The Playwrights Database
TREVOR GRIFFITHS
(1935 - )
Nationality:
English
email:
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Literary Agent:
United Agents
Trevor Griffiths was born and educated in Manchester and has been writing for Theatre, television and cinema since the late 1960s. His extensive work for the screen includes three major television series - Bill Brand, Sons and Lovers, and the Last Place on earth; numerous single plays including all Good Men and Through the Night, and television films Country and Food for Ravens. Many of his stage plays have also been produced on television. For his film Reds, written with Warren Beatty, he received the Writers Guild of America Best Screenplay award and an Oscar nomination. Other films have included Country, directed by Richard eyre, and Fatherland, directed by Ken Loach. From the 1980s onwards he has also directed his own work both in Theatre and on film. Food for Ravens, which he wrote and directed for BBC Wales, won both a Royal Television Society award and a Welsh BAFTA. In 1982 Trevor Griffiths was given the BAFTA Writers award.
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Absolute Beginners
Synopsis:
-
Notes:
episode in the series "Fall of eagles" BBC 1974
1st Produced:
Reading Warehouse, Covent Garden, London
01 Nov 1979
Organisations:
RSC
1st Published:
in "Griffiths, Trevor, Collected Plays For Televison" Faber, London, 1988
Music:
-
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Genre:
Play
Parts:
Male: 12 Female: 2 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
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All Good Men
Synopsis:
a country house in Surrey, the home of Edward Waite, former miner and aging Labour grandee who served his apprenticeship during the General Strike. a young television producer prepares Waite for an interview on his past as a miner, union leader and politician. as Waite and his family wade deeper into the swamp of his past, the question is asked if the radical politician is all he seems. . . Does one bad judgement mean you are not a good man?
Notes:
televised 31 Jan1974
1st Produced:
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
Faber and Faber, London, 1977
Music:
-
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Genre:
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: 3 Female: 1 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
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Apricots
Synopsis:
a lyrical, erotic, 'interlude' on the sexual politics of love in marriage.
Notes:
-
1st Produced:
Basement Theatre, Greek Street, London
1971
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
Music:
-
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Genre:
Short Drama One act
Parts:
Male: 1 Female: 1 Other: -
Further Reference:
National Library of Scotland ref: Traverse - Dep.256/Box 25/8
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Big House, The
Synopsis:
-
Notes:
broadcast 1969
1st Produced:
Newcastle Upon Tyne
1975
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
Calder & Boyers, London, 1972
Music:
-
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Genre:
Political Drama
Parts:
Male: 6 Female: 2 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
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Camel Station
Synopsis:
the setting is North iraq where a 14 year old shepherd boy recounts to his cousin a tale he hopes to tell on a storytellers course in Nineveh. it turns out to be a subversive, shaggy camel story in which Saddam husein is the humiliated victim.
Michael Billington, Guardian
Notes:
-
1st Produced:
Cooper Union Hall, New York
2001
Organisations:
artists Network of Refuse and Resist
1st Published:
Music:
-
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Genre:
Short Drama One act
Parts:
Male: 1 Female: 1 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
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Caucasia
Synopsis:
-
Notes:
based on short stories by Anton Chekhov
1st Produced:
-
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
-
Music:
-
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Genre:
adaptation
Parts:
Male: - Female: - Other: -
Further Reference:
-
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Cherry Orchard, The
Synopsis:
the story of mortgage with the grounds of the proud house being sold to pay off debts
Notes:
Original Playwright - Anton Chekhov. Translated by Helen Rappaport. Also produced for BBC television in 1981
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Genre:
adaptation
Parts:
Male: 16 Female: 6 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
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Comedians
tutorial for budding comics before they face a London agent, explores how and why laughter is engineered
Notes:
also produced for BBC television in 1981
1st Produced:
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
Music:
-
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Genre:
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: 11 Female: - Other: -
Further Reference:
-
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Consequences
Synopsis:
eight playwrights play consequences in the 21stC as a last gasp for Foco Novo, killed by the government and the Arts Council
Notes:
written with Brenton, Dunn, Ikoli, Sobol, Williams, Wilson, Wymark
1st Produced:
Croydon
1988
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
-
Music:
-
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Genre:
Colaboration
Parts:
Male: 7 Female: 1 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
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Country: "A Tory Story"
Synopsis:
-
Notes:
-
1st Produced:
Bbc Tv
1981
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
Faber and Faber, London, 1981
Music:
-
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Genre:
T.V. Play
Parts:
Male: - Female: - Other: large cast
Further Reference:
-
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Deeds
Synopsis:
Baby dies from chemicals in Nuzzles Milk Powder, wife disappears,, husband jailed, wickedness all round.
