Playwright John Arden Passes Away at Age 81

According to published reports, on Wednesday, March 28, the British playwright John Arden died in Galway, Ireland, where he had lived for the past few decades. He is survived by his wife, Margaretta D'Arcy, and four sons.

Though John Arden wrote revolutionary plays which were well-known in Britain in the 1950s and '60s which spoke out against the British class system, he never reached a point of international fame like the other artists around him writing about similar subjects. He was born October 26, 1930 in Barnsley, England to a middle-class family. He served a year in the Army and attendEd Cambridge to get an architecture degree before writing. He married Margaretta D'Arcy in 1957.

His first breakthrough play was THE LIFE OF MAN in 1956 which was read on the radio. This was followed by a production of what is now his most well-known play, SERGEANT MUSGRAVE'S DANCE at the London Royal Theatre. It also had a short run Off-Broadway, starring John Colicos in 1966. LIVE LIKE PIGS (1958) was Arden's first controversial play, after which he wrote THE BUSINESS OF GOOD GOVERNMENT, THE HAPPY HAVEN, and THE NON-STOP CONNOLY SHOW with his wife. He also wrote multiple fiction books, including his first novel, Silence Among Weapons, Gallows and Other Tales of Suspicion and Obsession, which was a book of short stories, among others.