How Does Hare Rate His Fellow Playwrights???

Playwright David Hare has seen embarrassing revelations emerge following the recent publication of correspondence with his late agent, Peggy Ramsay. Ramsay’s archive, which was sold to the British Library following her death in 1991, is due to go on display for the first time this autumn. Ramsay herself was portrayed by Maureen Lipman in Alan Plater‘s 2000 play about her life, Peggy for You. But what did Hare make of his fellow playwrights? Correspondence sent between the pair revealed that Hare had been given sneak previews of his rivals work for over 10 years, sharing his thoughts on scripts by playwrights such as Stephen Poliakoff, Howard Brenton and Christopher Hampton. The letters also include Hare telling Ramsay that he thought Tom Stoppard’s screen adaptation of his own play, Knuckles, was “putrid”, something Hare now says he does not remember. Speaking to The Sunday Times about the revelations Stephen Poliakoff said: “Today, clients would leave an agency if they found out another writer was reading their plays. But then again, Peggy was obsessed with David. He was her boy.”