Notes:
written with Brenton Cambell, Hare
1st Produced:
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
Plays & Players, May/June, London, 1978
Music:
-
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Genre:
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: - Female: - Other: -
Further Reference:
-
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Fatherland
Synopsis:
-
Notes:
-
1st Produced:
Channel Four International
1986
Organisations:
Kestrel Films
1st Published:
Faber and Faber, London, 1987
Music:
-
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Genre:
Film
Parts:
Male: - Female: - Other: -
Further Reference:
-
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Food For Raven
Synopsis:
-
Notes:
-
1st Produced:
-
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
Oberon, London, 1998
Music:
-
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Genre:
-
Parts:
Male: - Female: - Other: -
Further Reference:
-
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Gulf Between Us, The: the Truth And Other Fictions
Synopsis:
-
Notes:
-
1st Produced:
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
Music:
-
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Genre:
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: 6 Female: 1 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
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Gun
Synopsis:
A fragment in which a middle-aged man, apparently catatonic, sits in a wheelchair.
Notes:
-
1st Produced:
Pool, Edinburgh
1973
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
-
Music:
-
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Genre:
fragment
Parts:
Male: - Female: - Other: -
Further Reference:
-
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Habaccuc Dreams
the King James Version of the Bible (KJV) is a foundation stone of the english language. the KJV was composed as a collective project and written to be spoken. Sixty-Six Books has been created, in the spirit of the original, in the same way. Pulpit to print; stage to page; mediated through many forms oral and written, the KJV has, since its inception, been a fundamental part of written and spoken english.This is a work that has travelled to every continent of the globe. It has been shared as a melodic instrument of inspiration, illumination and mutual understanding; and it has also been wielded as a tool of colonial oppression. Sixty-Six Books is a fresh interpretation of the KJV for the new millennium, celebrating and challenging the traditions and achievements of this great work on the occasion of its 400th anniversary. the curators of this project have gathered together a formidable and inspiring line-up of the best established and emerging writing talent to produce a new version of the KJV for thetwenty-first century. each writer has created anew a book of the KJV - as prose, poetry, Drama, performance, song, or ground-breaking digital form. each writer has spoken back to the KJV with untrammeled inventiveness of the imagination. the voices of Sixty-Six Books, drawn from across five continents, innovate, transmute, transpose, reinvent and talk back to four hundredyears of history. all the works that make up Sixty-Six Books are written to be spoken. Culminating in major performance events at the Bush theatre and Westminster abbey in 2011 in London, Sixty-Six Books is a contribution towards the mutual curiosity, tolerance, and force of collective enterprise and shared humanity that characterizes the international and ancient Arts of writing and spoken performance
Notes:
Part of Sixty-Six Books: 21st-century writers speak to the King James Bible. Play is A response to the King James Bible book of Habakkuk
1st Produced:
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-
1st Published:
Music:
-
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Genre:
piece
Parts:
Male: - Female: - Other: -
Further Reference:
-
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Hope In the Year Two
Synopsis:
-
Notes:
also produced for the theatre, under the title "Who Shall Be Happy. . .?
1st Produced:
Bbc Tv
1994
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
Faber and Faber, London, 1994
Music:
-
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Genre:
T.V. Drama
Parts:
Male: 2 Female: 1 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
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Jake's Brigade
Synopsis:
-
Notes:
-
1st Produced:
-
1971
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
-
Music:
-
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Genre:
Radio Play
Parts:
Male: - Female: - Other: -
Further Reference:
-
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Judgement Over the Dead: the Screenplays Of the Last Place On Earth
Synopsis:
-
Notes:
-
1st Produced:
Televised
1985
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
London, Verso, 1986
Music:
-
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Genre:
Screenplay
Parts:
Male: - Female: - Other: -
Further Reference:
-
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Lay By
Synopsis:
Fellatio as rape gets perpetrator ten years and pregnant heroin addict victim committed to Holloway. Denouement as main characters are washed in blood and made into jam.
Notes:
written by Brenton, Clark, Griffiths, Hare, Poliakoff, Stoddart, Wilson
1st Produced:
Edinburgh
1971
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
in "Plays & Players" Nov 1971. London, Calder & Boyars, 1972,
Music:
-
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Genre:
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: 4 Female: 2 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
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New World, A
Synopsis:
moving story of the life and loves of Thomas Paine
Notes:
-
1st Produced:
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
-
Music:
-
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Genre:
Historical
Parts:
Male: - Female: - Other: large cast
Further Reference:
-
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Occupations
Synopsis:
about revolutionary politics in Turin in the 1920's
Notes:
also produced for Granada TV in 1974
1st Produced:
Stables Theatre Club, Manchester
1970
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
Music:
-
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Genre:
Political Drama
Parts:
Male: 10 Female: 3 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
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Oi For England
Synopsis:
-
Notes:
televised by Central Television, 1982.
