Michael Frayn
Encyclopedia
Michael J. Frayn is an English
playwright
and novelist. He is best known as the author of the farce Noises Off
and the dramas Copenhagen
and Democracy
. His novels, such as Towards the End of the Morning
, Headlong
and Spies
, have also been critical and commercial successes, making him one of the handful of writers in the English language to succeed in both drama and prose fiction. His works often raise philosophical questions in a humorous context. Frayn's wife is Claire Tomalin
, the biographer and literary journalist.
, a suburb of London, grew up in Ewell, Surrey and was educated at Kingston Grammar School
. Following two years of National Service
, during which he learned Russian at the Joint Services School for Linguists
, Frayn read Moral Sciences (Philosophy
) at Emmanuel College
, Cambridge
, graduating in 1957. He then worked as a reporter and columnist for The Guardian
and The Observer
, where he established a reputation as a satirist
and comic writer, and began publishing his plays and novels.
deals with a historical event, a 1941 meeting between the Danish physicist
Niels Bohr
and his protege, the German Werner Heisenberg
, when Denmark is under German occupation, and Heisenberg is - maybe? - working on the development of an atomic bomb. Frayn was attracted to the topic because it seemed to 'encapsulate something about the difficulty of knowing why people do what they do and
there is a parallel between that and the impossibility that Heisenberg established in physics, about ever knowing everything about the behaviour of physical objects'. The play explores various possibilities.
Frayn's more recent play Democracy ran successfully in London (the National Theatre
, 2003-4 and West End
transfer), Copenhagen
and on Broadway
(Brooks Atkinson Theatre
, 2004-5); it dramatised the story of the German chancellor Willy Brandt
and his personal assistant, the East German spy Günter Guillaume
. Five years later, again at the National Theatre, it was followed by Afterlife
, a biographical drama of the life of the great Austrian impresario Max Reinhardt
, director of the Salzburg
Festival, which opened at the Lyttelton Theatre in June 2008, starring Roger Allam
as Reinhardt.
His other original plays include two evenings of short plays, The Two of Us and Alarms and Excursions, the philosophical comedies Alphabetical Order, Benefactors
, Clouds, Make and Break and Here
, and the farces Donkeys' Years, Balmoral
(also known as Liberty Hall), and Noises Off
, which critic Frank Rich
in his book The Hot Seat claimed "is, was, and probably always will be the funniest play written in my lifetime."
He has written a number of novels, including, Headlong
(shortlisted for the 1999 Booker Prize), The Tin Men
(won the 1966 Somerset Maugham Award
), The Russian Interpreter (1967, Hawthornden Prize
) Towards the End of the Morning
, Sweet Dreams, A Landing on the Sun, A Very Private Life and Now You Know. The most recent, Spies
, won the Whitbread Prize for Fiction in 2002. He has also written a book about philosophy, Constructions, and a book of his own philosophy, The Human Touch.
His columns for The Guardian and The Observer (collected in The Day of the Dog, The Book of Fub and On the Outskirts) are models of the comic essay; in the 1980s a number of them were adapted and performed for BBC Radio 4
by Martin Jarvis.
He has also written screenplays for the film Clockwise
, starring John Cleese
, and the TV series Making Faces, starring Eleanor Bron
.
He is now considered to be Britain's finest translator of Anton Chekhov
- adapting the four major plays (The Seagull
, Uncle Vanya
, Three Sisters
and The Cherry Orchard
) as well as an early untitled work, which he titled Wild Honey
(other translations of the work have called it Platonov
or Don Juan in the Russian Manner) and a number of Chekhov's smaller plays for an evening called The Sneeze (originally performed on the West End by Rowan Atkinson
).
He also translated Yuri Trifonov's play Exchange, Leo Tolstoy
's The Fruits of Enlightenment
, and Jean Anouilh
's Number One.
In 1980, he presented the Australian journey of Great Railway Journeys of the World for the BBC
. His journey took him from Sydney
to Perth
on the Indian Pacific with side visits to the Lithgow Zig Zag
and a journey on The Ghan's old route from Maree to Alice Springs shortly before the opening of the new line from Tarcoola
to Alice Springs.
