Peggy For You
From 16 September 2002
To 21 September 2002
by Alan Plater
Description
Alan Plater is one of the more accomplished writers in Britain today with bid TV and theatre credits. Here the Nonentities take on his 1999 West End smash (originally starring Maureen Lipman): a clever script, an immensely funny part for a strong actress, a story shot through with pain and loads of insight into one of the key nurturers of dramatic talent in the twentieth century, Peggy Ramsay
A day in the life of Peggy Ramsay, the most celebrated play agent of her time. Set in her chaotic office, "Peggy For You" is a gloriously witty, wry and unsentimental account of this extraordinary woman as she takes on a new client.., and loses two others.
" Peggy for You" promises to start the Nonentities' season off with style.
(Characters in Peggy for You occasionally use strong language).
Directors Notes
The Play
"Peggy For You" was first performed at The Hampstead Theatre London
November 1999 & transferred to The Comedy Theatre in London’s West
End in January 2000 with Maureen Lipman Playing the role of Peggy which she
continued to play on tour.
Nominated for an Olivier Award for Best Comedy.
The Author
Alan Plater was born in Jarrow in 1935. Brought up in Hull he trained as an architect in Newcastle. He has been a full time writer since 1961, with over two hundred credits in radio, television, theatre and films-plus six novels, occasional journalism, broadcasting and teaching. Perhaps he is best known as a writer for television having contributed to the Z Cars series, The Barchester Chronicles, The Beiderbecke Trilogy, Fortunes of War, A Very British Coup, Dalziel and Pascoe and more recently an original screenplay, The last of the Blonde Bombshells, starring Judi Dench and Ian Holm. He now lives contentedly in London with his wife Shirley.
The Subject
Margaret (Peggy) Ramsay Eccentric, intimidating, contradictory and inspiring, she nurtured several generations of writing talent, the most influential behind the scenes figure in the British theatre since the war, she had a prodigious list of clients as famous and diverse as, John Mortimer, Robert Bolt, Joe Orton, Caryl Churchill, Christopher Hampton, Samuel Beckett, Edward Bond, Stephen Poliakoff, Howard Brenton, David Hare, Willy Russell, Alan Ayckbourn and of course Alan Plater himself.
A legend in her own lifetime, Peggy was equally feared and loved, and loved not least by the actor Simon Callow who describes their relationship as a passionate friendship in his recent book “Love is Where it Falls”. When they met in 1980 he was thirty and gay and she was seventy, remaining close friends until her death in 1991.
She died a millionaire and all her money went into a foundation to encourage writers. If after seeing the play you are interested in reading more Simon Callow’s book is extremely moving, and there is also a biography “The Life of Margaret Ramsay, Play Agent by Colin Chambers.
The Director and Cast hope that you the audience will derive as much enjoyment
from the play as we have in reading and rehearsing it.