Michael Frayn

Michael Frayn, featured on the cover of a collection of his newspaper articles
Born:	8 September 1933 London, United Kingdom
Occupation(s):	Reporter, columnist, novelist, playwright, screenwriter
Nationality:	England
Writing period:	1962 -
Genre(s):	Farce, Historical fiction

Michael Frayn (born 8 September 1933) is an English playwright and novelist. He is mainly known as the author of the farce Noises Off and the dramas Copenhagen and Democracy, as well as the Fleet Street satire Towards the End of the Morning. Image File history File links Book_cover_The_Original_Michael_frayn. ... September 8 is the 251st day of the year (252nd in leap years). ... 1933 (MCMXXXIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... Employment is a contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. ... In English usage, nationality is the legal relationship between a person and a country. ... 1962 (MCMLXII) was a common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1962 calendar). ... A literary genre is one of the divisions of literature into genres according to particular criteria such as literary technique, tone, or subject matter (content). ... September 8 is the 251st day of the year (252nd in leap years). ... 1933 (MCMXXXIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... Motto: (French for God and my right) Anthem: God Save the King/Queen Capital London Largest city London Official language(s) English (de facto) Unification    - by Athelstan AD 927  Area    - Total 130,395 km² (1st in UK)   50,346 sq mi  Population    - 2005 est. ... Template:Unsourced A playwright, also known as a dramatist, is someone who writes dramatic literature or drama. ... A novel is an extended work of written, narrative, prose fiction, usually in story form; the writer of a novel is a novelist. ... A farce is a comedy written for the stage, or a film, which aims to entertain the audience by means of unlikely and extravagant - yet often possible - situations, disguise and mistaken identity, verbal humour of varying degrees of sophistication, which may include puns and sexual innuendo, and a fast-paced... Noises Off is a 1982 British play by Michael Frayn. ... 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. ... Fleet Street in 2005 Fleet Street is a famous street in London, England, named after the River Fleet. ... 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. ...

Early life

Frayn was born in London and 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, and began publishing his plays and novels. Frayn's wife is Claire Tomalin, the biographer and literary journalist. Kingston Grammar School is an independent selective co-educational school in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey. ... National Service in the 20th century referred primarily to conscription for military service. ... The Joint Services School for Linguists (JSSL) was founded in 1951 by the British armed services to provide language training, principally in Russian, and largely to selected conscripts undergoing National Service. ... The Death of Socrates, by Jacques-Louis David (1787) depicts the philosopher Socrates carrying out his own execution. ... There is more than one Emmanuel College: Emmanuel College, Cambridge (part of the University of Cambridge) Emmanuel College, Boston Emmanuel College, Georgia Emmanuel College, Toronto (part of Victoria University in the University of Toronto) Emmanuel College, Carrara This is a disambiguation page, a list of pages that otherwise might share... The University of Cambridge, located in Cambridge, England, is the second-oldest university in the English-speaking world. ... The Guardian is a British newspaper owned by the Guardian Media Group. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... Claire Tomalin (born June 20, 1933) is an English biographer and journalist. ...

Works

Perhaps his best known work, the play Copenhagen 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 working on the development of an atomic bomb. It is considered by many to be Frayn's finest work. 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. ... This article is about the year. ... Physics (from the Greek, (phúsis), nature and (phusiké), knowledge of nature) is the science concerned with the discovery and understanding of the fundamental laws which govern matter, energy, space and time. ... Niels (Henrik David) Bohr (October 7, 1885 – November 18, 1962) was a Danish physicist who made fundamental contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum mechanics. ... Werner Karl Heisenberg (December 5, 1901 – February 1, 1976) was a celebrated German physicist and Nobel laureate, one of the founders of quantum mechanics, and acknowledged to be one of the most important physicists of the twentieth century. ... The mushroom cloud of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, 1945, rose some 18 km (11 mi) above the epicenter. ...