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...
playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
and novelist. He is best known as the author of the farce Noises Off
Noises Off
Noises Off is a 1982 play by English playwright Michael Frayn. The idea for it was born in 1970, when Frayn was standing in the wings watching a performance of Chinamen, a farce that he had written for Lynn Redgrave...
and the dramas Copenhagen
Copenhagen (play)
Copenhagen is a play by Michael Frayn, based around an event that occurred in Copenhagen in 1941, a meeting between the physicists Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg. It debuted in London in 1998...
and Democracy
Democracy (play)
Democracy is a play by Michael Frayn which premiered at the Royal National Theatre on September 9, 2003, directed by Michael Blakemore, starring Roger Allam as Willy Brandt and Conleth Hill as Günter Guillaume...
. His novels, such as Towards the End of the Morning
Towards the End of the Morning
Towards The End Of The Morning is a 1967 satirical novel by Michael Frayn about journalists working on a British newspaper during the heyday of Fleet Street....
, Headlong
Headlong (Frayn novel)
Headlong is a novel by Michael Frayn, published in 1999.The plot centres on the discovery of a long-lost painting from Pieter Bruegel's series The Months...
and Spies
Spies (Novel)
Spies is a psychological novel by English author and dramatist Michael Frayn. It is currently studied by A-Level, and some GCSE, literature students in various schools.- Synopsis :...
, have also been critical and commercial successes, making him one of the handful of writers in the English language to succeed in both drama and prose fiction. His works often raise philosophical questions in a humorous context. Frayn's wife is Claire Tomalin
Claire Tomalin
Claire Tomalin is an English biographer and journalist. She was educated at Newnham College, Cambridge.She was literary editor of the New Statesman and of the Sunday Times, and has written several noted biographies...
, the biographer and literary journalist.
Early life
Frayn was born to a deaf asbestos salesman in Mill HillMill Hill
Mill Hill is a place in the London Borough of Barnet. It is a suburb situated 9 miles north west of Charing Cross. Mill Hill was in the historic county of Middlesex until it was absorbed by London...
, a suburb of London, grew up in Ewell, Surrey and was educated at Kingston Grammar School
Kingston Grammar School
Kingston Grammar School is an independent co-educational school in Kingston upon Thames, Greater London. The school was founded by Royal Charter in 1561 but can trace its roots back to at least the 13th century. It is a registered charity under English law....
. Following two years of National Service
National service
National service is a common name for mandatory government service programmes . The term became common British usage during and for some years following the Second World War. Many young people spent one or more years in such programmes...
, during which he learned Russian at the Joint Services School for Linguists
Joint Services School for Linguists
The Joint Services School for Linguists was founded in 1951 by the British armed services to provide language training, principally in Russian, and largely to selected conscripts undergoing National Service...
, Frayn read Moral Sciences (Philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
) at Emmanuel College
Emmanuel College, Cambridge
Emmanuel College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge.The college was founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay on the site of a Dominican friary...
, Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
, graduating in 1957. He then worked as a reporter and columnist for The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
and The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
, where he established a reputation as a satirist
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
and comic writer, and began publishing his plays and novels.
Works
The play CopenhagenCopenhagen (play)
Copenhagen is a play by Michael Frayn, based around an event that occurred in Copenhagen in 1941, a meeting between the physicists Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg. It debuted in London in 1998...
deals with a historical event, a 1941 meeting between the Danish physicist
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
Niels Bohr
Niels Bohr
Niels Henrik David Bohr was a Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum mechanics, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. Bohr mentored and collaborated with many of the top physicists of the century at his institute in...
and his protege, the German Werner Heisenberg
Werner Heisenberg
Werner Karl Heisenberg was a German theoretical physicist who made foundational contributions to quantum mechanics and is best known for asserting the uncertainty principle of quantum theory...
, when Denmark is under German occupation, and Heisenberg is - maybe? - working on the development of an atomic bomb. Frayn was attracted to the topic because it seemed to 'encapsulate something about the difficulty of knowing why people do what they do and
there is a parallel between that and the impossibility that Heisenberg established in physics, about ever knowing everything about the behaviour of physical objects'. The play explores various possibilities.
Frayn's more recent play Democracy ran successfully in London (the National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
, 2003-4 and 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...
transfer), Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
and on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
(Brooks Atkinson Theatre
Brooks Atkinson Theatre
The Brooks Atkinson Theatre is a Broadway theater located at 256 West 47th Street in Manhattan.Designed by architect Herbert J. Krapp, it was constructed as the Mansfield Theatre by the Chanin brothers in 1926. After 1933, the theatre fell into relative disuse until 1945, when Michael Myerberg...
