Theatre News

Taste of Honey Author Shelagh Delaney Dies Aged 72

| London's West End |

21 November 2011

Award-winning playwright and screenwriter Shelagh Delaney, best known for her 1958 debut play A Taste of Honey, has died aged 72.

Delaney was born in 1939 in Salford, the setting for A Taste of Honey. Written when she was just 18, it was first produced by Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop at the Theatre Royal Stratford East and became an instant success, transferring to the West End in 1959 and subsequently to New York.

The play centres on the experiences of a young working class girl who becomes pregnant when her promiscuous mother abandons her, and is supported by a gay artist. It successfully made the transition to the big screen in 1961, winning a Bafta for Delaney and the film’s director Tony Richardson.

Her subsequent credits were few and far between; among them, she wrote another play, A Lion in Love and the screenplay for 1985 film Dance with a Stranger.

But despite her small output her influence was considerable. Among those most affected by her was the singer Morrissey, who said in 1986: “I’ve never made any secret of the fact that at least 50 per cent of my reason for writing can be blamed on Shelagh Delaney … ‘This Night Has Opened My Eyes’ is a Taste Of Honey song – putting the entire play to words.”

An image of Delaney was used for the artwork of the Smiths’ “Louder Than Bombs” album.

Writing in Guardian last year, novelist Jeanette Winterson said: “She was like a lighthouse – pointing the way and warning about the rocks underneath. She was the first working-class woman playwright. She had all the talent and we let her go.”

Delaney’s agent Jane Villiers confirmed today that she died from cancer at her daughter’s home in eastern England on Sunday night.