Denis Cannan was a British dramatist, playwright and script writer. Born Denis Pullein-Thompson, the son of Captain Harold J. Pullein-Thompson and novelist Joanna Cannan

Joanna Cannan

Joanna Cannan was a writer of pony books and detective novels. Her pony books were aimed primarily at children.Youngest daughter of Oxford don Charles Cannan and Mary Wedderburn, also cousin of Gilbert Cannan, it is perhaps her children she is best known for, being mother to Josephine...

, he changed his name by deed poll in 1964. His younger sisters were Josephine, Diana and Christine Pullein-Thompson.

Born in Oxford

Oxford

The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

, he was educated at Eton College

Eton College

Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....

. After attending Eton he worked as an actor, before joining the Queen's Royal Regiment of West Surrey

Queen's Royal Regiment (West Surrey)

The Queen's Royal Regiment was a regiment of the English and later British Army from 1661 to 1959. It was the senior English line infantry regiment of the British Army, behind only the Royal Scots in the British Army line infantry order of precedence...

 when the Second World War broke out, rising to the rank of captain and being mentioned in dispatches.

He was married to Joan Ross; the couple had two sons and a daughter. The marriage was dissolved, and he later remarried, to Rose Evansky.

Denis Cannan became a successful playwright and screenwriter. Apart from the plays listed below, he has written several screenplays for TV and radio, also adaptions for TV series. With Christopher Fry

Christopher Fry

Christopher Fry was an English playwright. He is best known for his verse dramas, notably The Lady's Not for Burning, which made him a major force in theatre in the 1940s and 1950s.-Early life:...

 he adapted The Beggar's Opera

The Beggar's Opera

The Beggar's Opera is a ballad opera in three acts written in 1728 by John Gay with music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch. It is one of the watershed plays in Augustan drama and is the only example of the once thriving genre of satirical ballad opera to remain popular today...

for the 1953 film

The Beggar's Opera (film)

The Beggar's Opera is a 1953 Technicolor film version of John Gay's 1728 ballad opera directed by Peter Brook and starring Laurence Olivier, Dorothy Tutin, Stanley Holloway and others. Olivier and Holloway do their own singing in this film, but Dorothy Tutin and several others were dubbed...

 starring 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...

.

Selected plays

• Captain Carvallo
  Captain Carvallo
  Captain Carvallo is a traditional comedy play told in three acts by Denis Cannan, with its preposterous Ruritarian story featuring a romantic hero with a girl in every soldierly billet.The comedy was an immediate success when it opened at the St...
  
  
• Colombe
• Dear Daddy
  Dear Daddy
  Dear Daddy is a 1976 play written by English playwright Denis Cannan, first staged at the Ambassadors Theatre in London's West End.-Productions:Opening night cast* Nigel Patrick as Bernard* Isabel Dean as Mary* Jennifer Hilary as Gillian...
  
  
• Ibsen's Ghosts (adaptation)
• Max
• Misery Me!
• One At Night
• The Ik (adaptation)
• You and Your Wife
• Who's Your Father?

External links

• IMDb profile