, 2004-5); it dramatised the story of the German chancellor Willy Brandt
Willy Brandt
Willy Brandt, born Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm , was a German politician, Mayor of West Berlin 1957–1966, Chancellor of West Germany 1969–1974, and leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany 1964–1987....
and his personal assistant, the East German spy Günter Guillaume
Günter Guillaume
Günter Guillaume , was an intelligence agent of East Germany's secret service, the Stasi.Guillame was born in Berlin. During the Hitler era, he was a member of the Nazi party NSDAP. In 1956, he and his wife Christel emigrated to West Germany on Stasi orders to penetrate and spy on West Germany's...
. Five years later, again at the National Theatre, it was followed by Afterlife
Afterlife (play)
Afterlife is a 2008 play by Michael Frayn. It tells the life and career of Austrian theatrical director and actor Max Reinhardt, from the revival of the Salzburg Festival in 1920, which he helped to re-establish, until his death in New York in 1943...
, a biographical drama of the life of the great Austrian impresario Max Reinhardt
Max Reinhardt
----Max Reinhardt was an Austrian theater and film director and actor.-Biography:...
, director of the Salzburg
Salzburg
-Population development:In 1935, the population significantly increased when Salzburg absorbed adjacent municipalities. After World War II, numerous refugees found a new home in the city. New residential space was created for American soldiers of the postwar Occupation, and could be used for...
Festival, which opened at the Lyttelton Theatre in June 2008, starring Roger Allam
Roger Allam
Roger Allam is an English actor, known primarily for his stage career, although he has performed in film and television. He played Inspector Javert in the original London production of the stage musical Les Misérables....
as Reinhardt.
His other original plays include two evenings of short plays, The Two of Us and Alarms and Excursions, the philosophical comedies Alphabetical Order, Benefactors
Benefactors (play)
Benefactors is a 1984 play by Michael Frayn. It is set in the 1960s and concerns an idealistic architect David and his wife Jane and their relationship with the cynical Colin and his wife Sheila. David is attempting to build some new homes to replace the slum housing of Basuto Road and is gradually...
, Clouds, Make and Break and Here
Here (play)
Here is a 1993 philosophical comedic play by British playwright Michael Frayn....
, and the farces Donkeys' Years, Balmoral
Balmoral (play)
Balmoral is a 1987 farcical play by British playwright Michael Frayn....
(also known as Liberty Hall), and Noises Off
Noises Off
Noises Off is a 1982 play by English playwright Michael Frayn. The idea for it was born in 1970, when Frayn was standing in the wings watching a performance of Chinamen, a farce that he had written for Lynn Redgrave...
, which critic Frank Rich
Frank Rich
Frank Rich is an American essayist and op-ed columnist who wrote for The New York Times from 1980, when he was appointed its chief theatre critic, until 2011...
in his book The Hot Seat claimed "is, was, and probably always will be the funniest play written in my lifetime."
Headlong (Frayn novel)
Headlong is a novel by Michael Frayn, published in 1999.The plot centres on the discovery of a long-lost painting from Pieter Bruegel's series The Months...
(shortlisted for the 1999 Booker Prize), The Tin Men
The Tin Men
The Tin Men is a novel by Michael Frayn, published in 1965. It won the Somerset Maugham Award the following year.It concerns the lives of workers at William Morris Institute for Automation Research. This is itself a joke as William Morris was all in favour of hand-working...
(won the 1966 Somerset Maugham Award
Somerset Maugham Award
The Somerset Maugham Award is a British literary prize given each May by the Society of Authors. It is awarded to whom they judge to be the best writer or writers under the age of thirty-five of a book published in the past year. The prize was instituted in 1947 by William Somerset Maugham and thus...
), The Russian Interpreter (1967, Hawthornden Prize
Hawthornden Prize
The Hawthornden Prize is a British literary award that was established in 1919 by Alice Warrender. Authors are awarded on the quality of their "imaginative literature" which can be written in either poetry or prose...
) Towards the End of the Morning
Towards the End of the Morning
Towards The End Of The Morning is a 1967 satirical novel by Michael Frayn about journalists working on a British newspaper during the heyday of Fleet Street....
