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Dateline: 6th July, 2004
Peter Barnes (1931 - 2004) Dramatist Peter Barnes, who died last Thursday after a stroke at the age of 73, is probably best known for his The Ruling Classes, first performed at the Nottingham Playhouse in 1968, transferring to the Piccadilly the following year, and then become a film, starring Peter O'Toole, Arthur Lowe, Alistair Sim and Coral Browne. Although he wrote other plays of a similar satirical nature - Leonardo's Last Supper (1969), The Bewitched (1974), Laughter! (1978) and Red Noses (1985) - and numerous adaptations - Lulu, The Devil Is an Ass and On Purge Bébé - which were performed in a variety of theatres, from the Nottingham Playhouse to the Aldwych to the Royal Court and the Barbican, none were as popular as The Ruling Classes and, indeed, his greatest successes thereafter were film and TV scripts. He began his career working for London County Council and then, after national service in the RAF, joined the magazine Films and Filming. After two years there he joined Warwick Films as a story editor in 1956. He went on to script a number of low-budget films, mainly thrillers, and a television play, The Man With A Feather In His Hat. His first stage play was The Time of the Barracudas, performed in San Francisco in 1953, and his first play to be performed in the UK, a one-act play Sclerosis, was at the 1955 Edinburgh Festival. He was Oscar-nominated for his US TV adpatation of Enchanted April from the novel by Elizabeth von Arnim and his last work, Babies, was inspired by becoming a father at the age of 68 (he had a daughter and then triplets). Babies will be a two-part drama for Granada television. Please note that all three Archive indices are very long and will therefore take some time to download.
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