1st Produced:
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
Music:
-
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Genre:
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: 5 Female: 1 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
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Party, The
Synopsis:
1968 student rising in Paris. In London a group of people meet to discuss the implications for them and their belief in a socialist society and how it can be achieved
Notes:
also produced for BBC TV in 1988
1st Produced:
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
Music:
-
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Genre:
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: 10 Female: 5 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
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Piano
Synopsis:
-
Notes:
based on the film Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano (1980) by A Adabashyan And N Mikhalkov; subtitle translation by Peter Seward And Lydia Seward.
1st Produced:
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
Music:
-
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Genre:
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: 12 Female: 3 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
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Real Dreams
Synopsis:
Real Dreams is respectfully dedicated to those many Americans who continue to struggle for justice and equality against all the odds in a land, long mad, whose Dream has by now become, almost literally, the rest of the world's nightmare; and if to one in particular, to the friend, comrade and writer of promise who gave me his story. (Trevor Griffiths, 1987)
Notes:
story Revolution in Cleveland by Jeremy Pikser.
1st Produced:
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
Music:
-
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Genre:
adaptation
Parts:
Male: 8 Female: 4 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
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Reds
Synopsis:
-
Notes:
with Warren Beatty
1st Produced:
-
1981
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
-
Music:
-
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Genre:
Screenplay
Parts:
Male: - Female: - Other: -
Further Reference:
-
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Sam, Sam
Synopsis:
two brothers, one of whom stays in his own class while the other moves up and, perhaps, on
Notes:
-
1st Produced:
Open Space, London
1972
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
Music:
-
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Genre:
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: 5 Female: 5 Other: -
Further Reference:
National Library of Scotland ref: Traverse - Dep.256.Box 25/8
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Sons And Lovers
Synopsis:
"I choose to do this work because, . . .there is, in this Lawrence, and vibrantly so, a powerful and radical celebration of dignity in resistance within working-class culture in industrial class-societies . . ." Trevor Griffiths in his Introduction
Notes:
Trevor Griffiths' screenplay of the novel by D.H. Lawrence
1st Produced:
Bbc Tv
1981
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
Music:
-
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Genre:
Screenplay
Parts:
Male: - Female: - Other: -
Further Reference:
-
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Such Impossibilities
Synopsis:
-
Notes:
commissioned by the BBC As part of the edwardians but not shown, 1971
1st Produced:
Warehouse, Covent Garden, London
11 Jan 1979
Organisations:
RSC
1st Published:
in Two Plays for Television, Faber and Faber, London, 1977
Music:
-
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Genre:
play reading
Parts:
Male: - Female: - Other: large cast
Further Reference:
RSC ref STI198510
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Thatcher's Children
Synopsis:
-
Notes:
-
1st Produced:
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
Music:
-
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Genre:
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: 5 Female: 4 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
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Thermidor
Synopsis:
a short, sharp, analytical look at emergent Stalinism in the Soviet Union in the thirties. Dramatised as an interrogation between a bureaucrat and a suspected 'dissident'. It shows the origins of the attitutes responsible still for the persecution of Soviet dissidents.
Notes:
-
1st Produced:
Cranston Street, Edinburgh
1971
Organisations:
7:84 Theatre Company
1st Published:
Music:
-
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Genre:
Short Political Drama One act
Parts:
Male: 1 Female: 1 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
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These Are The Times
Synopsis:
Trevor Griffiths' thrilling screenplay follows Tom Paine from persecution in england, to the American War of Independence, to Revolutionary France. It mixes politics, love and war.
Notes:
-
1st Produced:
Bbc Radio 4
2008
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
Music:
-
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Genre:
Screenplay
Parts:
Male: - Female: - Other: -
Further Reference:
-
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Through the Night
Synopsis:
-
Notes:
-
1st Produced:
Bbc
1975
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
in Two Plays for Television, Faber and Faber, London, 1977
Music:
-
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Genre:
Television
Parts:
Male: - Female: - Other: large cast
Further Reference:
-
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Wages Of Thin, The
Synopsis:
alfred Rimbaud Thin goes to relieve himself in a public convenience only to find himself a suspect in a murder enquiry. Over the course of a brutal interrogation, two bizarre policemen viciously accuse Thin of perversion, incest, and earning a wage that just doesn't add up.
Notes:
-
1st Produced:
Stables Theatre Club, Manchester
1969
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
Music:
-
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Genre:
-
Parts:
Male: 3 Female: - Other: -
Further Reference:
-
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Who Shall Be Happy ?
Synopsis:
Period 1794, Danton, the hero of the French Revolution has been betrayed and jailed, a reverse cat and mouse Drama ensues
Notes:
theatre Version of Hope In the Year Two.
1st Produced:
Belfast: Old Museum Arts Centre, 7 College Square N, Belfast Bt1 6Ar
1995
Organisations:
Mad Cow Productions
1st Published:
Music:
-
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Genre:
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: 2 Female: - Other: -
Further Reference:
-
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