, Sweet Dreams, A Landing on the Sun, A Very Private Life and Now You Know. The most recent, Spies
Spies (Novel)
Spies is a psychological novel by English author and dramatist Michael Frayn. It is currently studied by A-Level, and some GCSE, literature students in various schools.- Synopsis :...
, won the Whitbread Prize for Fiction in 2002. He has also written a book about philosophy, Constructions, and a book of his own philosophy, The Human Touch.
His columns for The Guardian and The Observer (collected in The Day of the Dog, The Book of Fub and On the Outskirts) are models of the comic essay; in the 1980s a number of them were adapted and performed for BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
by Martin Jarvis.
He has also written screenplays for the film Clockwise
Clockwise (film)
Clockwise is a 1986 British comedy film starring John Cleese. It was directed by Christopher Morahan, written by Michael Frayn and produced by Michael Codron. The film was co-produced by Moment Films and Thorn EMI Screen Entertainment...
, starring John Cleese
John Cleese
John Marwood Cleese is an English actor, comedian, writer, and film producer. He achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a scriptwriter and performer on The Frost Report...
, and the TV series Making Faces, starring Eleanor Bron
Eleanor Bron
Eleanor Bron is an English stage, film and television actress and author.-Early life and family:Bron was born in 1938 in Stanmore, Middlesex, to a Jewish family of Eastern European origin...
.
He is now considered to be Britain's finest translator of Anton Chekhov
Anton Chekhov
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...
- adapting the four major plays (The Seagull
The Seagull
The Seagull is the first of what are generally considered to be the four major plays by the Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov. The Seagull was written in 1895 and first produced in 1896...
, Uncle Vanya
Uncle Vanya
Uncle Vanya is a play by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. It was first published in 1897 and received its Moscow première in 1899 in a production by the Moscow Art Theatre, under the direction of Konstantin Stanislavski....
, Three Sisters
Three Sisters (play)
Three Sisters is a play by Russian author and playwright Anton Chekhov, perhaps partially inspired by the situation of the three Brontë sisters, but most probably by the three Zimmermann sisters in Perm...
and The Cherry Orchard
The Cherry Orchard
The Cherry Orchard is Russian playwright Anton Chekhov's last play. It premiered at the Moscow Art Theatre 17 January 1904 in a production directed by Constantin Stanislavski. Chekhov intended this play as a comedy and it does contain some elements of farce; however, Stanislavski insisted on...
) as well as an early untitled work, which he titled Wild Honey
Wild Honey (play)
Wild Honey is a 1984 adaptation by British playwright Michael Frayn of an earlier play by Anton Chekhov. The original work, a sprawling five-hour drama from Chekhov's earliest years as a writer, has no title but it is usually known in English as Platonov, from its principal character "Mikhail...
(other translations of the work have called it Platonov
Platonov (play)
Platonov is the name in English given to an early, untitled play written in Russian by Anton Chekhov in 1878. It was the first large-scale drama by Chekhov written specifically for Maria Yermolova, rising star of Maly Theatre...
or Don Juan in the Russian Manner) and a number of Chekhov's smaller plays for an evening called The Sneeze (originally performed on the West End by Rowan Atkinson
Rowan Atkinson
Rowan Sebastian Atkinson is a British actor, comedian, and screenwriter. He is most famous for his work on the satirical sketch comedy show Not The Nine O'Clock News, and the sitcoms Blackadder, Mr. Bean and The Thin Blue Line...
).
He also translated Yuri Trifonov's play Exchange, Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist...
's The Fruits of Enlightenment
The Fruits of Enlightenment
The Fruits of Enlightenment, aka Fruits of Culture is a play by the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy. It satirizes the persistence of unenlightened attitudes towards the peasants amongst the Russian landed aristocracy...
, and Jean Anouilh
Jean Anouilh
Jean Marie Lucien Pierre Anouilh was a French dramatist whose career spanned five decades. Though his work ranged from high drama to absurdist farce, Anouilh is best known for his 1943 play Antigone, an adaptation of Sophocles' Classical drama, that was seen as an attack on Marshal Pétain's...
's Number One.
In 1980, he presented the Australian journey of Great Railway Journeys of the World 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...