Frayn's most 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 dramatizes the story of German chancellor Willy Brandt and his personal assistant, the East German spy Günter Guillaume. London (pronounced ) is the capital city of England and the United Kingdom. ... Several countries have a National Theatre. ... // West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre in London, or sometimes more specifically for shows staged in the large theatres of Londons Theatreland . Along with New Yorks Broadway Theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of theatre in the... Copenhagen (IPA: , rhyming with pagan (the way the Danes themselves pronounce the name of the capital in English), or , with a as in spa; Danish   IPA: ) is the capital of Denmark and the countrys largest city (metropolitan population 1,211,542 (2006)), at present made up of 16 municipalities. ... Broadway theatre[1] is often considered the highest professional form of theatre in the United States. ... The Brooks Atkinson Theater is a Broadway theatre. ... Willy Brandt, born Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm (December 18, 1913 - October 8, 1992) was a German politician, Chancellor of West Germany 1969 – 1974, and leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) 1964 – 1987. ... Günter Guillaume (February 1, 1927 – April 10, 1995), a citizen of the German Democratic Republic, was an intelligence agent of that countrys secret service, the Stasi. ...

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 Noises Off, Donkeys Years and Balmoral (aka Liberty Hall).

Spies book cover

He has written a number of novels, including, Headlong, The Tin Men (won the 1966 Somerset Maugham Award), The Russian Interpreter (1967 Hawthornden Prize) 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. Image File history File links Spies. ... Image File history File links Spies. ... Spies may refer to: Spies (Coldplay), a song by the rock group Coldplay. ... Headlong, by Michael Frayn, was published in 1999, ISBN 0805062858. ... 1966 (MCMLXVI) was a common year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1966 calendar). ... The Somerset Maugham Award is a British literary prize given each May by the Society of Authors. ... 1967 (MCMLXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar (the link is to a full 1967 calendar). ... The Hawthornden Prize is a British literary award. ... Spies is a 2002 novel by the British author and playwright Michael Frayn. ... The Whitbread Book Awards are among the United Kingdoms most prestigious literary awards. ...

Towards the End of the morning has been considered the best novel about Fleet Street since Evelyn Waugh's Scoop. Fleet Street in 2005 Fleet Street is a famous street in London, England, named after the River Fleet. ... Evelyn Waugh, as photographed in 1940 by Carl Van Vechten Arthur Evelyn St. ... Look up Scoop in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

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 1980's a number of them were adapted and performed for BBC Radio 4 by Martin Jarvis. BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station which broadcasts a wide variety of chiefly spoken-word programmes including news, drama, comedy, science and history. ... Martin Jarvis (born August 4, 1941 in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England) is an English actor. ...

He has also written screenplays for the film Clockwise, starring John Cleese, and the TV series Making Faces, starring Eleanor Bron. Clockwise is a 1986 British comedy film starring John Cleese. ... John Marwood Cleese (born October 27, 1939 in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, England) is an English comedian and actor best known for being one of the members of the comedy group Monty Python and for co-writing the TV series Fawlty Towers in which he played Basil Fawlty. ... Eleanor Bron (born 14 March 1938) is a British actress. ...

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 Platanov 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). Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (Russian: , Anton Pavlovič Čehov) (29 January 1860 [O.S. 17 January] – 15 July 1904 [O.S. 2 July]) was a physician, major Russian short story writer and playwright. ... The Seagull is the first of what are generally considered to be Anton Chekhovs four major plays. ... Anton Chekhov (left) and Maxim Gorky in Yalta. ... Chekhov in a 1905 illustration. ... Bust of Anton Chekhov at Badenweiler, Germany The Cherry Orchard (Вишнёвый сад or Vishniovy sad in Russian) is Russian playwright Anton Chekhovs last play. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

On 24 November 2006 he was a guest at The Royal Society in London to discuss his book The Human Touch.[1] The Royal Society of London is claimed to be the oldest learned society still in existence and was founded in 1660. ... London (pronounced ) is the capital city of England and the United Kingdom. ...

