Background

Born into a working class family in Belfast

Belfast

Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...

, Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...

, Reid left school at age 15, served in the British army, married young, but returned to education and graduated from Queen's University

Queen's University of Belfast

Queen's University Belfast is a public research university in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The university's official title, per its charter, is the Queen's University of Belfast. It is often referred to simply as Queen's, or by the abbreviation QUB...

 in 1976. He became a teacher at Gransha Boys' High School

Bangor Academy and Sixth Form College

Bangor Academy and Sixth Form College is a mixed secondary school located in Bangor, Northern Ireland...

 in Bangor, County Down

Bangor, County Down

Bangor is a large town in County Down, Northern Ireland. It is a seaside resort on the southern side of Belfast Lough and within the Belfast Metropolitan Area. Bangor Marina is one of the largest in Ireland, and holds Blue Flag status...

 but left in 1980 to concentrate on his writing career.

His first play, The Death of Humpty Dumpty is a story about an innocent man who gets caught in the cross fire of the troubles in Belfast

Characters in his work The Hidden Curriculum were based on pupils and teachers from the school he taught at. He went on to write a trio of plays for the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

's Play for Today

Play for Today

Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted...

series. These were Too Late to Talk to Billy (1982), A Matter of Choice for Billy (1983) and A Coming to Terms for Billy (1984). They are colloquially known as The Billy Plays. The plays starred a young Kenneth Branagh

Kenneth Branagh

Kenneth Charles Branagh is an actor and film director from Northern Ireland. He is best known for directing and starring in several film adaptations of William Shakespeare's plays including Henry V , Much Ado About Nothing , Hamlet Kenneth Charles Branagh is an actor and film director from...

, who had previously worked in his futuristic play Easter 2016, which was screened as part of the BBC's Play for Tomorrow series. In 1992 he wrote a screen play for the movie You, Me & Marley

You, Me & Marley

You, Me & Marley is a 1992 independent drama movie starring Marc O'Shea, Bronagh Gallagher, Michael Liebmann, and Michael Gregory.Directed by Richard Spence and produced by Chris Parr, the screenplay was written by Graham Reid.-Synopsis:...

.

Plays

Name	Year first produced	Theater first produced
The Death of Humpty Dumpty	1979	Abbey Theatre Abbey Theatre The Abbey Theatre , also known as the National Theatre of Ireland , is a theatre located in Dublin, Ireland. The Abbey first opened its doors to the public on 27 December 1904. Despite losing its original building to a fire in 1951, it has remained active to the present day... , Dublin
The Closed Door	1980	Abbey Theatre
Dorothy	1980	Oscar Theatre, Dublin
The Hidden Curriculum	1982	Abbey Theatre
Callers	1985	Abbey Theatre
Too Late to Talk to Billy	1982	Television
A Matter of Choice for Billy	1983	Television
A Coming to Terms for Billy	1984	Television
Lengthening Shadows	1995	Lyric Theatre, Belfast
Love	1995	West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, UK
Remembrance	1984	Lyric Theatre, Belfast
Ties Of Blood	1985	Television

Remembrance, perhaps his most popular play, is a story about a Protestant widower and a Catholic widow who meet at their murdered sons' graves and fall in love over the objections of their surviving children. The play has been performed all over the world: 18 months in Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...

 (in Hebrew), over eight months at Irish Arts Center in Manhattan

Manhattan

Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

, and at the Old Globe, San Diego,. The play was performed by the Tara Players of Winnipeg

Winnipeg

Winnipeg is the capital and largest city of Manitoba, Canada, and is the primary municipality of the Winnipeg Capital Region, with more than half of Manitoba's population. It is located near the longitudinal centre of North America, at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers .The name...

 at the first Acting Irish International Theatre Festival

Acting Irish International Theatre Festival

The Acting Irish International Theatre Festival is an annual festival of full-length Irish plays performed by North American Irish community theater companies. The festival was started in 1994 and is performed in a different city each year...

in 1994.