. His journey took him from Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
to Perth
Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....
on the Indian Pacific with side visits to the Lithgow Zig Zag
Lithgow Zig Zag
The Lithgow Zig Zag was a zig zag railway built near Lithgow on the Great Western Railway of New South Wales in Australia which operated between 1870 and 1910, to overcome an otherwise insurmountable climb up the western side of the Blue Mountains...
and a journey on The Ghan's old route from Maree to Alice Springs shortly before the opening of the new line from Tarcoola
Tarcoola
Tarcoola is the name of a number of places:* Tarcoola, South Australia** Tarcoola railway station, South Australia* Tarcoola Station on the Darling River* Mount Tarcoola, Western Australia* Tarcoola Goldfields South Australia...
to Alice Springs.
Awards
- 1966: Somerset Maugham AwardSomerset Maugham AwardThe Somerset Maugham Award is a British literary prize given each May by the Society of Authors. It is awarded to whom they judge to be the best writer or writers under the age of thirty-five of a book published in the past year. The prize was instituted in 1947 by William Somerset Maugham and thus...
for The Tin MenThe Tin MenThe Tin Men is a novel by Michael Frayn, published in 1965. It won the Somerset Maugham Award the following year.It concerns the lives of workers at William Morris Institute for Automation Research. This is itself a joke as William Morris was all in favour of hand-working... - 1975: London Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy, for Alphabetical Order
- 1976: Laurence Olivier Award for Best Comedy, for Donkeys' Years*
- 1980: London Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy for Make and Break
- 1982: London Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy, for Noises OffNoises OffNoises Off is a 1982 play by English playwright Michael Frayn. The idea for it was born in 1970, when Frayn was standing in the wings watching a performance of Chinamen, a farce that he had written for Lynn Redgrave...
- 1982: Laurence Olivier Award for Best Comedy, for Noises Off
- 1984: London Evening Standard Award for Best Play, for BenefactorsBenefactors (play)Benefactors is a 1984 play by Michael Frayn. It is set in the 1960s and concerns an idealistic architect David and his wife Jane and their relationship with the cynical Colin and his wife Sheila. David is attempting to build some new homes to replace the slum housing of Basuto Road and is gradually...
- 1986: New York Drama Critics' CircleNew York Drama Critics' CircleThe New York Drama Critics' Circle is made up of 24 drama critics from daily newspapers, magazines and wire services based in the New York City metropolitan area. The organization was founded in 1935 at the Algonquin Hotel by a group that included Brooks Atkinson, Walter Winchell, and Robert Benchley...
Award for Best Foreign Play of the 1985-86 Season for Benefactors - 1990: International Emmy Award for First and Last
- 1991: Sunday Express Book of the Year, for A Landing on the Sun
- 1998: Critics' Circle Theatre Awards for Best New Play, for CopenhagenCopenhagen (play)Copenhagen is a play by Michael Frayn, based around an event that occurred in Copenhagen in 1941, a meeting between the physicists Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg. It debuted in London in 1998...
- 1998: London Evening Standard Award for Best Play, for Copenhagen
- 2000: Tony AwardTony AwardThe Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
for Best Play (USA) for Copenhagen - 2000: New York Drama Critics' CircleNew York Drama Critics' CircleThe New York Drama Critics' Circle is made up of 24 drama critics from daily newspapers, magazines and wire services based in the New York City metropolitan area. The organization was founded in 1935 at the Algonquin Hotel by a group that included Brooks Atkinson, Walter Winchell, and Robert Benchley...
Award for Best Foreign Play of the 1999-2000 Season for Copenhagen - 2002: WhitbreadCosta Book AwardsThe Costa Book Awards are a series of literary awards given to books by authors based in Great Britain and Ireland. They were known as the Whitbread Book Awards until 2005, after which Costa Coffee, a subsidiary of Whitbread, took over sponsorship....
Best Novel Award for Spies (the overall Whitbread Prize went to his wife, Claire Tomalin) - 2003: Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book (Eurasia Region) for Spies
- 2003: London Evening Standard Award for Best Play, for Democracy
- 2006: St. Louis Literary AwardSt. Louis Literary AwardEvery year the Saint Louis University Library Associates present the St. Louis Literary Award to a distinguished figure in literature.Past Recipients of the Award:*2010 Don DeLillo*2009 Sir Salman Rushdie*2008 E. L. Doctorow*2007 William H. Gass...
Novels
- The Tin MenThe Tin MenThe Tin Men is a novel by Michael Frayn, published in 1965. It won the Somerset Maugham Award the following year.It concerns the lives of workers at William Morris Institute for Automation Research. This is itself a joke as William Morris was all in favour of hand-working...
