Drama by John Waddington-Feather

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John Waddington-Feather belongs to the West Yorkshire ‘school’ of writers.  His children’s novel, Quill’s Adventures in Grozzieland, was nominated for the Carnegie Medal in 1989, and his verse-play, Garlic Lane, won the Burton Award in 1999.  In 2002 he was awarded the American DeWitt  Romig  Prize for his poetry.  He co-directs the small-press imprint Feather Books and edits The Poetry Church poetry quarterly.  He was the first chairman of the J.B.Priestley Society and is now a vice-president. In 1985 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Born in 1933 in Keighley, he attended Keighley Boys’ Grammar School and graduated in English at Leeds University in 1954.  Over the past few years his wide range of books has attracted a growing number of readers in many countries, more recently in translation in Eastern Europe.

Although "Behind Corridors of Power" is essentially a satirical comedy about modern politics, there is a serious side to the play. So often when the media poke fun at the peccadillos - and more serious sins - of politicians they don’t show the effects those failings have on their families. The effect Jack Leggitt’s adultery has on his family in my play is based on reality. Only occasionally is a politician’s family life commented on in the press - and then only if there’s something sensational. Politicians, like the rest of us, depend heavily on their marriages and family for support in our careers. When we abuse that support, it is our families who suffer most.

Although Tyndale is set in 16th century Europe, many of the evils represented in it afflict us today: religious courts run by ill-educated and narrow minded clerics, dictatorship, religious and political intolerance, bigotry and lack of freedom of speech. Few countries afford the rights we enjoy in Britain; even in the so-called democracies of the west there are still execution, torture and censorship.

 

A full-length serio-comedy about a family of self-made rich cousins who refuse to take in the black sheep of the family returning from Australia after 30 years, a dying impoverished man, as they imagine.  When they discover he’s a multi-millionaire they fall over themselves to accommodate him believing they’re going to inherit his fortune as next of kin.  He agrees to take up their offers – but imposes conditions; and therein lies the comedy.  The serious bit follows.

FULL DRAMA LIST

C1.  Garlic Lane   27 pages. Paperback.   £2.50  $6 US ISBN: 0 947718 64 8 A one-act humorous verse-play play set in West Yorkshire in the 1950s.  First produced at Leeds Civic Theatre in 1972, it was revised and staged as a radio play by Bingley Little Theatre in 1998.  In 1999 it was awarded the Burton Prize and described by one critic as the best verse-play since Under Milk Wood.  A recording of the play was made live at Bingley Little Theatre in 1998 and is available on CD at £12 and cassette at £5   C2.  Easy Street   92 pages. Paperback.   £3.50  $8 US  ISBN: 1 84175 033 6 A humorous full-length verse-play set over a week (a day for each Sin) in a West Yorkshire mill town, with the Seven Deadly Sins acting as Narrators introducing each day’s action.  First produced at Leeds Civic Theatre in the 1970s and subsequently revised.  Very suitable for book-in-hand readings or full stage production.  An Introduction to the play by the scholar-poet Professor Walter Nash offers a penetrating critique of the play and the medieval Morality Play on which it is based.   C3.  The Lollipop Man   A full-length play about the homeless.  When two angels appear on earth as down-and-outs they change many people’s lives, before moving on.  Based on the author’s experiences as chaplain in a Night Shelter and Prison.  ISBN: 1 84175 132 4. £4.50     C4.  Jonah   A short play or musical suitable for school or church.  Lasts about one hour as a play longer if produced a musical. Suitable for 10 to 14 year-olds.  ISBN: 1 84175 244 4  £2.50.    C5.  Behind Corridors of Power   A full-length play satirising politics and current political figures. The play also looks at life from the perspective of a high-ranking politician’s wife whose husband unknown to her has a series of affairs, one with his diary secretary, whilst at Westminster. ISBN:1 84175 245 2. £5.99   C6.  Tyndale   A full length play tracing the life and martyrdom of William Tyndale, the first translator of the Bible into English.  A drama about free speech and religious freedom; set at a time when modern English evolved to become the global language of Shakespeare and his fellow writers a generation later.  The play also covers events which marked the beginning of the Anglican Church. ISBN: 978 1 84175 223 5.  £5.99   C7.  Bill Braithwaite’s Miracle   A full-length serio-comedy about a family of self-made rich cousins who refuse to take in the black sheep of the family returning from Australia after 30 years, a dying impoverished man, as they imagine.  When they discover he’s a multi-millionaire they fall over themselves to accommodate him believing they’re going to inherit his fortune as next of kin.  He agrees to take up their offers – but imposes conditions; and therein lies the comedy.  The serious bit follows. ISBN: 978 1 84175 266 2.  £5.99