Alun Owen
Encyclopedia
Alun Owen was a British
screenwriter
, predominantly active in television
, but best remembered by a wider audience for writing the screenplay of The Beatles
' debut feature film A Hard Day's Night
(1964).
Owen was born in Menai Bridge
, Wales
, but grew up in the English
city of Liverpool
, where his family moved when he was eight years old. After a short career with the Merchant Navy, for two years Owen worked down a coal mine as a 'Bevin Boy
', before moving into repertory theatre as an assistant stage manager. From there he moved into acting, first with the Birmingham Repertory Company and then various other companies, appearing in small roles in films and to a greater degree in the newer medium of television during the 1950s.
By the late 1950s, however, Owen was beginning to realise that his real ambitions lay in writing rather than performing, and he began to submit scripts to BBC Radio
. His first full-length play, Progress to the Park, was produced by the Theatre Royal, Stratford East following its radio debut, and later in the West End
. A second play, titled The Rough and Ready Lot, was adapted for television by the BBC in September 1959.
His next play was his first to be written directly for television. Titled No Trams to Lime Street
(1959), the Liverpool-set piece was presented in ABC Television
's Armchair Theatre
anthology strand, for which Owen continued to write plays into the 1960s. He also made his feature film scriptwriting debut in 1960, penning The Criminal
from a storyline originally by Jimmy Sangster
.
In 1964, when director Richard Lester
was hired to direct The Beatles
' first film, he remembered Owen from their previous work together on Lester's ITV
television programme The Dick Lester Show in 1955. The Beatles were also keen on Owen, having been impressed with his depiction of Liverpool in No Trams to Lime Street, and Owen spent some time associating with the four band members to gain an ear for their characters and manners of speech. His resulting script for A Hard Day's Night earned him a nomination for the 1965 Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay. In the same year, Owen contributed the libretto
for a West End
musical, composer Lionel Bart
's Maggie May
. The show ran for a respectable 501 performances at London's Adelphi Theatre
.
Television continued to be his main medium, however, and he concentrated on single plays in anthology series such as BBC2
's Theatre 625
. An episode of ITV's Saturday Night Theatre, three linked plays under the title "The Male of the Species" (1969) featured Michael Caine
, Sean Connery
, Paul Scofield
, and Laurence Olivier
as the narrator. His 1974 play Lucky was a rare television representation of Britain's new multicultural reality and described a young black man's (Paul Barber), search for identity. He carried on writing for television through the 1970s and 80s, with his final produced work being an adaptation of R. F. Delderfield
's novel Come Home, Charlie, and Face Them
for ITV in 1990.
He died in London
in 1994.
A festival was held in his honour from 19 October–21 October 2006 in Liverpool, arranged by the Merseyside Welsh Heritage Society. A lecture in English
on Owen and the Liverpool Welsh was delivered by Dr D. Ben Rees, Chairman of the Society, and in Welsh
by Dr Arthur Thomas of University of Liverpool
on his life and work. These lectures were published in book form in 2007.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
, predominantly active in television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
, but best remembered by a wider audience for writing the screenplay of The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
' debut feature film A Hard Day's Night
A Hard Day's Night (film)
A Hard Day's Night is a 1964 British black-and-white comedy film directed by Richard Lester and starring The Beatles—John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr—during the height of Beatlemania. It was written by Alun Owen and originally released by United Artists...
(1964).
Owen was born in Menai Bridge
Menai Bridge
Menai Bridge is a small town and community on the Isle of Anglesey in north Wales. It overlooks the Menai Strait and lies by the Menai Suspension Bridge, built in 1826 by Thomas Telford...
, Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
, but grew up in the English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
city of Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
, where his family moved when he was eight years old. After a short career with the Merchant Navy, for two years Owen worked down a coal mine as a 'Bevin Boy
Bevin Boys
Bevin Boys were young British men conscripted to work in the coal mines of the United Kingdom, from December 1943 until 1948. Chosen at random from conscripts but also including volunteers, nearly 48,000 Bevin Boys performed vital but largely unrecognised service in the mines, many of them...
', before moving into repertory theatre as an assistant stage manager. From there he moved into acting, first with the Birmingham Repertory Company and then various other companies, appearing in small roles in films and to a greater degree in the newer medium of television during the 1950s.
By the late 1950s, however, Owen was beginning to realise that his real ambitions lay in writing rather than performing, and he began to submit scripts to BBC Radio
BBC Radio
BBC Radio is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927. For a history of BBC radio prior to 1927 see British Broadcasting Company...
. His first full-length play, Progress to the Park, was produced by the Theatre Royal, Stratford East following its radio debut, and later in the West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
. A second play, titled The Rough and Ready Lot, was adapted for television by the BBC in September 1959.
His next play was his first to be written directly for television. Titled No Trams to Lime Street
No Trams to Lime Street
No Trams to Lime Street is a 1959 British television play, written by the Welsh playwright Alun Owen for the Armchair Theatre anthology series. Produced by the Associated British Corporation for transmission on the ITV network, the play was broadcast on 18 October 1959...
