Sad news coming out that one of Britain's most influential women playwrights of the past sixty years has died. 

Her well known play A Taste of Honey played on Broadway and in the West End before being made into an award winning film directed by Tony Richardson with wonderful performances from Dora Bryan, Rita Tushingham and Murray Melvin.

The play and film had a tremendous impact and resonance at the time- a beautiful tender story featuring a young woman falling pregnant, being befriended by a young gay man and setting up home together.  All these years later this may not sound particularly earth shattering but at the time was truly groundbreaking.

Delaney wasn't only leading the way for many women playwrights who followed - she inspired many of us from the North who found ourselves watching characters in streets we recognised with accents we understood in lives that felt like our own.

 

 

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Comment by Brad Birch on November 25, 2011 at 5:31

Hello Peter.

Hugely sad news. Glad that it's been acknowledged on here.

A real quality that completely transcended theatre - Morrissey says himself that if it wasn't for Delaney then he wouldn't have written at all. (Dare say, nor would he have been able to - having openly stolen a fair bit from her.)

Somewhat underrated, I think - We all talk about Osborne and Wesker etc - but for me, Delaney exuded a warmth and a heart that could sometimes get lost in the grittiness of kitchen sink. 

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