(1965) - The Russian Interpreter (1966)
- Towards the End of the MorningTowards the End of the MorningTowards The End Of The Morning is a 1967 satirical novel by Michael Frayn about journalists working on a British newspaper during the heyday of Fleet Street....
(1967) - A Very Private LifeA Very Private Life (Novel)A Very Private Life by Michael Frayn is a futuristic fairy tale that describes a young girl's futile quest to make meaningful contact with another human being.-Plot summary:...
(1968) - Sweet DreamsSweet Dreams (novel)Sweet Dreams is a 1973 novel by Michael Frayn.The plot addresses the question of what happens when a middle-class intellectual man dies. Why, he goes to a middle-class intellectual Heaven of course...
(1973) - The Trick of It (1989)
- A Landing on the SunA Landing on the SunA Landing On The Sun is a 1991 novel by Michael Frayn, and was the Sunday Express Book of the Year. It was adapted into a 1994 TV movie with a screenplay written by the author.-Plot introduction:...
(1991) - Now You KnowNow You Know (play)Now You Know is a novel by British author Michael Frayn....
(1993) - HeadlongHeadlong (Frayn novel)Headlong is a novel by Michael Frayn, published in 1999.The plot centres on the discovery of a long-lost painting from Pieter Bruegel's series The Months...
(1999) - SpiesSpies (Novel)Spies is a psychological novel by English author and dramatist Michael Frayn. It is currently studied by A-Level, and some GCSE, literature students in various schools.- Synopsis :...
(2002)
Plays
- The Two of UsThe Two of Us (play)The Two of Us is a 1970 play by British playwright Michael Frayn. It consists of four one-act plays for two actors and is Frayn's first published play.It was first performed at the Garrick Theatre by Richard Briers and Lynn Redgrave....
, four one-act plays for two actors (1970)
-
- Black and Silver, Mr. Foot, Chinamen, and The new Quixote
- Alphabetical Order and Donkeys' YearsDonkeys' YearsDonkeys' Years is a play by English playwright Michael Frayn that premiered at the Globe Theatre, London, in 1976.The play is a West End farce, a genre that Frayn parodied five years later in his play within a play "Nothing On" from Noises Off....
(1977) - Clouds (1977)
- The Cherry OrchardThe Cherry OrchardThe Cherry Orchard is Russian playwright Anton Chekhov's last play. It premiered at the Moscow Art Theatre 17 January 1904 in a production directed by Constantin Stanislavski. Chekhov intended this play as a comedy and it does contain some elements of farce; however, Stanislavski insisted on...
trans. Chekhov (1978) - BalmoralBalmoral (play)Balmoral is a 1987 farcical play by British playwright Michael Frayn....
(1978) - The Fruits of EnlightenmentThe Fruits of EnlightenmentThe Fruits of Enlightenment, aka Fruits of Culture is a play by the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy. It satirizes the persistence of unenlightened attitudes towards the peasants amongst the Russian landed aristocracy...
trans. Tolstoy (1979) - Liberty HallBalmoral (play)Balmoral is a 1987 farcical play by British playwright Michael Frayn....
(1980) (revised version of Balmoral) - Make and Break (1980)
- Noises OffNoises OffNoises Off is a 1982 play by English playwright Michael Frayn. The idea for it was born in 1970, when Frayn was standing in the wings watching a performance of Chinamen, a farce that he had written for Lynn Redgrave...
(1982) - Three SistersThree Sisters (play)Three Sisters is a play by Russian author and playwright Anton Chekhov, perhaps partially inspired by the situation of the three Brontë sisters, but most probably by the three Zimmermann sisters in Perm...
trans. Chekhov (1983, revised 1988) - Number One (1984) translated from Jean AnouilhJean AnouilhJean Marie Lucien Pierre Anouilh was a French dramatist whose career spanned five decades. Though his work ranged from high drama to absurdist farce, Anouilh is best known for his 1943 play Antigone, an adaptation of Sophocles' Classical drama, that was seen as an attack on Marshal Pétain's...
's Le Nombril - BenefactorsBenefactors (play)Benefactors is a 1984 play by Michael Frayn. It is set in the 1960s and concerns an idealistic architect David and his wife Jane and their relationship with the cynical Colin and his wife Sheila. David is attempting to build some new homes to replace the slum housing of Basuto Road and is gradually...
