Simon Gray

As might have been predicted by any reader of his diaries, Simon Gray finally died this month at the age of 71. I really liked his work although, I admit, when I thought about it I had only seen 3 of his plays in the theatre and 2 on TV. He had a very specific world view which he bestowed on all his central characters, one which rarely seemed to travel far emotionally speaking from the Senior Common Room. But his plays were always very funny and he rarely shrank from taking the contrary view. I guess that is one of the reasons he was and will be regarded as a 2division players compared to his contemporaries, a George to Pinter's John and Stoppard's Paul. A right wing playwright in a left wing decade also contributed to this I think.

I especially liked the two diaries he wrote about the first UK and US productions of The Common Pursuit - in my view his best play along with Otherwise Engaged. He was very amusing and honest about his frustrations with the theatrical profession in the UK one and most of the US population in the second one. He never held anything back and you could really feel his anger bubbling up, communicated in a series of ironic asides and unforgivable outbursts. It is amazing he and Harold Pinter got any work done given the amount of champagne drinking that went on!

More importantly when you read about his conversations with Harold Pinter about text edits, sets, positioning, costume, interactions and pauses, one can really apprecciate the huge gap a Director fills between the text and the performance.

Many people praised the series of diaries he published most recently, The Smoking Diaries. Unquestionably they were a great holiday read but unedited and rambling it was harder to find the funny bits between the ruminations of his encroaching death compared to the earlier ones. Thus said he was totally honest about himself and his failings to the end and spared the reader nothing. Not many writers could claim that today.