The name denotes an Honorary Fellow. The list is online at the RSL website. The RSL International Writers programme is a new life-long honour and award recognizing the contribution of writers across the globe to literature in English, and the power of literature to transcend borders in bringing people together, the inaugural list of recipients being announced in 2021. Roundhouse (venue) Too Many Requests If you report this error to
1189-553: The post-nominal letters FRSL . New fellows of the Royal Society of Literature are elected by its current fellows. To be nominated for fellowship, a writer must have published two works of literary merit, and nominations must be seconded by an RSL fellow. All nominations are presented to members of the Council of the Royal Society of Literature, who vote biannually to elect new fellows. Nominated candidates who have not been successful are reconsidered at every election for three years from
1230-573: The project in 1970, although The Roundhouse did eventually open as a permanent arts centre in 2006. Wesker co-founded, in 1974, the Writers & Readers Publishing Cooperative Ltd , with a group of writers that included John Berger , Lisa Appignanesi , Richard Appignanesi , Chris Searle and Glenn Thompson. The Journalists (1972) was commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company and researched at The Sunday Times at
1271-501: The same three stories used by Shakespeare for his play The Merchant of Venice . In this retelling, Shylock and Antonio are fast friends bound by a common love of books, culture and a disdain for the crass antisemitism of the Christian community's laws. They make the bond in defiant mockery of the Christian establishment, never anticipating that the bond might become forfeit. When it does, the play argues, Shylock must carry through on
Arnold Wesker - Misplaced Pages Continue
1312-428: The society's official roll using either Byron's pen, T. S. Eliot 's fountain pen , which replaced Dickens 's quill in 2013, or (as of 2018) George Eliot 's pen, with pens belonging to Jean Rhys and Andrea Levy being additional choices from 2020. From time to time, the RSL confers the honour and title of Companion of Literature to writers of particular note. Additionally, the RSL can bestow its award of
1353-498: The son of Leah (née Cecile Leah Perlmutter), a cook, and Joseph Wesker, a tailor's machinist and active communist. Arnold Wesker was delivered by Samuel Sacks, father of neurologist Oliver Sacks . He attended a Jewish Infants School in Whitechapel . His education was then fragmented during World War II . He was briefly evacuated to Ely , Cambridgeshire , before returning to London where he attended Dean Street School during
1394-432: The voice of literature in the UK, the RSL has about 600 Fellows, elected from among the best writers in any genre currently at work. Additionally, Honorary Fellows are chosen from those who have made a significant contribution to the advancement of literature, including publishers, agents, librarians, booksellers or producers. The society is a cultural tenant at London's Somerset House . The Royal Society of Literature (RSL)
1435-532: The year in which they were proposed. Newly elected fellows are introduced at the Society's AGM and summer party. While the President reads a citation for each, they are invited to sign their names in the roll book which dates back to 1820, using either T. S. Eliot 's fountain pen or Byron 's pen. In 2013, Charles Dickens ' quill was retired and replaced with Eliot's fountain pen, and in 2018 George Eliot 's pen
1476-662: Was knighted in the 2006 New Year Honours . In December 2021 a plaque in Wesker's memory was installed at his former primary school, Northwold Road, Hackney, London, by the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation . The following list is drawn from Arnold Wesker's official website. Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature The Royal Society of Literature ( RSL ) is a learned society founded in 1820 by King George IV to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents
1517-648: Was later made into a film , came when he was working at the Bell Hotel in Norwich . It was while working here that he met his future wife Dusty. Wesker's plays have dealt with themes including self-discovery, love, confronting death and political disillusion. Chicken Soup with Barley (1958) went out to the regions. Rather than opening in the West End , its premiere was seen at the Coventry Theatre ,
1558-675: Was accepted into the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art but could not afford to take up his place there. Later, he served for two years in the Royal Air Force , and then went on to work as cook, furniture maker, and bookseller. After saving up enough money, he went to study at the London School of Film Technique, now known as the London Film School His inspiration for the 1957 play The Kitchen , which
1599-447: Was founded in 1820, with the patronage of George IV , to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent", and its first president was Thomas Burgess , Bishop of St David's (who was later translated as Bishop of Salisbury ). As of 2018, the RSL's patron is Queen Camilla , who took over in the role from Elizabeth II . At the heart of the RSL is its Fellowship, "which encompasses the most distinguished writers working today", with
1640-404: Was offered as a choice, the first time in the RSL's history that a pen that belonged to a woman writer was an option. In 2018, the RSL honoured the achievements of Britain's younger writers through the initiative "40 Under 40", which saw the election of 40 new fellows aged under 40. In 2020, pens belonging to Andrea Levy and Jean Rhys were added to the choices offered to fellows for signing
1681-786: Was presented with the Italian Marzotto Prize (a cash award of £3000) in 1964 for Their Very Own and Golden City , and the Spanish Best Foreign Play Award in 1979. He became a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1985 and was presented with the Goldie Award in 1987. For his "distinguished service to theatre" he was honoured with the Last Frontier Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999. He