Awards

• 1966: Somerset Maugham Award for The Tin Men
• 1975: London Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy, for Alphabetical Order
• 1976: Laurence Olivier Award for Best Comedy, for Donkey's Years*
• 1980: London Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy for Make and Break
• 1982: London Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy, for Noises Off
• 1982: Laurence Olivier Award for Best Comedy, for Noises Off
• 1984: London Evening Standard Award for Best Play, 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 Award for Best New Play, for Copehagen
• 1998: London Evening Standard Award for Best Play, for Copehagen
• 2000: Tony Award for Best Play (USA) for Copehagen
• 2002: Whitbread 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

The Somerset Maugham Award is a British literary prize given each May by the Society of Authors. ... The Evening Standard Awards are presented annually for oustanding achievements in London Theatre. ... The Laurence Olivier Awards, previously known as The Society of West End Theatre Awards, were renamed in honour of British actor Laurence Olivier, Baron Olivier in 1984, having first been established in 1976. ... The Evening Standard Awards are presented annually for oustanding achievements in London Theatre. ... The Evening Standard Awards are presented annually for oustanding achievements in London Theatre. ... Noises Off is a 1982 British play by Michael Frayn. ... The Laurence Olivier Awards, previously known as The Society of West End Theatre Awards, were renamed in honour of British actor Laurence Olivier, Baron Olivier in 1984, having first been established in 1976. ... Noises Off is a 1982 British play by Michael Frayn. ... The Evening Standard Awards are presented annually for oustanding achievements in London Theatre. ... An Emmy Award. ... The Daily Express is a British newspaper, currently tabloid, and it is owned by Richard Desmond. ... 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. ... The Evening Standard Awards are presented annually for oustanding achievements in London Theatre. ... 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. ... What is popularly called the Tony Award (formally, the Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre) is an annual award celebrating achievements in live American theater, including musical theater, primarily honoring productions on Broadway in New York. ... 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. ... The Costa Book Awards are among the United Kingdoms most prestigious literary awards. ... The Commonwealth Writers Prize was established in 1987. ...

Bibliography

Novels

• The Tin Men (1965)
• The Russian Interpreter (1966)
• Towards the End of the Morning (1967)
• A Very Private Life (1968)
• Sweet Dreams (1973)
• The Trick of It (1989)
• A Landing on the Sun (1991)
• Headlong (1999)
• Spies (2002)

There are very few or no other articles that link to this one. ... Headlong, by Michael Frayn, was published in 1999, ISBN 0805062858. ... Spies is a 2002 novel by the British author and playwright Michael Frayn. ...

Plays

• The Two of Us, four one-act plays for two actors (1970)
• Alphabetical Order and Donkeys' Years (1977)
• Clouds (1977)
• Make and Break (1980)
• Noises Off (1982)
• Benefactors (1984)
• Wild Honey trans. Chekhov (1984)
• Balmoral (1987)
• First and Last (1989)
• Listen to This: Sketches and Monologues (1990)
• Jamie on a Flying Visit; and Birthday (1990)
• Look Look (1990)
• Audience (1991)
• Here (1993)
• La Belle Vivette, a version of Jacques Offenbach's La Belle Hélène (1995)
• Now You Know (1995)
• Alarms and Excursions: More Plays than One (1998)
• Copenhagen (1998)
• Plays: Three (2000)
• Democracy (2003)

The Two of Us is a 1970 play by British playwright Michael Frayn. ... Donkeys Years is a play by British author Michael Frayn which premièred at the Globe Theatre, London, in 1977. ... Clouds is a 1977 philosophical comedic play by British playwright Michael Frayn. ... Noises Off is a 1982 British play by Michael Frayn. ... Wild Honey is a 1984 translation of an earlier untitled Anton Chekhov work by British playwright Michael Frayn. ... Balmoral (aka Liberty Hall) is a 1987 farcical play by British playwright Michael Frayn. ... Audience is a 1991 play by British playwright Michael Frayn. ... Here is a 1993 philosophical comedic play by British playwright Michael Frayn. ... Jacques Offenbach Jacques Offenbach (20 June 1819 – 5 October 1880), composer and cellist, was one of the originators of the operetta form, a precursor of the modern musical comedy. ... Now You Know is a 1995 play by British playwright Michael Frayn. ... 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. ...

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)

David Burke (born May 25, 1934) is a British actor, known for playing Watson in Granada Televisions 1980s Sherlock Holmes series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which starred Jeremy Brett in the title role. ...

External links

• British Council biography
• Profile on BBC Four
• Michael Frayn at the Internet Broadway Database
• Profile at PFD, a literary and talent agency
• Faber and Faber - Michael Frayn's UK publisher
• Faber reading guide to Headlong