(1959), the Liverpool-set piece was presented in ABC Television
Associated British Corporation
Associated British Corporation was one of a number of commercial television companies established in the United Kingdom during the 1950s by cinema chain companies in an attempt to safeguard their business by becoming involved with television which was taking away their cinema audiences.In this...
's Armchair Theatre
Armchair Theatre
Armchair Theatre is a British television drama anthology series, which ran on the ITV network from 1956 to 1974. It was originally produced by Associated British Corporation, and later by Thames Television after 1968....
anthology strand, for which Owen continued to write plays into the 1960s. He also made his feature film scriptwriting debut in 1960, penning The Criminal
The Criminal
The Criminal is a 1960 British drama film produced by Nat Cohen and directed by Joseph Losey, starring Stanley Baker, Sam Wanamaker and Jill Bennett. Baker plays an ex-con who takes part in the robbery of a racetrack and is caught and sent back to prison...
from a storyline originally by Jimmy Sangster
Jimmy Sangster
James Henry Kinmel Sangster was an English screenwriter and director, known for his work for horror film producers Hammer Film Productions, including scripts for The Curse of Frankenstein and Dracula .Sangster originally worked as a production assistant at...
.
In 1964, when director Richard Lester
Richard Lester
Richard Lester is an American film director based in Britain. Lester is notable for his work with The Beatles in the 1960s and his work on the Superman film series in the 1980s.-Early years and television:...
was hired to direct The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
' first film, he remembered Owen from their previous work together on Lester's ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
television programme The Dick Lester Show in 1955. The Beatles were also keen on Owen, having been impressed with his depiction of Liverpool in No Trams to Lime Street, and Owen spent some time associating with the four band members to gain an ear for their characters and manners of speech. His resulting script for A Hard Day's Night earned him a nomination for the 1965 Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay. In the same year, Owen contributed the libretto
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...
for a West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
musical, composer Lionel Bart
Lionel Bart
Lionel Bart was a writer and composer of British pop music and musicals, best known for creating the book, music and lyrics for Oliver!-Early life:...
's Maggie May
Maggie May (musical)
Maggie May is a musical with a book by Alun Owen and music and lyrics by Lionel Bart.Based on "Maggie May", a traditional ballad about a Liverpool prostitute, it deals with trade union ethics and disputes and the life of streetwalker Margaret Mary Duffy after her sweetheart dies.The show includes...
. The show ran for a respectable 501 performances at London's Adelphi Theatre
Adelphi Theatre
The Adelphi Theatre is a 1500-seat West End theatre, located on the Strand in the City of Westminster. The present building is the fourth on the site. The theatre has specialised in comedy and musical theatre, and today it is a receiving house for a variety of productions, including many musicals...
.
Television continued to be his main medium, however, and he concentrated on single plays in anthology series such as BBC2
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
's Theatre 625
Theatre 625
Theatre 625 is a British television drama anthology series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC2 from 1964 to 1968. It was one of the first regular programmes in the line-up of the channel, and the title referred to its production and transmission being in the higher-definition 625-line...
. An episode of ITV's Saturday Night Theatre, three linked plays under the title "The Male of the Species" (1969) featured Michael Caine
Michael Caine
Sir Michael Caine, CBE is an English actor. He won Academy Awards for best supporting actor in both Hannah and Her Sisters and The Cider House Rules ....
, Sean Connery
Sean Connery
Sir Thomas Sean Connery , better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards and three Golden Globes Sir Thomas Sean Connery (born 25 August 1930), better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy...
, Paul Scofield
Paul Scofield
David Paul Scofield, CH, CBE , better known as Paul Scofield, was an English actor of stage and screen...
, and Laurence Olivier
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...
as the narrator. His 1974 play Lucky was a rare television representation of Britain's new multicultural reality and described a young black man's (Paul Barber), search for identity. He carried on writing for television through the 1970s and 80s, with his final produced work being an adaptation of R. F. Delderfield
R. F. Delderfield
Ronald Frederick Delderfield was a popular English novelist and dramatist, many of whose works have been adapted for television and are still widely read.-Childhood in London and Surrey:...
's novel Come Home, Charlie, and Face Them
Come Home, Charlie, and Face Them
Come Home, Charlie, and Face Them is a 1969 novel by R.F. Delderfield.-Plot summary:Charlie Pritchard arrives in the fictitious North Wales seaside town of Permadoc on April 1, 1929...
for ITV in 1990.
He died in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in 1994.
A festival was held in his honour from 19 October–21 October 2006 in Liverpool, arranged by the Merseyside Welsh Heritage Society. A lecture in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
on Owen and the Liverpool Welsh was delivered by Dr D. Ben Rees, Chairman of the Society, and in Welsh
Welsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
by Dr Arthur Thomas of University of Liverpool
University of Liverpool
The University of Liverpool is a teaching and research university in the city of Liverpool, England. It is a member of the Russell Group of large research-intensive universities and the N8 Group for research collaboration. Founded in 1881 , it is also one of the six original "red brick" civic...
on his life and work. These lectures were published in book form in 2007.
External links
- Alun Owen at the Internet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...
.