(1984) - Wild HoneyWild Honey (play)Wild Honey is a 1984 adaptation by British playwright Michael Frayn of an earlier play by Anton Chekhov. The original work, a sprawling five-hour drama from Chekhov's earliest years as a writer, has no title but it is usually known in English as Platonov, from its principal character "Mikhail...
trans. Chekhov (1984) - The SeagullThe SeagullThe Seagull is the first of what are generally considered to be the four major plays by the Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov. The Seagull was written in 1895 and first produced in 1896...
trans. Chekhov (1986) - Uncle VanyaUncle VanyaUncle Vanya is a play by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. It was first published in 1897 and received its Moscow première in 1899 in a production by the Moscow Art Theatre, under the direction of Konstantin Stanislavski....
trans. Chekhov (1986) - BalmoralBalmoral (play)Balmoral is a 1987 farcical play by British playwright Michael Frayn....
(1987) (further revised version) - First and Last (1989)
- Exchange trans. adapted Yuri Trifonov (1990)
- Look Look (1990)
- Listen to This: Sketches and Monologues (1990)
- Jamie on a Flying Visit; and Birthday (1990)
- Look Look (1990)
- AudienceAudience (play)Audience is a 1991 play by British playwright Michael Frayn.The play works on the idea that the characters in the play are actually watching the audience, expecting them to perform. The playwright of the "play" is also in the audience...
(1991) - Plays: Two, Methuen (1991), (1994) ISBN 9780413660800
- HereHere (play)Here is a 1993 philosophical comedic play by British playwright Michael Frayn....
(1993) - La Belle Vivette, a version of Jacques OffenbachJacques OffenbachJacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....
's La Belle Hélène (1995) - Alarms and Excursions: More Plays than One (1998)
- CopenhagenCopenhagen (play)Copenhagen is a play by Michael Frayn, based around an event that occurred in Copenhagen in 1941, a meeting between the physicists Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg. It debuted in London in 1998...
(1998) - Plays: Three, Methuen (2000)
- DemocracyDemocracy (play)Democracy is a play by Michael Frayn which premiered at the Royal National Theatre on September 9, 2003, directed by Michael Blakemore, starring Roger Allam as Willy Brandt and Conleth Hill as Günter Guillaume...
(2003) http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/6625/productions/democracy.htmlhttp://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/Michael%20Frayn%20on%20Democracy+7664.twl - AfterlifeAfterlife (play)Afterlife is a 2008 play by Michael Frayn. It tells the life and career of Austrian theatrical director and actor Max Reinhardt, from the revival of the Salzburg Festival in 1920, which he helped to re-establish, until his death in New York in 1943...
(2008) http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/35468/productions/afterlife.html
- Alphabetical Order and Donkeys' Years
- Black and Silver, Mr. Foot, Chinamen, and The new Quixote
Non-fiction
- The Day of the Dog, articles reprinted from The Guardian (1962).
- The Book of Fub, articles reprinted from The Guardian (1963).
- On the Outskirts, articles reprinted from The Observer (1964).
- At Bay in Gear Street, articles reprinted from The Observer (1967).
- The Original Michael Frayn, a collection of the above four, plus nineteen new Observer pieces.
- Speak After the Beep: Studies in the Art of Communicating with Inanimate and Semi-animate Objects, articles reprinted from The Guardian (1995).
- Constructions, a volume of philosophy (1974).
- Celia's Secret: An Investigation (US title The Copenhagen Papers ), with David Burke (2000).
- The Human Touch: Our part in the creation of the universe (2006).
- Stage Directions: Writing on Theatre, 1970-2008 (2008), his path into theatre and a collection of the introductions to his plays.
- Travels with a Typewriter (2009), a collection of Frayn's travel pieces from the 1960s and 70s from the Guardian and the Observer.
- My Father's Fortune: A Life (2010), a memoir of Frayn's childhood.
External links
- British Council biography
- Profile on BBC FourBBC FourBBC Four is a British television network operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation and available to digital television viewers on Freeview, IPTV, satellite and cable....
- Michael Frayn at the Internet Broadway DatabaseInternet Broadway DatabaseThe Internet Broadway Database is an online database of Broadway theatre productions and their personnel. It is operated by the Research Department of The Broadway League, a trade association for the North American commercial theatre community....
- Profile at PFD, a literary and talent agency
- On Doollee