Early life Fry was born as
Arthur Hammond Harris While still young, he took his mother's maiden name because, on very tenuous grounds, he believed her to be related to the 19th-century
Quaker prison reformer
Elizabeth Fry. He adopted Elizabeth Fry's faith, and became a Quaker. After attending
Bedford Modern School, where he wrote amateur plays,
Career Fry gave up his school career in 1932 to found the
Tunbridge Wells Repertory Players, which he ran for three years, directing and starring in the English premiere of
George Bernard Shaw's
A Village Wooing in 1934. As a curtain-raiser, he put on a revised version of a show he wrote when he was a schoolboy called
The Peregrines. He also wrote the music for
She Shall Have Music in 1935. His play about
Thomas John Barnardo, the founder of
Barnardo's children's homes, toured in a fund-raising amateur production in 1935 and 1936, including
Deborah Kerr in its cast. His professional career began to take off when he was commissioned by the vicar of
Steyning,
West Sussex, to write a play celebrating the local saint,
Cuthman of Steyning, which became
The Boy With A Cart in 1938. It would be put on professionally in 1950 with the young
Richard Burton in his first starring role.
Tewkesbury Abbey commissioned his next play,
The Tower, written in 1939, which was seen by the poet
T. S. Eliot, who became a friend and is often cited as an influence. In 1950, Fry adapted a translation of
Jean Anouilh's
Invitation to the Castle as
Ring Round the Moon for director
Peter Brook. He also wrote
Venus Observed, which was produced at the
St James's Theatre by
Laurence Olivier.
A Sleep of Prisoners followed in 1951, first performed at St Thomas' church in
Regent Street, London, in 1951 and later touring with
Denholm Elliott and
Stanley Baker.
The Dark is Light Enough, a winter play starring
Katharine Cornell and
Edith Evans in 1954, was third in a quartet of "seasonal" plays, featured incidental music written by
Leonard Bernstein. The production also featured
Tyrone Power,
Lorne Greene and
Marian Winters.
Christopher Plummer had an understudy role that he wrote about in his memoir. This play followed the springtime of ''The Lady's Not For Burning
and the autumnal Venus Observed
. The quartet was completed in 1970 with A Yard Of Sun'', representing summer. His next plays were translations from French dramatists:
The Lark, an adaptation of
Jean Anouilh's ''
L'Alouette ("The Lark"), in 1955; Tiger At The Gates'', based on
Jean Giraudoux's ''
La guerre de Troie n'aura pas lieu, also in 1955; Duel of Angels'', adapted from Giraudoux's
Pour Lucrèce, in 1960; and
Judith, also by Giraudoux, in 1962. Although Fry lived until 2005, his poetic style of drama began to fall out of fashion with the advent of the
Angry Young Men of British theatre in the mid-1950s. Despite working mainly for the cinema in the 1960s, he continued to write plays, including
Curtmantle for the
Royal Shakespeare Company in 1962, and
A Yard of Sun – the fourth in his seasonal quartet – at the
Nottingham Playhouse in 1970.
Curtmantles (1962) plot deals with
Henry II of England and his conflict with
Thomas Becket.
A Yard of Sun (1970) is set just after World War II at the time of the famous annual horse race
Palio di Siena in the streets of
Siena. After the success of his post-war plays Fry bought Trebinshwn, a fine
Regency house in
Breconshire. When living there he used to walk over the hill behind the house, the Allt, to
Llansantffraed church, where the 17th-century poet
Henry Vaughan is buried, and Vaughan's poetry was a strong influence on him. During the next ten years, Fry concentrated on further translations, including
Henrik Ibsen's
Peer Gynt and
Edmond Rostand's
Cyrano de Bergerac, which were produced at the
Chichester Festival Theatre. '' by the Next Stage Company,
Holy Trinity Church,
Sloane Square, November 1987 In 1986, he wrote
One Thing More, a play about the seventh-century Northumbrian monk
Cædmon who was suddenly given the gift of composing song; The play was first broadcast on BBC radio, and then performed by the Next Stage Company directed by
Joan White at Chelsea Old Church, November 1988, and at
Whitby Abbey in Yorkshire, June 1989. Further productions followed in London and Oxford. His last play,
A Ringing Of Bells, was commissioned by his old school,
Bedford Modern School, and performed there in 2000. The following year, a new production was performed at the
National Theatre. In later life Fry lived in the village of
East Dean in
West Sussex, and died, from natural causes, in
Chichester in 2005. His wife, Phyllis, whom he married in 1936, died in 1987. He was survived by their son, Tam.
Revivals Revivals of his plays include a staged reading of ''The Lady's Not For Burning
at the National Theatre in 2001 as one of the 100 best plays of the 20th century, with actors Alex Jennings, Prunella Scales and Samuel West. West went on to produce The Lady’s Not For Burning'' at
Chichester Festival Theatre's
Minerva Theatre in 2002 with Nancy Carroll and Benjamin Whitrow. In 2007, it was performed in a new production at the
Finborough Theatre, London.
Ring Round The Moon was revived at the Theatre Royal Haymarket 1967-68. starring
John Standing and
Angela Thorne. In 2008, it was revived again, directed by
Sean Mathias, once again starring
Angela Thorne, graduating from the role of young Diana to the wheelchair-using Madame Desmortes. Other cast members included
JJ Feild,
Joanna David,
Belinda Lang,
John Ramm and
Leigh Lawson.
Legacy In commemoration of his achievements,
Bedford Modern School named the new Junior School hall after him. ==Bibliography==